I’ve been reading up on the new Site Recovery Manager (SRM) product.  Here are some things I’ve noticed, that others might be interested in:

• NFS is not currently supported.  Only Fibre Channel and iSCSI.
• Raw Device Mapping (RDMs) are not supported.  This will really hit those using MSCS for critical services – I suppose this makes “Cluster in a box” more viable. (see update below)
• SRM per-host licensing at the Primary site, but per-CPU at the DR site (presumably host licenses also at the second site if you need to be able to fail both ways, or be able to fail-back from a disaster).
• SRM uses AdobeFlex for licensing.
• SRM server components only supported on 32bit Windows server (not 64bit).
• Only MS SQL and Oracle supported for the SRM database.
• One VirtualCenter and one SRM license on each site.
• Only really two sites supported.

I haven’t discovered which firewall ports need to be opened between the two sites, and between the SRM server, SRM DB server, VC server and ESX hosts.

SRM log files:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Site Recovery Manager\Logs

dr-ip-reporter.exe
SRM introduces a new windows command line tool, which generates an XML file detailing the network structure on both sites.

Maximums:
Protected VMs        500
Protection groups    150
Replicated LUNs        150
Running recovery plans    3

Update: I had indicated that you couldn’t use RDMs with SRM.  The VMware documentation states that VMFS volumes are a pre-requisite.  I had assumed that because of this, and the omission of RDMs, that in fact RDMs were not supported.  NetApp’s documentation covering their SRA (Site Recovery Adapter), also only mentions VMFS volumes.

However at the weekend I watched one of Mike Laverick’s SRM videos, in which he commented about a success with a RDM LUN.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that RDMs are supported with SRM, just that it can work.  VMware often include functionality with supporting it, until they can test it thoroughly themselves.  I would expect that this is only possible with Virtual Compatibility Mode RDMs, and would be dependent on your particular SRA/storage appliance.

Does anyone know if RDMs are officially supported?

Update 2: Here is the offical word I was looking for.  Hiding in the SRM 1.0 release notes

Experimental Support for RDMs
SRM supports RDMs experimentally. VMware encourages you to try features in test environments and report issues, but do not put RDMs in production SRM workflows.