Hey Marc, thanks for getting an answer, although now I have more questions.  Your answer states:

"The functions of SRM are independent of the guest OS"

That statement seems to fly in the face of some listed features like:

• Reconfigure virtual machines’ IP addresses to match network configuration at failover site. 

The process of reconfiguring IP addresses is pretty different between Windows and Linux guests so I don't see how those features could really be "independent of the guest OS".  I guess what I'm worried about is that SRM will "support" Linux, but only on some very basic level, without all of the automation features that make it so valuable.

Sorry for being so skeptical, but as a long term "Linux guy" I've learned not to take companies proclamations of "Linux support" for face value.  I can't wait for the product documentation to actually show up on the VMware web site.

 Tom, I'll need to get back to you later after checking it out further.  SRM requires VMFS for storage access.  My assumption is that SRM remaps all the IP addresses transparently for all guest OSes. It doesn't require agent code for Windows guests, so I don't think anything is being updated within the guest. Linux would be the same. But, that's not my final answer - I'm going to use a lifeline on this one.

 So, I'll try to explain this as best I can. SRM brings everything back up online as the same name, ID and IP address.  In that sense it is independent of the guest OS. If you need to change any of these, you need to access the guest OS to do it. Microsoft has a tool called sysprep that allows admins to do this without entering the system to make those changes.  I don't know if various Linux systems have anything similar.  Sysprep is not integrated with SRM.

Hey guys,

Sorry I was down at the Dell Future of Computing Tour the past two days or I would have answered this.  I talked with Marc but now I'm online so I'll sum up a bit.

SRM is a plug-in for Virtual Center.  What it does is help automate and facilitate the testing and failing over of VMs.  It's not an all inclusive process though.  So before SRM comes into play there has to be SAN based replication configured and the volumes that house VMs have to be configured for replication and have a schedule.  So that protects the Volumes.

Now that the Volumes are protected SRM will scan them and protect the virtual machines.  Each virtual machine is just a set of files that reside on the replicated volume.  SRM will create temporary inventory "stubs" on the DR site so that when the test or failover is initiated the VM can power on.  Now SRM doesn't care what kind of VM you have.  It can be windows or linux or even a blank VM with no OS.  SRM just sees the .vmx and .vmdk files and knows it has to power them on.

Now on top of that though there is customization and commands that can be run before and after a VM is powered up on the DR site.  For example, you know how when doing a new VM based on a template you can choose the customization wizard?  In that wizard for a windows machine for example you run sysprep.  That will allow you to re-configure the operating system's hostname as well as IP address.  So SRM will run the VMware configuration wizard.

So now back to the linux question.  And this applies to any OS really.  If there is support for using the same customization wizard that you use when deploying a new VM from a template, then you have the ability to redo the VM's name or IP address before it comes up on the DR site.  Doesn't matter if it's red hat, solaris, ubuntu etc as long as that capability exists you can change the IP address before bringing the VM up.  However if the customization wizard doesn't exist there are still automated scripts you can write that can be run from VC after the VM is on to make changes.

 Hope that helps!

-Will

william_urban@dell.com

Hello Sir,

Please tell me how to get the IP address in Linux Operating System?

Thanks and regards

Raviraj

Raviraj,  I'm not a Linux admin, so I'm hoping these links can help you. This one uses ping from another machine.  If it works as advertised, its a lot easier than the scripting in the 2nd link.

http://www.unix.com/unix-dummies-questions-answers/8167-how-find-i-p-address-our-server.html

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/read-unixlinux-system-ip-address-in-a-shell-script.html