Creating Replica Seeds

To use replica seeding in a replication job, you must have backups of replicated VMs in a backup repository in the disaster recovery (DR) site. These backups are known as replica seeds. For more information on seeding and when to use it, see Replica Seeding and Mapping.

If you do not have replica seeds in the DR site, do the following:

1. Create a backup of VMs that you plan to replicate as described in section Creating Backup Jobs. As the target repository for this job, select a backup repository in the production site. Then run the job.

If you already have backups containing the necessary VMs, there is no need to configure and run a new backup job. For seeding, you can use any existing backups created by Veeam Backup & Replication. The backup must include VBK and VBM files. If you have a full backup and a chain of forward increments, you can use VIB files together with the VBK and VBM files. In this case, Veeam Backup & Replication will restore VMs from the seed to the latest available restore point.

2. Copy the backup from the backup repository in the production site to a backup repository in the DR site.

You can move the backup using a file copy job or any other appropriate method, for example, copy the backup to a removable storage device, ship the device to the DR site and copy backups to the backup repository in the DR site.

If you do not have a backup repository in the DR site, you need to create the repository as described in section Backup Repositories.

3. After the backup is copied to the backup repository in the DR site, perform rescan of this backup repository as described in section Rescanning Backup Repositories. Otherwise, Veeam Backup & Replication will not be able to detect the copied backup.