Now that Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 6.0 is available for download, here is an overview of the latest features, additions and improvements:
Improved interoperability with Storage DRS and Storage vMotion
Simplified SSL certificate requirements
Full integration with vSphere 6.0
IP customization enhancements
Improved interoperability with SDRS and Storage vMotion
In previous versions of SRM there was basic compatibility with SDRS and Storage vMotion with some documented caveats. Specifically, Storage vMotion would not throw a warning if an attempt was made to move a VM out of it’s consistency group and for SDRS, datastore clusters could only contain datastores from the same consistency group because otherwise SDRS could easily move VMs out of it.
With SRM 6.0 we now have full compatibility with SDRS and greatly enhanced support for Storage vMotion. Datastore groups can now contain any set of datastores, no restrictions, and SDRS will only make automatic migrations between two non-replicated datastores or within datastores in the same consistency group. Also, Storage vMotion will now generate a warning if a user attempts to move an SRM protected VM.
This makes it much easier for users to create and use datastore clusters, SDRS and Storage vMotion without having to worry about the impact to recovery of their VMs.
Simplified SSL certificate requirements
SRM 6.0 is now deeply integrated with SSO, using it for authentication and SAML token acquisition among other things. This integration with SSO also allowed the external certificate requirements to be relaxed significantly. Previously, certificates were used both for authenticating to the associated vCenter as well as between SRM instances. This imposed a number of restrictions and requirements that made deploying certificates time consuming and difficult. The SRM 6.0 Installation guide provides a detailed description of all the new simplified certificate requirements. These new requirements will make SRM environments more secure and easier to deploy and maintain.
SRM is now fully integrated with and supported by vSphere 6.0. This has benefits for authentication (SSO), tagging (now shared) and the lookup service to name just a few. To use SRM 6.0 requires:
vCenter Server 6.0
vSphere Web-Client 6.0
If using vSphere Replication, version 6.0
Note: The large majority of SRAs that were compatible with SRM 5.8 remain compatible with SRM 6.0. Check the Compatibility Guide for details and confirm with your array vendor if you have questions.
Also, since vSphere Replication 6.0 now supports up to 2000 VMs, this is now supported in SRM 6.0 as well. All other SRM limits remain the same for this release.
The integration of SRM and the separation of the platform services controller (PSC) from vCenter creates a number of new topology possibilities. These topologies can impact SRM so make sure to read this KB List of recommended topologies for vSphere 6.0.x (2108548) when planning your upgrade or deployment. A more detailed post about topologies and SRM will be published soon.
Also be aware that because of the integration of SRM with SSO, vCenter and the PSC time synchronization among all these components is important.
IP customization enhancements
When using the dr-ip-customizer tool for updating VM IP addresses it now allows simultaneous IPv4 and IPv6 static address specification and is backward compatible with SRM 5.X generated spreadsheets. This increases the flexibility of the tool while maintaining compatibility with previous releases.
I look forward to sharing more technical details on this release with you soon.
