16.4 Initial Replication Method (Full and Incremental)

The initial replication is the creation of an initial base copy of a production workload to the failover workload (virtual replica) in a protection operation, or from a failover workload to its original virtual or physical infrastructure in preparation for a failback operation for the production workload.

In workload protection and failback operations, the Initial Replication parameter determines the scope of data transferred from a source to a target.

  • Full: A full workload transfer takes place based on all of its data.

  • Incremental: Only differences are transferred from a source to its target, provided that they have similar operating system and volume profiles.

    • During protection: The production workload is compared with an existing VM in the VM container. The existing VM might be one of the following:

      • A previously-protected workload's recovery VM (when a Remove Workload command’s Delete VM option is deselected).

      • A VM that is manually imported in the VM container, such as a workload VM physically moved on portable media from the production site to a remote recovery site.

    • During failback to a virtual machine: The failover workload is compared with an existing VM in a failback container.

    • During failback to a physical machine: The failover workload is compared with a workload on the target physical machine, if the physical machine is registered with PlateSpin Protect (see Semi-Automated Failback to a Physical Machine).

During workload protection and failback to a VM host, selecting Incremental as the initial replication method requires that you browse, locate, and prepare the target VM for synchronization with the selected operation’s source.

To set up the initial replication method:

  1. Proceed with the required workload command, such as Configure (Protection Details) or Failback.

  2. For the Initial Replication Method option, select Incremental Replication.

  3. Click Prepare Workload.

    The Web Interface displays the Prepare for Incremental Replication page.

  4. Select the required container, the virtual machine, and the network to use for communicating with the VM. If the specified target container is a VMware DRS Cluster, you can also specify a target Resource Pool for the workload.

  5. Click Prepare.

    Wait for the process to complete and for the user interface to return to the original command, then select the prepared workload.

NOTE:(Block-level data replications only) An initial incremental replication takes significantly longer than subsequent replications. This is because the system must compare the volumes on the source and the target block by block. Subsequent replications rely on changes detected by the block-based component while it is monitoring a running workload.