Summary: How to install, configure and test VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.1.
Date: Around 2010
Refactor: 21 April 2025: Checked links and formatting.

This page is about VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.1. Installation, configuration and testing will be discussed. This implementation will use Array Based Replication on a IBM N-Series 6060, which actually is a NetApp FAS3160, so we'll use the N-Series Storage Replication Adapter (SRA). We already have a replication between our sites but this uses an old naming convention and is also not compliant with our performance policies. Therefore these will also change. We already prepared our environment for implementing Site Recovery Manager so both of our sites have a vCenter, and they are in Linked Mode (which is not a requirement but is a nice to have). The database is a Microsoft MSSQL 2008 R2 Server which is already installed by my DBA on a separate server.

The preparations are discussed in:

VMware preparations:

• Single Sign On installation for multiple sites
• vCenter 5.1 installation
• vCenter Linked Mode
• VMware Update Manager 5.1

Note: The vCenter 5.1 report is based on vCenter 5.1 GA. The installed version is upgraded to 5.1.0b (release date 2012-12-20).

NetApp preparations:

• NetApp SnapMirror
• An extended tutorial on everything what is possible with the replicated data
• removesnapmirrorrelationship

Note: The terms IBM N-Series and NetApp will probably both be used in this page. I'm used of talking about NetApps, but the software I'm using is the rebranded one from IBM. This is obviously for support reasons.

You need the SQL Native Client to create the ODBC Connection. Download the SQL Native Client by pointing your browser to the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Feature Pack website and download the “1033\x64\sqlncli.msi” file. Keep all settings default.

Note: Repeat this process at the recovery site.

When creating the database you'll need to meet these requirements:

• Authentication:
  • Windows authentication when the SRM server and the database server are on the same host
  • SQL Authentication when the SRM server and the database server are on different hosts
• Grant the SRM database user account the bulk insert, connect, and create table permissions.
• The SRM database schema must have the same name as the database user account.
• Set the SRM database user as the owner of the SRM database schema.
• Set the SRM database schema as the default schema for the SRM database user.

For convenience I created a script which will set all required settings correct:

<code sql>
USE [master]
GO
CREATE DATABASE [SRMDB] ON PRIMARY
(NAME = N'srmdb', FILENAME = N'D:\MSSQL\DATA\SRMDB.mdf', FILEGROWTH = 10% )
LOG ON
(NAME = N'srmdb_log', FILENAME = N'D:\MSSQL\DATA\SRMDB.ldf', FILEGROWTH = 10% )
COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
GO
USE SRMDB
GO
sp_addlogin @loginame=[SRM], @passwd=N'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX', @defdb='SRMDB', @deflanguage='us_english'
GO
ALTER LOGIN [SRM] WITH CHECK_POLICY = OFF
GO
CREATE USER [SRM] for LOGIN [SRM]
GO
CREATE SCHEMA [SRM]
GO
ALTER USER [SRM] WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA =[SRM]
GO
sp_addrolemember @rolename = 'db_owner', @membername = [SRM]
GO

Note: Repeat this process at the recovery site.

Since SRM 5.1 is now a full 64 bits application you also need a 64 bits ODBC connection.

On the SRM Server perform the following steps to configure a correct DSN:

• Navigate to Start → Administrative Tools → Data Sources (ODBC) and open the “System DSN tab”
• Click Add
• Select the “SQL Server Native Client 10.0” (version 2009.100.2500.00). If this one is not listed you forgot to install the SQL Native Client (see above under required software)
• Provide a descriptive name and the server you want to connect to:
  

• Change the authentication method to SQL Server authentication and enter the credentials of the database user:
  

• Set the default database to SRMDB and keep all other defaults:
  

• Keep all other options default, and at the end review your settings and click the “Test Data Source” button. The result should say that the tests completed successfully.

Note: Repeat this process at the recovery site.

Installing Site Recovery Manager is done using this executable:

• VMware-srm-5.1.0-941848.exe
  • Version: 5.1.0.1
  • Release date: 2012-12-20

Start the installation wizard and go through the installation wizard to accept the EULA and keep the default installation folder (C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager). Since we'll use array based replication we'll choose to not install vSphere replication. Then fill in the vCenter information:

Accept the Security warning about the certificates, and select to automatically generate a certificate with your organization name and department:
\\ [{{srm21.jpg}}] \\ See [[srmnetworks for more information regarding SRM and Networks.

An important step in configuring SRM is creating the placeholder datastore. This is a small datastore which will be used by SRM to create a placeholder vmx (and some additional files) so this vmx can be registered to a host/cluster. Remember that the vmx file holds some site specific configuration for the VM and these should be modified for a failover. Without this placeholder vmx file there would be nothing to modify since the replicated LUNs are readonly. These placeholder VMs are really small so the datastore doesn't need to be that large. Remember that a VMFS volume must be a minimum of 1.2 GB in size, and most filers also keep a minimum. A size of 10 or 20 GB should be sufficient.

To assign an existing datastore as the placeholder datastore click the Placeholder Datastores tab in the Site Recovery view and click the Configure Placeholder Datastore. This will present you with a list of the datastores available so you can select one:

This will show like this in the Site Recovery view:

Note that the “options httpd.admin.enable on” needs to be done on the storage before the Array Manager can be added. Otherwise this error will be shown:

SRA command 'discoverArrays' failed. Address of the storage array is not reachable. Storage array might be down or IP address entered might be incorrect. Ensure that the storage array is up and running and the IP address of the storage  array is reachable through the command line interface.

The Array Manager is the software piece responsible for managing the storage. This is your graphical interface towards your storage device. To configure one go into your Site Recovery view and click the Array Managers button in the left under corner. This will provide you with an “Add Array Manager” button the left top corner:

Now, before you click the “Add Array Manager”, first do a rescan for SRA's:

This will present you with your installed SRA, note that you'll need to do this at the recovery site as well preventing the message “Unable to find SRA at the paired site”:

The next section is in our environment a little bit different from the default. We have a separate network for our replication, and since we use NetApp filers we have two heads per site. Also, there is a small bug in SRA 2.0.1 which screws up the find replicated devices function, meaning you'll have to either use the 2.0 version or tell the array manager which volumes it should check for. So the solution for all of these problems is:

• Configure the SRA to use IP for replication
  • And set the replication IP addresses for the host names to use
• Add a separate array manager per head
• Add the volumes which are included in the replication in the array managers

To configure the SRA to use IP addresses change the following files at the SRM servers:
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\storage\sra\IBM_ONTAP\ontap_config.txt:

#use_ip_for_snapmirror_relation = on\off(default is off)
# 20130208 sjoerd Changed to on
use_ip_for_snapmirror_relation = on

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager\storage\sra\IBM_ONTAP\ip_hostname_mapping.txt:

#this file contains the IP address and hostname mapping for protected and recovery site array
#if use_ip_for_snapmirror_relation is on in ontap_config.txt IP address and hostname mapping  should be
#provided otherwise SRA will throw error mapping info not found. duplicate entries are not allowed if duplicate
#entries are found sra will return error.
#format of this file is as follows
#hostname = IP address (or long hostname)
#example
#f3070-192-77 = 10.72.192.77
filer01a = 192.168.18.71
filer01b = 192.168.18.72
filer02a = 192.168.16.71
filer02b = 192.168.16.72

Note: You need to make these changes at both SRM servers.

Now you can click the “Add Array Manager” button, which will start a wizard where you start with giving the Array Manager a display name:

Enter the normal management IP address of Node A (or node B) of the filer, the list of replicated volumes and the username and password:

Which will give you a success message:

And an Array Manager in the overview:

Note: Repeat this process at the recovery site before you enable the Array Manager configuration.

Now enable the configuration by selecting one of the Array Managers and clicking the enable Action:

This will start a series of tasks which can be monitored in the Recent Tasks panel. When done you can click the Devices tab which will show you the devices:

Note: If you need to add a volume in the Array Manager simply right-click the array manager and select “Edit Array Manager” to follow the same wizard so you can add the new volume. Note that you need to add the volume for both Array Managers at the protected and recovery site.

These are some errors I encountered:

Error: Paired array manager not found. A paired array manager must be added for each site before enabling the array pair.

For me this meant I hadn't done the IP HostName Mapping for the SRAs yet. See above.

Error: Internal error: std::exception 'class Dr::Xml::XmlValidateException' "Element 'SourceDevices' is not valid for content model: '(SourceDevice,)'".

This is caused by the SRA bug. Simply add the volumes to the Array Manager configuration as shown above. After you've done that enabling of the Array Pairs will succeed without errors.

If you want to make sure you have all the snapmirrored volumes login to the destination filer (at the recovery site) and issue this command:

filer02a> rdfile /etc/snapmirror.conf
#Regenerated by registry Thu Apr 26 09:17:46 GMT 2012
#
192.168.18.71:R_DATA_Volume_0 filer02a:R_DATA_Volume_0 - * * * *
192.168.18.71:R_OS_Volume_0 filer02a:R_OS_Volume_0 - * * * *
192.168.18.71:R_FC_PRD_01A filer02a:R_FC_PRD_04A - * * * *

Don't forget to assign licenses! You install them just the same way as all other licenses (vCenter → Home → Administration → Licensing → Manage vSphere Licenses) and this is a kb article about it.

You are now done with the configuration of Site Recovery Manager 5.1 and can start SRM 5.1: Create Protection Groups and Recovery Plans creating protection groups.