Free utility by VMware Labs – a Fling – called vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance, which was created by 2 VMware Engineers in collaboration with vSphere replication team: Vasil Ilinski and Rahul Ravulur.
When thinking about replication possibilities you might be asking some questions like:
- What will be the requirements for replication traffic?
- Will the replication traffic affect my existing network traffic?
- How much traffic the replication traffic adds to my existing infrastructure?
Those are questions that you might ask before starting to implement VMware vSphere replication (VR), which is a free, built-in replication capability.
VR has been introduced in vSphere 5.0 and greatly enhanced in 5.5 recently. In vSphere 5.5, the VR brought such an improvements as:
- Multiple vSphere Replication Appliance per vCenter Server
- Multiple Points in Time (up to 24)
- No need to have vCenter at remote office
- Support for Storage vMotion
As usual, the utility is Tech preview and allows:
The vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance allows administrators to plan and model the network impact of a virtual machine replication without producing actual replication traffic. The appliance provides command-line tools to configure replication for any VM in a vSphere Virtual Center. The replication is established in preview mode and thus requires no storage space. Networking traffic, required for the replication, is measured and displayed in an easy-to-understand graphical format that allows you to estimate the network bandwidth required.
Features
A command-line interface for configuring replication within the same or a remote Virtual Center or ESX host- A web page presenting traffic graphics for each replication
- Does not write the actual replicated data and thus does not require any storage
You should NOT install the utility in vCenter where you'll be installing the actual VR appliance. It's meant to be installed on isolated vCenter. You can read the instructions here.
Download the utility here: vSphere Replication Capacity Planning Appliance
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