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Physical to ESX requirements

In addition to the core Double-Take Availability requirements, use these requirements for physical to ESX protection.

• Source server—The source server can be any physical server running any of the operating systems listed in the core Double-Take Availability requirements . The source server must have Double-Take Availability installed and licensed on it.
• ESX server—The ESX server that will host your target can be any of the following operating systems. Note that ESX is commonly referred to as the Classic edition and ESXi as the Embedded and Installable edition.
• ESX 3.5.x or ESXi 3.5.x Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus

• ESX 4.0.x or 4.1 or ESXi 4.0.x or 4.1 Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus

  If you are using the Standard edition of ESX 4.0 or ESXi 4.0, you must have update 1 or later.

  If your source is a Windows 2008 R2 server, your ESX server must have version 3.5 update 5 or later or ESX 4.0 update 1 or later.

   

• VirtualCenter—Although VirtualCenter is not required, if you are using it, then you must use version 2.5 or later.

  VMotion is only supported if you are using VirtualCenter.

   

• Virtual recovery appliance—The ESX server must have an existing virtual machine, known as a virtual recovery appliance, that meets the following requirements. (When you establish protection, the virtual recovery appliance will create a new virtual server, mount disks, format disks, and so on. If failover occurs, the new virtual machine is detached from the virtual recovery appliance and powered on. Once the new virtual machine is online, it will have the identity, data, and system state of the source. Since the virtual recovery appliance maintains its own identity, it can be reused for additional failovers.)
• Operating system—The virtual recovery appliance can be any of the operating systems listed in the core Double-Take Availability requirements.
• Operating system version—The virtual recovery appliance must have the same or newer operating system than the source (not including service pack level).
• Operating system installation location—Because VMware boots from the first bootable volume that is discovered, the operating system must be installed to SCSI device 0, Slot 0 on the virtual recovery appliance.
• Double-Take Availability—The virtual recovery appliance must have Double-Take Availability installed and licensed on it.
• Microsoft .NET Framework—The virtual recovery appliance requires the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 Service Pack 1. This version is not included in the .NET version 4.0 release. Therefore, even if you have .NET version 4.0 installed, you will also need version 3.5.1. You can install this version from the Double-Take Availability CD, via a web connection during the Double-Take Availability installation, or from a copy you have obtained manually from the Microsoft web site.
• WAN support—If your source and virtual recovery appliance are across a WAN and you want Double-Take Availability to automatically update networking on the replica during failover, the following limitations apply. If you choose not to have Double-Take Availability automatically update networking on the replica during failover, you will have to update the network manually, but the following limitations will not apply.
• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)—The source and virtual recovery appliance must have the WMI service enabled.
• User Access Control (UAC)—UAC must be disabled on the source.
• Name resolution—You must establish name resolution for the source.
• Domain controllers—If your source is a domain controller, it will start in a non-authoritative restore mode after failover. This means that if the source was communicating with other domain controllers before failover, it will require one of those domain controllers to be reachable after failover so it can request updates. If this communication is not available, the domain controller will not function after failover. If the source is the only domain controller, this is not an issue.