VCDR: Understanding Cloud File System and Recovery Options

VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR) is a powerful tool for disaster recovery and business continuity, offering flexibility and ease of use. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the basics of VCDR, its recovery options, and the process of deploying and configuring it.

Cloud File System (CFS) and Recovery Options

VCDR uses the Cloud File System (CFS) to store VM snapshots securely in AWS S3. The CFS is deployed with AWS S3 and stores all your VM snapshots securely and encrypted. You have two main recovery options:

1. VADP (VMware APIs for Data Protection): This option uses the same APIs as most backup vendors, making it familiar for those who already use backups.

2. CFS-based recovery: This option uses the Cloud File System to recover VMs directly from S3.

Regardless of the option you choose, the CFS and the SDDC used will reside in the same AWS AZ, which helps with speed as the data is more local to the SDDC.

Deploying and Configuring VCDR

To protect a VMConAWS SDDC, you must select a different AZ or Region, as if the SDDC and the AZ were to go down, it would be challenging to recover. VCDR forces you to pick a different area, ensuring that your DR is not in the same AZ.

To deploy and configure VCDR, follow these steps:

1. Deploy a connector: Regardless of whether you’re protecting an on-prem environment or SDDC, you need to deploy a connector. This is made easy for you, and the process is straightforward.

2. Download and deploy the connector: Once the connector is deployed, download it and deploy it into your vCenter.

3. Configuration process: The label should be the same name as the name you have given within vCenter for the VM. The Connector VM previously needed admin rights into the vCenter, but now a phyon script is available to create a user with specific permissions.

Key things to remember when deploying and configuring VCDR include:

1. The Connector VM is 8 vCPUs (reserved), 12GB of RAM (reserved), and 100GB of disk space.

2. Use the default login details of admin/vmware#1.

3. Be careful when using the phyon script, as it gives all permissions but will not work for failback. Pairing it up is easy, done in the cloud console.

In the next blog post, we’ll dive deeper into configuring protection groups and recovery plans with VCDR. Stay tuned!