When you create a periodic replication group for a VMware destination (without using a VM group), you must identify source VMs, and then provide VMware-specific values for replication to the destination site.
Content Tab
-
Name: Enter a descriptive name for the replication group, or change the name.
-
Source hypervisor: Select the hypervisor for the source VMs.
To create a new hypervisor, click Create new.
When you edit an existing replication group, you cannot change this value.
-
Contents: Click Add virtual machines, and then select the virtual machines that you want to include in the replication group.
Target Tab
-
Recovery target: Select a previously defined recovery target.
To create a new recovery target, click Create new.
When you edit an existing replication group, you cannot change this value.
-
Replication type: Select Periodic. The periodic replication method involves taking and cleaning up snapshots frequently on the source VM and requires less bandwidth.
- Frequency: Enter how frequently you want to run a replication operation, such as once every 4 Hours or 2 Days.
-
Warm site recovery (Restore destination VM at the time of failover): Move this toggle key to the right to create a destination VM only during a failover.
Test Failover Options Section
IP Masquerading Options Dialog Box
IP masquerading is a form of Network Address Translation (NAT), which has the ability to modify IP addresses and port numbers in IP packets. When you use IP masquerading for test failover VMs, the traffic from external network reaching to the masqueraded IP address on the gateway appliance will be routed to the test failover VMs on the private network.
For example, a Linux machine can act as a gateway between a private network and a public network that is accessible externally. This means that all of the machines on the private network can inconspicuously reach the public network through the masqueraded IP addresses configured on the gateway.
To enable IP masquerading, move the Enable IP masquerading toggle key to the right, enter the IP address range, and then click Save.
-
Source IP range: Enter the IP address range of the source VM.
-
Masquerade IP range: Enter the IP address range for IP masquerading. You can select the IP addresses from the list that you configured in the recovery target IP addresses.
Network Mapping Dialog Box
Create an isolated network for a virtual lab environment where you can test failover operations. Click Add to configure the settings in the Network Mapping dialog box, and then click Save.
-
Source Network: Browse to select the host, and then select the preconfigured source network to map.
-
VLAN ID: Enter the ID you want to use for the VLAN.
-
Isolated network: Enter a name for the isolated network.
-
Gateway settings: To create a VM that acts as a gateway between the local devices in the isolated network and other networks, move this toggle key to the right.
-
Gateway IP: Enter an IP address for the gateway VM.
-
Gateway mask: Enter an IP address for the subnet mask.
-
Advanced Options Section
-
Disable replication after group creation: To disable replication (recovery) operations after the creation of this replication group, move this toggle key to the right.
After the replication group is created, when you are ready to start replication, go to the replication group, click Manage content and on the Target tab, move the Disable replication after group created toggle key to the left.
-
Validate destination VM (Power ON and OFF): To verify that the destination VM is bootable by powering it on and then powering off, select this option. Changes that result from the power on operation are not preserved. Even when this option is selected, if guest tools are not installed on the source VM, validation is skipped.
The boot disk for the source VM must be a local disk (on an ESX datastore that is accessible without a network connection). If the VM uses an iSCSI virtual disk to boot or requires a network connection to access the boot disk, validation fails because the network connection is disabled for validation.
If validation fails, the destination virtual machine reverts to its most recent valid (bootable) state.
-
Unconditionally overwrite if it already exists: To make the first replication operation replace an existing virtual machine with the same name in the target location, even if the destination VM is running, select this option.
Replication operations for incremental updates are not affected by this setting. Incremental replication updates are applied to the destination VM without overwriting the VM. If the destination VM is currently running, the replication fails.
-
Snapshots to retain on destination VM: Enter the maximum number of recovery point snapshots to retain on the destination site. Each recovery point snapshot represents the state of a VM that you can choose when performing a point-in-time failover.
-
Disk Provisioning: Select the disk provisioning type for the destination VM: Original, Thick Lazy Zero, Thin, or Thick Eager Zero.
When configuring a domain controller VM for replication, select Thick Lazy Zero.
When you edit an existing replication group, you cannot change this value.
-
Transport mode for VMware: To have the transport mode selected automatically based on the environment, select Auto, or select a different value from this list: SAN, Hot Add, NBD, NBD SSL, or NAS.
Customization Scripts
To configure options for pre and post failover and failback scripts, click the Actions button, click Configure script, and then choose the script that you want to configure.
Prerequisites
- VMware Tools/Open VM tools
Supported Scripts
-
Windows: Batch scripts
-
Linux: Shell scripts
Options
-
Pre-failover script: This script is run on the production (source) VM before failover.
-
Post-failover script: This script is run on the DR (Destination) VM after failover.
-
Pre-failback script: This is will run on the DR (Destination) VM before failback.
-
Post-failback script: This script is run on the production (source) VM after failback.
To use sample scripts to validate VMs that run applications, see Scripts for Application Validation.
Script Options
-
Path type: Select UNC or Local.
-
UNC Credentials: Enter credentials or use a set of saved credentials:
-
Enter credentials: Select this option to manually enter the user name and password for the UNC network.
Username: Enter the user name for a user account that has permissions to access the network path for the script.
Password: Enter the password for the user account.
-
Use saved credentials: Select this option to use a set of credentials that were previously saved for the UNC network.
Credentials: Select a saved set of credentials.
Add button
: Click this button and then enter and save a set of credentials.Note
For UNC network path, the script output is saved in the source location. Commvault does not automatically delete output files. If the output files are not necessary after script execution, you may delete them.
-
-
VM Guest Options
-
User name: Enter the user name for a user account that has permissions to access the network path for the script.
-
Password: Enter the password for the user account.
-
Confirm password: Enter the same password.
Configure Priority
To configure the priority of a script, click the Actions menu, click Change priority, and specify the priority of the script. 1 is the highest priority.
Recovery Options Tab
-
Use snapshot on source: To use a snapshot for replication, select this option.
With this option checked, you must also choose an option from the snap engine list. Virtual Server Agent Snap is the default. Then, in the Cache field, select a cache.
Replication from a snap copy for Cisco Hyperflex or Tintri-based engines is not supported.
Note
Snapshop replication for Vmware to Vmware destination will not be supported from 11.40 (June 15, 2025).
-
Cache: Select the storage pool to use as a temporary cache for the snapshots before they move to the destination site.
-
Storage: Select the storage pool to use as a recovery store for source data to replicate to the destination site.
-
Replicate using secondary copy: To replicate a VM using a secondary copy, select this option.
- Storage: Select the storage pool to use for secondary copies of source data to replicate to the destination site.
Override Options Tab
To change the destination settings for specific VMs, move the Override virtual machines toggle key to the right, select a VM in the Replication configuration list, click the actions button 
, and then select Override replication options.
General Settings
-
VM display name: Enter the display name for the destination VM, or enter a prefix or suffix to apply to multiple VMs.
You can change this value only when adding a new VM or if a replication group is a warm site.
-
Destination host: To select a host for the destination VM, click Browse.
You can change this value only when adding a new VM or if a replication group is a warm site.
-
Datastore: Select a datastore to be used for virtual machine disks.
You can change this value only when adding a new VM or if a replication group is a warm site.
-
Resource pool: Select a resource pool for the destination VM.
You can change this value only when adding a new VM or if a replication group is a warm site.
-
VM folder: To replicate to a folder, click Browse and select the destination folder.
You can change this value only when adding a new VM or if a replication group is a warm site.
Network Settings
- Network settings: To create a new mapping between a source network and a destination network, click Add. You can create multiple mappings between source NICs and destination NICs.
IP Address Settings
-
IP address settings: To customize IP address settings, click Add.
To customize IP address settings for continuous replication, the VSA Guest Customization package must be installed on the VSA access node.
For continuous replication, you cannot customize IP address settings to use WINS servers. You must use DNS servers.
You cannot customize IP address settings for VMs with encrypted disks. If you configure custom IP address settings for a replication group that includes VMs with encrypted disks, failover operations fail for those VMs.
If a Windows or Linux source VM uses a static IP address, you can configure an IP address for the destination VM. You can configure IP address mapping for static IP addresses for source VMs that run the following operating systems:
-
Windows 2000 and later versions
-
CentOS or RHEL: 5.x, 6x, 7.x, 8.x
-
Ubuntu: 12.x, 14.x, 16.x
-
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: 10.x, 11.x, 12.x
-
Test VM IP Address Settings
To customize IP address settings for this replication pair click Add.
IP Address Settings Dialog Box
Source VM Settings: Configure the source VM settings in this section to use IP customization.
-
IP address: Enter the custom IP address you want to use.
-
Subnet mask: Enter an IP address for the subnet mask.
-
Default gateway: Enter an IP address for the default gateway machine.
Configure masquerading: Move this toggle key to the right to configure masquerade IP address of the source VM.
- Masqueraded IP: If you have not enabled IP masquerading at the replication group level, enter the masquerade IP address for the source VM. If the replication group has masquerade IP address, the source VM masquerading setting will not be honored.
Destination VM Settings: Configure the destination VM settings in this section to use IP customization for a DNS server.
-
Configure DNS: To use IP customization for a DNS server, move this toggle key to the right.
-
Preferred DNS server: Enter an IP address for your first preference for the DNS server.
Alternate DNS server: Enter an IP address for your second preference for the DNS server.
Summary Tab
The summary tab displays the settings that you configured on each tab for this replication group.