Initial seed for continuous replication

[olivierlambert]

Now, creating a replication for the first time will copy the whole disks of a VMs. That's fine locally, but for a remote site, that could be an issue.

Ideally, we should be able to do that:

1. create a replication job locally
2. export the replicated VM to an external drive
3. import this exported "replicated VM" on remote site
4. modify the job to "point" to this freshly imported VM on the remote site
5. start the job and see only delta's are sent

[olivierlambert]

Workaround before XO implementation.

source host/SR: where the original VM is
destination host/SR: where the replicated VM is

Preparation

1. create a cont. rep job to a non-distant SR (even the SR where is currently the VM). Do NOT enable the job at the creation.
2. start manually the first replication (only the first)
3. when finished, export the replicated VM (via XOA or any other mean, doesn't matter until you got your XVA file)
4. import the replicated VM on destination
5. you can remove your local replicated copy

Modifications

In your source host:

1. Get the UUID of the remote destination SR where your VM was imported
2. On the source host: xe vm-param-list uuid=<SourceVM_UUID> | grep other-config.
   • You should see somewhere in other-config: xo:base_delta:<SR_UUID>: <VM_snapshot_UUID>;
   • Remove this entry with xe vm-param-remove uuid=<OriginalVM_UUID> param-name=other-config param-key=xo:base_delta:<SR_UUID>
   • Recreate the correct param: xe vm-param-set uuid=<OriginalVM_UUID> other-config:xo:base_delta:<destination_SR_UUID>=<VM_snapshot_UUID>

In XO:

1. Edit the replication job and select the new destination SR

Enable

Run manually a first time to check if everything is OK. Then, enable the job. Now, only the delta's are sent, your initial seed saved you a LOT of time.

[olivierlambert]

We should spike this and see what do to with hit. Not urgent though.