The ability to export and import the configuration of Site Recovery Manager 8.1 is one of the best new features in this release as it helps customers reduce risk and simplify configuration. It has the capability of exporting and importing the entire configuration of SRM including Recovery Plans, Protection Groups, individual VM configuration settings, inventory mappings, array managers and advanced settings. The only things that won’t be exported are report history and logs.
The SRM Configuration export/import Tool is simple to set up and use and this video will give you an idea of how it works. The tool is well documented here. And I wanted to give you a quick idea of what is involved to use it and outline the requirements.
The SRM Configuration Export can be run from either SRM server and requires that Java 1.8.x or later be installed on the SRM server it is run from. It can be scheduled to run as a Windows scheduled task to ensure that a current backup is available as well as a history of previous exports. The file that it exports is standard XML and it can be edited, if required by changes in the vCenter inventory.
The configuration import must be run on a clean/empty install of SRM that has been paired and that is connected to a vCenter with an inventory that matches the exported XML file.
The configuration tool only works between instances of SRM 8.1. It cannot currently be used to export from previous versions of SRM and then imported to 8.1. It does make for a great way to migrate between different database options for example, from MSSQL to the embedded vPostgres database. Keep in mind that the SRM embedded vPostgres database supports the full scale of SRM and there are no performance limitations with it.
Hope you are able to use this great tool to reduce your risk and make your work easier.
