We have just released the 5.3 version of RP4VMs which is a very big release.

If the acronym ‘RP4VMs’ doesn’t mean a lot to you, let’s have a recap:

RecoverPoint for VMs is a hypervisor-based, software-only data protection solution for protecting VMware® virtual machines.

RecoverPoint for VMs provides both local and remote replication that enables recovery to any point in time. RecoverPoint for

VMs also supports replication to the Amazon cloud. RecoverPoint for VMs consists of the following:

  • RecoverPoint for VMs write-splitter that is embedded in the ESXi hypervisor and enables replication from any storage type to any type of storage.
  • Virtual RecoverPoint appliances (vRPAs) that manage data replication. A vRPA cluster is a group of vRPAs that works together to replicate and protect data.
  • A journal that comprises one or more volumes that are dedicated on the storage at each copy in a system to hold the production data history.
  • vSphere Client plugin that is used for managing VM replication:
    • The HTML5 plugin is introduced in RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 to support vSphere 6.7 U1 and later environments. The HTML5 plugin communicates with vRPA clusters through a separate, dedicated HTML5 plugin server.
    • The Flex plugin continues to support environments that use vSphere 6.7 and earlier versions. The Flex plugin communicates directly with the vRPA clusters.

Services Design, Technology, & Supportability Improvements

This release introduces the following new and changed features:

  • HTML5 plugin: Supported with vSphere 6.7 U1 and later, the HTML5 plugin runs on a separate, dedicated plugin server and includes these improvements:
    • Modernized user interface.
    • Simplified workflows (for example, one-click protection).
    • More functions (for example point-in-time zoom-in).
    • Better performance.
    • New RESTful API: A new REST API offers these features:
    • Simple APIs.
    • Separate plugin server that provides a single API gateway for all vRPA clusters within a vCenter Server or linked vCenter Servers.
    • Improved API documentation with Swagger UI and developer portal: https://developer.dellemc.com/.
    • Better performance.
    • Backward compatibility of the REST APIs with future releases of 5.3 only.
  • Shared VMDK and RDM support for clustered applications: RecoverPoint for VMs supports the use of shared Virtual Machine Disks (VMDKs) or Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) with these applications:
    • Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
    • Microsoft Failover Clustering (Windows Server 2016)
  • vSphere 7.0 support: vSphere 7.0 supports use of the HTML5 plugin and does not support Flex.
  • VMware NSX-T Data Center support: RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 supports VMware NSX-T Data Center 2.5.x and 3.0.
  • NVMe support: RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 supports Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) controllers with vSphere 6.7 U1 and later, including 7.0.
  • Improved performance: RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 achieves performance improvements by use of aggregated vCenter Server APIs, reducing vCenter Server load.
  • User scripts enhancements: RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 enables invoking scripts on external hosts according to the type of recovery activity.

What is RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines?

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery To Any Point In Time

  • Disaster Recovery and Operational Recovery with VM-level granularity
  • Software Only – Hypervisor based replication solution
  • Any point-in-time recovery per VM
  • Sync/Async concurrent replication to local & remote copies
  • Storage agnostic
  • Integrated Management & Orchestration with VMware’s vCenter UI
  • DR to Cloud Replicate VMs to AWS with recovery to EC2/VMC
  • No Single Point of Failure

vRPA cluster high-availability, each VM can be replicated by any vRPA (on any ESXi)

  • Minimizing Bandwidth Costs

Utilize RecoverPoint Compression & Deduplication

  • Flexible deployment

vRPAs can be deployed on separated ESXi clusters than the protected VMs

  • Fast recovery time

No data copying when accessing image, just roll the journal, disks are attached to replica

  • “DVR-like” roll-back

Scroll between point-in time when testing recovery, fastest image access to the latest point in time

  • Modern REST API for ease of automation

Aggregates over multiple RP4VMs systems

What are RecoverPoint for VMs’ Use Cases ?

RecoverPoint for VMs – Overview of Recovery Operations

JAM – Journal Access Module

  • JAM is a Journal I/O and Repository Access Filter for journal and repository access
    • Available only on new installs of 5.2 or 5.3
    • No conversion from former access module (when upgrading to RPVM 5.2/5.3)
  • JAM is auto-installed as separate VIB
    • The VIB is only required on the ESX nodes where the vRPAs reside
    • Automatically deployed during cluster installation and ESXi node additions
    • Would need to be upgraded in the same manner as the splitter is upgraded today
  • Enhanced behavior with VSAN
    • Initial Journal VMDK no longer limited to 255GB
    • Improved VMDK provisioning time

What’s new in the 5.3 version?

New HTML5 Plugin

  • Better looking with all modern capabilities
    • Filters, sorting, search
    • Paging
    • Links between screens
  • Lightweight and Fast
  • Simpler to use
    • 1-Click protect
    • Simple Recovery Flows
    • Zoom in around an image
  • Manages all RP4VMs clusters on the vCenter
  • Fully supported with vSphere 6.7U1 and later (including 7.0)
  • Uses a plugin server

Easy to Protect: 1-Click Protection

  • Screen opens directly from vSphere UI
  • Default values populated for all fields
  • Modify selection or click “PROTECTRP4VMs will:
  • Automatically discover VM configuration
  • Automatically create target VM and VMDKs
  • Automatically create protection resources
  • Automatically start replicating

Easy to Test: 1-Click Test

Easy to Recover: Disaster Recovery

  • Default values are populated
    Latest PiT and bubble network for target VMs
  • Modify selection or click “STARTRP4VMs will:
  • Keep replication and protection during testing
  • Automatically roll-back target VMs to selected PiT
  • Automatically set testing network of replica VMs
  • Apply predefined power-up sequence of replica VMs

Easy to Recover – Operational Recovery

  • Can utilize any replica copy (local or remote)
  • Scroll between Points-in-Time
  • Modify the snapshot data if desired
  • Production restore to the modified PiT

     

    Automatically resume production replication after recovery

HTML5 Plugin – Protection Policy

Single screen for managing orchestration and replication options

Per-VM startup priority, criticality, scripts and prompts

Allows configuration of replication mode, retention, failover network, Re-IP and more

HTML5 Plugin – VM Protection Policy

Allows to exclude VMDKs

Controls VM-specific settings such as

Disk provisioning

vHW replication

MAC replication for copies on the same vCenter

Protection of newly added VMDKs

RP4VMs 5.3 – Enhancements to Plugin Security

  • Only users with a certain privilege would be able to access the RP4VMs H5 plugin
    • When a user without the privilege launches the plugin, it would error out
  • The privilege is ‘Manage custom attributes’ (Global.Manage custom attributes) and it can be easily changed/accessed via the vSphere client

HTML5 Plugin Server VM

  • Adheres to VMware’s best practices for plugins
    • Better scale and performance
    • More robust
  • Hosts all RP4VMs screens and logic
  • Auto-discovers RP4VMs systems
  • Manages all RP4VMs clusters on the vCenter
    • And linked vCenters
  • API gateway and forwarding
    • Expose self-documented Swagger UI
    • API aggregation across multiple RP4VMs clusters
    • Authentication

Modernized RESTful API

  • Ease of use
    • Simple object model
    • Recommendation API
  • High performance
    • Lightweight object model
    • Support Filters, Partials and Sorting
  • Fully documented
    • Dell EMC developer portal
    • Self-documented swagger UI
  • Backward Compatible

With future API versions

  • The new RESTful API co-exists with the previous API (5.2 endpoint)
  • Aggregation across all managed vRPA clusters
    • For example: GET all protected VMs list in a single API call
  • Recommendation (protection) API
    • GET response in the same format as POST command expects
    • API auto-completes all missing protection resources
  • Use nice names and/or IDs
  • Modern API capabilities. For Example:
    • Use “Filters” in order to output results with specific criteria
    • Use “Partials” to retrieve specific fields instead of the whole object
    • Use “Sorting” to order the response by specific fields

Explore the new API

RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – Interactive Demo

http://interactivedemos.democenter.dell.com/v2/Recoverpoint/index.html

RecoverPoint for VMs GitHub Repo (Postman Collection and Protect Script):

https://github.com/IdanKen/Dell-EMC-RecoverPoint4VMs

RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – Deployment and Protection Demo
 
  1. RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – Simple Protection Demo

  2. RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – Advanced Protection Demo

  3. RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – Recovery and Orchestration Demo

  4. RecoverPoint for VMs 5.3 – New RESTful API Demo

you can download the full package, by clicking the screenshot below

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