Just in case anyone is not aware, it’s possible to clone a crash consistent VM at the remote site from the data that Zerto has already copied over.
Do a test failover, wait until it has completed booting up.
Take a volume level snapshot on the storage device.
Stop the failover test.
Mount the volume snapshot.
Change the .vmx file to point the .vmdk’s to the newly mounted volume, not the original one.
Register the VM.
Change the NIC of the VM to the desired vSwitch.
Power it on (say you copied it when prompted).
Done.
Then you have a copy of a the production VM at your remote site that is not using the same physical files as Zerto, so you can do as you like with it without any lengthy data copying, or being linked logically (other than at the storage clone level) to Zerto.
I find it useful as I can create long term labs of VMs in an isolated environment regardless of the size of the VM.
For a short term lab, using Zerto’s built in test failover is still preferable, this however provides all the benefits of Zerto whilst also being able to create the most advanced test labs.
Mike G.
