vCenter issue scenarios

Hey George,

Please accept my apologies in the lateness of my reply, we are currently transitioning the forum management role and this must’ve slipped through the cracks. I’ll answer your questions;

1. George – If for whatever reason the DR VC server goes offline or is inaccessible, will this affect VPG replications or journal histories at all?
Joshua – The DR VC being offline will not affect the replication or the journal histories.

2. George – If for whatever reason. the prod vCenter server goes offline or becomes inaccessible, will this affect VPG replications at all?
Joshua – The Prod VC being offline will not affect the replications.

3. George – If the credentials to login to the DR site’s vCenter server stops working (i.e., I cannot login to the DR VC via the vSphere Client), would this affect Zerto replication?
Joshua – I will give 2 answers as your wording suggests you could be referring to either the replication or Zerto itself. If the Zerto service account for the DR VC cannot login then this will no impact the replication straight away, but the DR ZVM will report it is unable to connect to the vCenter and this should be resolved quickly, as Zerto will not be able to see any changes to the VMs like vMotions or Storage vMotions. If the Zerto service account for the DR VC cannot login then the ZVM itself is most definitely impacted, as it cannot perform any recovery operations. Bottom line is I’d recommend to make sure that the Zerto service account doesn’t encounter a scenario where it cannot login.

George – In summary, am I right in saying that from Zerto’s perspective, the only reason I need to have functioning vCenter Servers (after the initial ZVR deployment, configuration and setup) is for whenever I need to login the ZVM UI to perform operations such as adding new VPGs, editing existing VPGs, performing failovers etc?
Joshua – Yes, you are correct for the most part, but it does need access to respond to vCenter changes such as vMotions etc. The Zerto service account and VC should be as available as possible so the VC and ZVM most definitely should be in VMs protected by HA. Thanks,

Joshua