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Replication Using the HotAdd Method

HotAdd Restores

HotAdd restores for Amazon provide faster performance than traditional restores. By using an access node that is running on an Amazon instance, the restore operation can write directly to Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and inject Amazon drivers that are required for destination instances.

HotAdd restores are used for the following operations:

  • Restores

  • Replication operations

  • Conversion from VMware to Amazon EC2, for the following VMware guest operating systems:

    • Windows

      • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Web Server, Datacenter, Enterprise) (64-bit only)

        For information, see Preparing the Source VM for Conversion to an Amazon EC2 Instance.

        Note

        For VM conversion or replication of guest VMs that run Windows Server 2008 R2 and later versions, validation might fail for the converted instance in AWS. To resolve this issue, set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key on the source VM as described in the AWS article Configure time settings for Windows Server 2008 and later, and then perform a new backup to use as the source for the conversion or replication.

      • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

      • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only) (Nano Server installation not supported)

      • Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

      • Microsoft Windows Server 1709 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

      • Microsoft Windows Server 1803 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

      • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

      • Microsoft Windows 10 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) (US English) (64-bit only)

    • Linux

      • Oracle Linux 6.x

      • Oracle Linux 7.x

      • Oracle Linux 8.x

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.x

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.x

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.x

      • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 and above

      • Ubuntu 14.04

      • Ubuntu 14.10

      • Ubuntu 15.04

      • Ubuntu 16.04

      • Ubuntu 16.10

      • Ubuntu 17.04

      • Ubuntu 18.04

      • Ubuntu 20.04

      • Ubuntu 21.10

      • Ubuntu 22.x

        Note

        When replicating the Linux source VM to AWS, you must use DHCP. If the source VMs use static IPs, use the import method instead. See, VM Replication Using the Import Method.

Supported Volume and File System Types

Windows

Instances with volumes that use Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning are supported.

Linux

Linux VMs that use one of the following for the root file system: ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS.

HotAdd Restore Process

Windows:

  1. Create empty EBS volumes.

  2. Attach EBS volumes to access node.

    Up to 21 volumes can be attached to the VSA proxy during cross-hypervisor restores or live sync replication, occupying device slots xvdf - xvdz.

  3. Restore data to EBS volumes.

    A snapshot of the EBS volumes is taken and retained as an integrity snapshot for reference during the next incremental replication.

  4. Inject AWS components and drivers.

  5. Detach and delete volumes from the access node.

  6. The DR VM configuration is written to a JSON file and uploaded to a S3 bucket.

    The JSON file is available inside the cv-vmconfig-container folder under the S3bucket named as gx-restore-region_name-account_id. Where region_name is the name of the AWS region and account_id is the AWS account for the virtualization client.

  7. An integrity snapshot is retained.

Linux:

  1. Create empty EBS volumes.

    Up to 40 volumes can be attached to the VSA proxy during cross-hypervisor restores or live sync replication, occupying device slots xvdf - xvdz, or if the slots start with xvd, then xvdba - xvdbz, or a combination of both.

  2. Attach EBS volumes to access node.

  3. Restore data to EBS volumes.

    A snapshot of the EBS volumes is taken and retained as an integrity snapshot for reference during the next incremental replication.

  4. Detach and delete volumes from the access node.

  5. The DR VM configuration is written to a JSON file and uploaded to a S3 bucket.

    The JSON file is available inside the cv-vmconfig-container folder under the S3bucket named as gx-restore-region_name-account_id. Where region_name is the name of the AWS region and account_id is the AWS account for the virtualization client.

  6. An integrity snapshot is retained.

For information about installing drivers manually, see Preparing the Source VM for Conversion to an Amazon EC2 Instance.

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