Summary

When upgrading a vCenter Server, it may be required for an administrator to choose to create a new vCenter database, instead of upgrading the existing one.  This action has a negative effect on Zerto Virtual Replication, as it relies highly on the vCenter database for tracking references to virtual infrastructure components and configurations.  This article outlines the steps necessary to to plan to recover Zerto Virtual Replication to a functional state, before creating a new vCenter database, as well as to go through the recovery procedure.

Steps

In order to plan to recover a Zerto Virtual Replication installation from a situation where a vCenter database will be recreated, follow these steps:
  1. Login to the vSphere Client for the recovery site, and navigate to the VPG List screen of the Zerto Virtual Replication GUI.
  2. Choose the Export to CSV option in order to export a file to the local computer which will contain all VPG configuration settings, including datastore locations of Target Disks.  This will be useful when recreating VPGs later in the procedure.
  3. For each VPG in the VPG List, click on the Delete (trash can) icon, and choose to "Keep the target disks at the peer site".
  4. Once all VPGs have been deleted, and all target disks preserved, uninstall the VRA and Unpair the site.
  5. Open a console or RDP session to affected site ZVM VMs.
  6. Navigate to Control Panel > Programs & Features, and choose to uninstall Zerto Virtual Replication.
  7. Perform the upgrade on the vCenter servers, choosing to recreate the databases as required.
  8. Locate the newest Zerto Virtual Replication installer files, accessible via the Zerto Portal under Support & Downloads section.
  9. Download the installers on the affected site ZVM VMs.
  10. Install the Zerto Virtual Replication software on the affected site.
  11. Via the vSphere Clients connected to both peer sites, insert the license key, pair the sites, and deploy VRAs.
  12. Using the previously exported VPG configuration CSV file, go through the process of recreating each VPG.  With the datastore locations of all of the previously protected target disks, which are included in the CSV file, choose to preseed the VPG volumes as described in the Preseeding Volumes KB article [article number 1102].
  13. Instead of going through an Initial Sync, the recreated VPGs will instead go through a shorter-duration Delta Sync.