With the release of VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) 5.8, a new type or “identity” of VDP appliance was introduced. It is called VDP Replication Target. When deploying previous versions of VDP, you were presented with the option to deploy VDP, which does not require a license key, or VDP Advanced, which requires a license key. A question commonly asked is “Do I have to deploy and license VDP Advanced at the replication target location even though I do not intend to perform backups there?” With VDP Advanced 5.5, you do have to deploy a VDP Advanced appliance to serve as a replication target, but VMware provides a “zero-CPU” license at no additional charge to enable an appliance to serve as a replication target for VDP Advanced. More details can be found in this blog article. While this was a pretty good workaround, the process for deploying an appliance as a replication target has been improved with the introduction of the VDP Replication Target identity in VDP 5.8. Naturally, you can find more information on the new VDP appliance identity in the VDP Administrator Guide, but Mohan Amarnath and Suraj Vithalkar from EMC have provided an excellent white paper that covers VDP Replication Target in detail including use cases and best practices. Click here to download the VDP Replication Target white paper.
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