Virtualization Strategies for the CIO
Hyper-V Replica is a free disaster recovery tool in Hyper-V 3.0 that creates and maintains copies of virtual machines (VMs ). In the event of a catastrophic loss, an administrator can failover to the replica VMs and provide business continuity.
The replication process involves a primary host and a secondary host. A mechanism for creating application-consistent backups called a VSS writer creates a snapshot of the virtual machine (VM) on the primary host. The Replica function then copies the snapshot to the secondary host. This allows a data center administrator to have a standby server with copies of the VMs ready at a moment's notice. The tool also enables VM replication across the Internet using HTTP and a high-end PC as the secondary host. This feature provides administrators with an economical way to store VM copies safely off-site.