While the example in this KB is initially configured with storage policies on an older version of SRM, here is an example of how configuring SRM protection groups with the type datastore group and array-based replication with VMFS and RDMs.
Configuring Protection for Stretched VMFS and RDMs with SRM 8.5 and higher
Configuring protection in SRM for ActiveCluster VMFS and RDM devices has never been easier with SRM 8.5 and higher. You no longer need to configure datastore tags or storage policies on VMs that need to be protected. Rather the configuration is done exactly like async protection. You create a SRM protection group and configure the protection group with datastore groups. Here are the steps to do that.
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Create a new protection group |
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Chose the correct direction from the source vCenter where the VMs are located to the target vCenter where they will be recovered to. |
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The type of protection will be datastore groups and will leverage array-based replication. Select the correct array pair that correlates to the right array manager pair. |
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Select the datastore group that has the VMs that need to be protected. Note here that RDMs are listed as will any VMFS datastores that are being selected. Then the list of VMs is there. |
That's it, the rest of the process is the same in that you choose the recovery plan and then complete the protect. From that point the SRM workflows are ran just as they would be with ActiveCluster. Without needing storage policies or storage policy mappings.
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Both datastores are tagged so that the VMs hosted on them can be given a correct storage policy for protection in SRM. For stretched storage, only storage-policy-based discovery is supported, for details, refer to the section SRM User Guide: Configuring Site Recovery Manager (8.4 and lower) Tag-Based Storage Policy Discovery.
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The VMs have a tag-based policy applied that ensure they stay on these datastores.
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These two datastores then are in compliance with this policy.
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The datastores are presented to both vCenters.
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They are presented via paths to the FlashArray flasharray-m50-1 on vCenter-01 and through flasharray-m50-2 on vCenter-02.
The datastores (and storage policy called SRM-tag-m50_1-m50_2) is added to an SRM protection group called srmpg-01-stretched.
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Therefore protecting all of the VMs on those datastores (and any ones that get added to that policy).
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Note that for each datastore there will be one consistency group reported. So if there are two datastores, there will be two consistency groups and so on. This is because the FlashArray SRA does not advertise consistency groups back up to SRM so SRM puts each datastore in its own group. This provides the greatest flexbility of failover when it comes to granularity, but this also means it is not supported to have any VM span more than one datastore. Each VM must be on only one datastore to be protected by SRM and stretched storage.
Lastly, the storage policy assigned to the VMs on vCenter-01 is called SRM-tag-m50_1-m50_2 which maps to SRM-tag-m50_2-m50_1 on vCenter-02 and that mapping is configured in SRM.
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When the VMs are recovered in vCenter-01 they will have the mapped policy applied.
While the configuration of the SRM protection for stretched VMs in 8.5 does not require storage policies, tags or categories, the rest of the workflows operate the exact same way. The rest of the KB can still be followed in a similar manner unless otherwise noted with 8.5+ or 8.4 and lower.