VMware published a new technical white paper with new features of Site Recovery Manager 6.1. There are some useful and long awaited features as follows:
- Support Stretched Storage and Orchestrated vMotion
- Enhanced integration with VMware NSX
- Storage Profile Based Protection
As for a quick reminder, Site Recovery Manager enables simplified automation of disaster recovery and the architecture of SRM has not been changed. Depending on RPO requirements, SRM can use vSphere Replication or array-replication.
Stretched Storage and Orchestrated vMotion
Combining SRM with Stretched Storage provides the following possibilities:- Planned maintenance downtime avoidance - using orchestrated cross-site vMotion and recovery plans.
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Zero-downtime disaster avoidance - SRM 6.1 (workflows) + cross-site vMotion.
Enhanced integration with VMware NSX
Site Recovery Manager 6.1 supports Universal Logical Switches (available since NSX 6.2) which allow for the creation of layer-2 networks that span vCenter servers. When virtual machines are connected to port groups that are backed by Universal Logical Switches you can get the following enhancements:
- SRM automatically recognize this and not require manual network mapping between the protected and recovery locations.
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No longer necessary to re-configure IP addresses.
Storage Profile Based Protection
With Site Recovery Manager 6.1 you can use a new type of protection groups based on the storage policy. The storage policy based protection groups use vSphere storage profiles and tags to identify protected datastores and virtual machines.
Now, we have to wait when VMware will release SRM 6.1 and then let's test it!