What is VMware Cloud Director Availability

VMware Cloud Director Availability™ is a Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solution. Between providers' clouds or on-premises, with asynchronous replications, VMware Cloud Director Availability protects, migrates, fails over, and reverses failovers of vApps and virtual machines. VMware Cloud Director Availability is available through the Partner Connect Program.
VMware Cloud Director Availability introduces a unified architecture for the disaster recovery protection and migration of VMware vSphere ® workloads. In both sites with VMware Cloud Director Availability, formerly known as vCloud Availability, the providers and their tenants can protect and migrate vApps and virtual machines:
  • Between an on-premises vCenter Server site and a multi-tenant provider cloud site with VMware Cloud Director™.
  • Between multi-tenant provider cloud sites with VMware Cloud Director.
vSphere DR and migration is another deployment topology for both sites, and the providers and their tenants can protect and migrate vSphere workloads:
  • Between an on-premises vCenter Server site, and a provider cloud vCenter Server site.
  • Between providers' cloud vCenter Server sites.

Cloud site

  • In a multi-tenant provider cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director, one VMware Cloud Director Availability instance consists of the following number of appliances:
    • one Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance,
    • one or more Replicator Appliance instances, and
    • one or, optionally, two Tunnel Appliance instances operating in an active-active mode for high availability (HA).
    Multiple Availability cloud sites can coexist in one VMware Cloud Director instance. In a cloud site, all the appliances operate together, supporting the management of replications, secure SSL communication, and storage of the replicated data. The provider can support recovery for multiple tenants environments that can scale, allowing handling the increasing workloads.
  • In a provider cloud vCenter Server site, one VMware Cloud Director Availability instance consists of one vCenter Replication Management Appliance and, optionally, one or more Replicator Appliance instances. VMware Cloud Director is not required.

On-premises site

In an on-premises disaster recovery environment, tenants manage their replications using the VMware Cloud Director Availability vSphere Client Plug-In, supported by a VMware Cloud Director Availability On-Premises Appliance. In the on-premises vCenter Server instance, depending on the provider cloud site, deploy the on-premises appliance:
  • as either an On-Premises to Cloud Director Replication Appliance, or
  • as an On-Premises to Cloud vCenter Replication Appliance.

Documentation phases map

Day 0 operations
Represents the design phase, when requirements and security are specified and the architecture is completed. For the latest VMware Cloud Director Availability version, in the following table see the
Release Notes
 and the
Security Guide
.
Day 1 operations
Contains the prerequisites for deploying the virtual appliances and their installation and configuration as designed in the Day 0 phase. Also in this phase, the infrastructure, network, and external services are initially configured. The initial design is deployed and the infrastructure is configured, based on the designed specifications.
For each VMware Cloud Director Availability version, in the following table see the
Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide in On-Premises and Provider Site
, the
Installation, Configuration, and Upgrade Guide in the Cloud Director Site
, and the
Migration with VMware Cloud Director service Guide
.
Day 2 operations
Focuses on the daily routine operations like authentication, using replications, and maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshooting. Configuring the settings of the network interface cards (NIC), replacing the SSL certificates of the appliances, configuring provider and tenants events, and others.
For each VMware Cloud Director Availability version, in the following table see the
User Guide
 and the
Administration Guide
.

vCloud Usage Meter integration

VMware vCloud® Usage Meter must meter the configured for protection or migration virtual machines using VMware Cloud Director Availability.
Metering instances
As a provider, you must meter the consumption data of VMware Cloud Director Availability and generate monthly usage reports for protections and for migrations, by adding each cloud VMware Cloud Director Availability instance in vCloud Usage Meter, depending on the network access:
When vCloud Usage Meter is internal to the network of VMware Cloud Director Availability, you must meter each VMware Cloud Director Availability cloud site in vCloud Usage Meter by adding:
  • Each instance of Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance, or
  • Each instance of vCenter Replication Management Appliance.
Enter each appliance-IP-address-or-hostname, port 443, then select one of the following authentication providers:
  • Cloud Director Availability - authentication method for metering either a vCenter Replication Management Appliance or a Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance. This authentication provider requires the root user credentials of the Replication Management Appliance. Only this authentication method is supported in earlier versions than vCloud Usage Meter 4.7.
  • vSphere SSO - authentication method for metering a vCenter Replication Management Appliance. This authentication provider requires a valid vSphere SSO account, member of the VrMonitoringAdministrators SSO group. For information about this account, see the
    Security Guide
    .
  • Cloud Director - authentication method for metering a Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance. This authentication provider requires a valid VMware Cloud Director provider account with the VCDA_VIEW_RIGHT assigned. For information about this account, see the
    Security Guide
    .
  • Alternatively, when vCloud Usage Meter is external to the network of VMware Cloud Director Availability, you must meter the entire VMware Cloud Director Availability cloud site in vCloud Usage Meter by adding the Public Service Endpoint:443, and the root user credentials of all Replication Management Appliances. For cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, also activate Allow admin access from anywhere on the Settings page in the Cloud Director Replication Management Appliance.

Supported versions

Use only VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7.x or 4.6.x.
vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites:
Pairing vCenter Server sites requires the following versions between source and destination:
  • Versions 4.4.x interoperate only with sites running versions 4.4.x.
  • Versions 4.5.x interoperate with sites running either versions 4.5.x, or 4.6.x, or 4.7.x.
  • Versions 4.6.x interoperate with sites running either versions 4.5.x, or 4.6.x, or 4.7.x.
  • Version 4.7.x interoperates with sites running either versions 4.5.x, or 4.6.x., or 4.7.x.
Cloud Director sites
Pairing sites backed by VMware Cloud Director requires using the latest maintenance patch release for VMware Cloud Director Availability.