Introduction

After creating DR policies, you can use replica seeds to export the full backup of VMs to disks, such as removable hard drives, HDDs, or low-capacity NAS file systems, and then transmit the data to the secondary site, completing initial VM replication. Subsequent sync tasks will transmit only the incremental data of the replica seeds rather than the full backup.

Precautions

1. If this is the first time you implement the DR project and the total data volume reaches 100 TB or larger, the project may be short of disk space. Therefore, it is not recommended to use replica seeds. You can deploy the HCI cluster of the secondary site to the primary site, configure a DR task as planned, and complete first-time DR replication over a local 1 Gbit/s or 10 Gbit/s network. Then, manually stop the DR task and install the HCI devices for the secondary site. After the installation, start the DR task again to perform incremental data replication.

2. Disks used to create replica seeds are automatically formatted to SFFS when the disks are mounted. Back up the data stored in these disks in advance to avoid data loss.
3. Before you create a replica seed, stop the corresponding DR task. This avoids triggering backup transmission, which affects replica seed importing.
4. After a USB disk is plugged in, HCI automatically identifies the USB disk and prompts you to complete configuration. Ignore the prompt because the USB disk is not for VMs.
5. The replica seed is used for initial replication. Therefore, you must make sure that no backups of protected VMs exist on the secondary site. Before you import the replica seed, it is recommended to delete the backups of placeholder VMs on the secondary site.
6. To export a replica seed, you need to perform two steps: Create a replica seed backup and export the replica seed. You can go to Resources > Disaster Recovery > Scheduled Backup/CDP > Settings to throttle VM backup on the primary site in case your businesses are affected.
7. When you create and export replica seeds for VMs with a small storage capacity (such as less than 1 TB), you can use SSDs to store the replica seeds. This increases the replica seed export speed. The input rate for exporting a replica seed to an 8-TB HDD that is mounted to a server as a local datastore is 100 MB/s, and the output rate for transmitting the replica seed to the secondary site is 50 MB/s. The statistics are for reference only.

Prerequisites

1. If the bandwidth of DR links is limited but the volume of full backup is large, online replication will take more time than offline backup. It is recommended to use replica seeds.
2. Prepare a removable storage device with sufficient space and back up data in advance.
3. Stop the DR task on SCP and delete the backups of placeholder VMs on the secondary site.

Procedure

1. Connect the storage device used to store the replica seeds to the HCI platform on the primary site. Go to the DR Policy page of SCP and select Create Replica Seeds from the Replica Seeds drop-down list.

2. Select a DR policy and click Next.

3. Select the storage device as the datastore to which the replica seeds are exported. You can select File Encryption to encrypt and package the replica seeds and save them to the specified disk to ensure data security. The export replica seed operation backs up the VMs and then exports the replica seeds. This operation has no impact on the original backup chain.
4. Click Start to export replica seeds.