Introduction

When performing site failover, IT administrators are often faced with challenges to deal with disparate networks on the recovery site:

• Network properties of virtual machines need to be customized according to the network specification of the recovery site.

• Domain Name Server (DNS) records pertaining to these virtual machines need to be updated.

VMware® vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) enables customers to design automated recovery plans that incorporate all these necessary network property changes, relieving them of the repetitive and error-prone manual tasks.

This paper shows the mechanisms that SRM customers can use in order to automate these tasks related to network related changes.

Intended Audience

VMware Certified Professionals (VCPs) and IT admins in configuring SRM for disaster recovery.

Outline

The topics discussed in this paper include:

Customizing Virtual Machine Network Properties

• Customization Specification Manager

• Batch IP Property Customization Tool

• Entering customization specifications for the first time

• Adding customization specification after initial input

• Removing customization specification after initial input

• Changing customization specification after initial input

DNS Updates Dynamic DNS (DDNS) vs. Script

• DDNS Updates

• Configuring DNS Auto-Update on Windows DNS Clients+

• Configuring DNS Auto-Updates on DHCP Server+

• DNS Update Scripts+

• Script dns_update.cmd

• Script dns_generate.cmd

• How to use DNS Update Scripts

• Running DNS Update Scripts in SRM Recovery Plan