You are here: Virtual server protection > Physical to ESX protection > Protecting a physical server to an ESX virtual server

Protecting a physical server to an ESX server

Use these instructions for physical to ESX protection.

Click Get Started from the toolbar.
Select Double-Take Availability and click Next.
Select Protect an entire server using a Hyper-V or ESX virtual machine and click Next.
Specify the physical source server that you want to protect.

Server—Specify the name or IP address of the physical server that you want to protect. You can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

If you enter the source server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.

Your source can have no more than ten NICs enabled.
User name—Specify a user that is a member of the Double-Take Admin and local administrator security groups on the source. If you want to use a domain user account, enter a fully-qualified domain name in the format domain\username or username@domain.
Password—Specify the password associated with the User name you entered.

Click Next to continue.
Choose the volumes on the source server that you want to protect.

Select the volumes to protect—By default the system volume will be selected for protection. You will be unable to deselect the system volume. Select any other volumes on the source that you want to protect.
Exclude these paths—If there are specific paths on a volume that you do not want to protect, specify those locations. Keep in mind that missing data may impact the integrity of your applications. Specify any paths to exclude from protection and click Add. If you need to remove a path from being excluded, select the path and click Remove.

Click Next to continue.
Specify the target server. This is your virtual recovery appliance on your ESX server.

Server—Specify the name or IP address of the target server. You can click Browse to select a server from a network drill-down list.

If you enter the target server's fully-qualified domain name, the Double-Take Console will resolve the entry to the server short name. If that short name resides in two different domains, this could result in name resolution issues. In this case, enter the IP address of the server.
User name—Specify a user that is a member of the Double-Take Admin security group. If you want to use a domain user account, enter a fully-qualified domain name in the format domain\username or username@domain.
Password—Specify the password associated with the User name you entered.

Click Next to continue.
Specify the ESX server information for your target virtual recovery appliance.

VirtualCenter Server—Select your VirtualCenter server from the list. If your VirtualCenter server is not in the list, click Add VirtualCenter Server, specify the server and valid credentials, and click Add. If you are not using VirtualCenter, select None.
ESX Server—Specify the name or IP address of the ESX server.
User name—This field will only be available if you are not using VirtualCenter. In this case, specify the root user or another user that has the administrator role on the specified ESX server.
Password—Specify the password associated with the User name you entered.

Click Next to continue.
Select one of the volumes from the list to indicate the default datastore on the target where you want to store the new virtual server when it is created. The target volume must have enough Free Space to store the source data. You will be able to make additional datastore selections before enabling your protection.
Click Next to continue.
Configure the replica virtual machine that will be created on the target.

Replica virtual machine display name—Specify the name of the replica virtual machine. This will be the display name of the virtual machine on the host system.
Number of processors—Specify how many processors to create on the new virtual machine. The number of processors on the source is displayed to guide you in making an appropriate selection. If you select fewer processors than the source, your clients may be impacted by slower responses.
Amount of memory—Specify the amount of memory, in MB, to create on the new virtual machine. The memory on the source is displayed to guide you in making an appropriate selection. If you select less memory than the source, your clients may be impacted by slower responses.
Map source network adapters to target network adapters—Identify how you want to handle the network mapping after failover. The Source Network Adapter column lists the NICs from the source. Map each one to a Target Network, which is a virtual network on the target.
Advanced settings—These fields will allow you to configure advanced settings, which are used primarily for WAN support. For each Source Network Adapter, you can specify Target IP addresses, Default Gateways, and DNS Server addresses.

Updates made during failover will be based on the network adapter name when protection is established. If you change that name, you will need to delete the job and re-create it so the new name will be used during failover.

If you update one of the advanced settings (IP address, gateway, or DNS server), then you must update all of them. Otherwise, the remaining items will be left blank. If you do not specify any of the advanced settings, the replica virtual machine will be assigned the same network configuration as the source.

Click Next to continue.
Configure the volumes on the replica virtual machine that will be created on the target.
- Replica Disk Size—For each volume you are protecting, specify the size of the replica virtual machine on the target. Be sure and include the value in MB or GB for the disk. The value must be at least the size of the specified Used Space on that volume. You will be unable to edit the disk size for a volume if you select Use pre-existing virtual disks, because the pre-existing configuration will be used.
  
  In some cases, the replica virtual machine may use more virtual disk space than the source volume due to differences in how the virtual disk's block size is formatted and how hard links are handled. To avoid this issue, specify the size of your replica to be at least 20 MB larger.
- Replica Disk Type—For each volume you are protecting, specify the type of disk, Dynamic or Fixed, that will be created on the replica virtual machine. You will be unable to edit the disk type for a volume if you select Use pre-existing virtual disks, because the pre-existing configuration will be used.
- Target Datastore—For each volume you are protecting, specify the datastore where you want to store the replica virtual machine on the target. The size of the selected datastore is displayed below the table. If you select Use pre-existing virtual disks, all of the pre-existing disks must be on the same datastore.
- Use pre-existing virtual disks—You can reuse an existing virtual disk on your ESX target, rather than having Double-Take Availability create a virtual disk for you. This saves time by skipping the virtual disk creation steps and performing a difference mirror instead of a full mirror. In order to use a pre-existing virtual disk, it must be a valid VMware virtual disk. It cannot be attached to any other virtual machine, and the virtual disk size cannot be changed. All pre-existing disks must be on the same datastore.
  
  Because Double-Take Availability will skip the virtual disk creation steps when using a pre-existing disk, Double-Take Availability will instead copy your existing virtual disk to the default VMware new virtual machine location. Therefore, it is important that you do not place your existing virtual disk in the new folder location that VMware will create. Put the pre-existing virtual disk in a temporary location on the target. Specify this temporary location for Enter the path on the target data store which has pre-existing virtual disks.
  
  In order for Double-Take Availability to find the pre-existing disk, the virtual disk file names must be formatted using the convention SourceServer_DriveLetter. For example, if your source server is Alpha and you are protecting drives C and D, Double-Take Availability will look for the file names Alpha_C.vmdk and Alpha_D.vmdk. If you are using IP addresses, substitute the IP address for the server name. For example, if the IP address for server Alpha is 172.31.10.25 then Double-Take Availability will look for the file names 172.31.10.25_C.vmdk and 172.31.10.25_D.vmdk.
  
  If you originally created a virtual disk and specified the source server by its IP address, the pre-existing virtual disk file name cannot use the server name. However, you can rename that file and its associated -flat.vmdk file to use the IP address. The reverse is also true. If you originally specified the source server by its name, the pre-existing virtual disk file name cannot use the server’s IP address. However, you can rename the file and its associated -flat.vmdk to use the source name. For example, if you originally created a virtual disk and specified the source by its IP address, you need to rename the file source_name_drive.vmdk to source_IPaddress_drive.vmdk. You also need to rename the file source_name_drive-flat.vmdk to source_IPaddress_drive-flat.vmdk. The reverse (change source_IPaddress to source_name for both files) is also true. Additionally, you will need to edit the .vmdk file manually because it contains the name of the -flat.vmdk file. Modify the reference to the -flat.vmdk file to the new name you have specified using any standard text editor.
  
  In a WAN environment, you may want to take advantage of the Use pre-existing virtual disks feature by using a process similar to the following.
  1. Create a protection job in a LAN environment, letting Double-Take Availability create the virtual disk for you.
  2. Complete the mirror process locally.
  3. Disconnect the protection job.
  4. Shut down and move the ESX target server to your remote site.
  5. After the target server is back online at the remote site, create a new protection job for the same source server and select to Use pre-existing virtual disks. Double-Take Availability will reuse the existing .vhd files and perform a difference mirror over the WAN to bring the virtual machine up-to-date.
Click Next to continue.
Specify your protection settings.

Compress data at this level—Specify the level of compression that you want to use for your transmissions from the source to the target. If compression is enabled, the data is compressed before it is transmitted from the source. When the target receives the compressed data, it decompresses it and then writes it to disk.
Send data to this target route—By default, Double-Take Availability will select a default target route for transmissions. If desired, select a different target route for transmissions.
Limit bandwidth—Bandwidth limitations are available to restrict the amount of network bandwidth used for Double-Take Availability data transmissions. When a bandwidth limit is specified, Double-Take Availability never exceeds that allotted amount. The bandwidth not in use by Double-Take Availability is available for all other network traffic. If desired, enter a value, in kilobits per second, to limit data transmission. The value you enter is the maximum amount of data that will be transmitted per second.
Fail over automatically if the target server cannot contact the source server—If this option is selected, failover will automatically occur when the target can no longer contact the source. If this option is disabled, you will have to monitor communications between the target and source and manually initiate failover when the target can no longer contact the source. In either case, failover is not available until after the initial mirror has been completed.
Monitor these addresses on the source server—If you have enabled automatic failover, specify the IP addresses on the source that the target should monitor. Failover will be triggered when one of the monitored IP addresses is identified as failed.
Monitoring interval—If you have enabled automatic failover, specify the number of seconds between monitor requests sent from the target to the source to determine if the source is online.
Number of missed intervals that trigger failover—If you have enabled automatic failover, specify the number of monitor replies sent from the source to the target that can be missed before assuming the source has failed.

To achieve shorter delays before failover, use lower interval and missed interval values. This may be necessary for servers, such as a web server or order processing database, which must remain available and responsive at all times. Lower values should be used where redundant interfaces and high-speed, reliable network links are available to prevent the false detection of failure. If the hardware does not support reliable communications, lower values can lead to premature failover. To achieve longer delays before failover, choose higher values. This may be necessary for servers on slower networks or on a server that is not transaction critical. For example, failover would not be necessary in the case of a server restart.

Click Next to continue.
The Protection Summary page displays all of the options you selected in your workflow. If you want to make any changes to any of the workflow settings, click Back to return to previous pages of the workflow. If you want to modify the name assigned to this protection job, click Change and specify a new name.
When you are satisfied with your workflow selections, click Finish, and you will automatically be taken to the Manage Jobs page.

If you need to modify a job's settings after it has been created, you can do so after the mirror has completed by highlighting the job on the Manage Jobs page, selecting View Job Details, and then clicking the View job properties link. You will be taken back to the Protection Summary page where you can edit the job's settings..