Changing VRA VMs destination location

My name is Contara from Zerto Support.

Question 1:

I wanted to know the process of removing a set of VRA VMs from the destination vSphere location and then run through the process of deploying them again.

• Launch Recovery Zerto Web GUI – Setup – VRAs – check the VRA in question – Click on More – select “Change VM Recovery VRA”.
• After the VMs completed move to another VRA host, then you can un-install and re-install the VRA.

Question 2:

Why? Because the Destination hardware is Nutanix and we need to make sure the disks that Zerto creates for the VRA’s are all set to Thin but I’m noticing a mix of some Thick and some Thin. From reading some, don’t think Zerto wants you to just svomtion the data and switch it to Thin, do this in Zerto manager??

You can go into Edit VPG, click on Storage tab – select the “Thin” option.  When you select “Done” to the VPG, you will see three things:

The VPG will kick in “Volume Initial Sync” state.
The VPG Journal history will be deleted.
When the VPG “Volume Initial Sync” completed, the Journal History will rebuild from scratch.

Thank you.

Hello,

Thank  you for responding.  Related to both of the questions and answers you provided.  My main goal here is to just present the disk that got sent as ‘Thick’ changed over to ‘Thin’, do I even need to do Question 1 in removing the VRA and adding it again or can i just go through the steps of the answer to Question 2?

It’s the VRA in question here that has the Thick and Thin disk presented from when the VRA got created.  I don’t need to Edit the VPG section as that relates to the VM, correct?  I would like to talk with someone on this!

Thanks

Hi Eric,

Whether a recovery mirror disk is provisioned as thin or thick, this depends on the recovery datastore, but not the VRAs.

Here below are the requirements of recovery disk provisioning when creating a VPG:

–If the recovery datastore can only support thin provisioning, the recovery mirror disk has to be set as in thin provisioning, no matter whether the source disk is thin or thick provisioned.

–If the recovery datastore can only support thick provisioning, the recovery mirror disk has to be set as thick provisioned, without regarding the source disk’s provisioning type.

–If the recovery datastore can support both thin or thick provisioning type, admin can set the provisioning type of the recovery disk as per the source disk’s provisioning type or the administration demand. This means the recovery disk can be set as either thin or thick provisioned.

As per your description, if you have enough space in the recovery datastore and the Nutanix storage supports all provisioning types, then it’s not necessary to change the VPG settings for creating new recovery disks with certain provisioning type.

Of course, if there are requirements for certain provisioning type on the recovery disk, you can edit the VPG settings for creating new recovery disks with the required provisioning type.
After the new recovery disks are created and fully synced, you can then clear the previous recovery disks.

If any questions, please feel free to let us know.

Thanks.

HI,

On the recovery disk, i tried going through Edit of the VPG and changing the storage to Thin, and it did a sync, but now there are errors and I”m not sure how to go about in cleaning it up.  I haven’t done anything with the VRAs yet.  How can I go about in having a chat/webex session with a support person?

Hi,

You can open a support case through the ZVM GUI.

Wao, that’s really great to see this.

It’s important to be cautious when removing and redeploying VRA VMs to avoid causing any issues. It’s a good idea to check with Zerto manager for guidance on how to properly set the disks to Thin for the VRA’s on the Nutanix hardware at my location now