VMware Site Recovery Manager – Post Installation Changes

Today, I was pleasantly surprised to learn hands-on that many settings that I made during the installation of VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) could be easily modified after installation.

I have been using SRM for several years and it seemed to me that many configuration changes actually required reinstallation of SRM.  Recently, I learned that SRM 6.1 installer could be run in modify mode, which would allow me to change many of my original settings.  Last week, in a test environment, I had a need to change the Listener Port from 9068 (which is the default for SRM 6.1) to 9007 (which is the default in SRM 5.5).  I assumed that this specific change would require reinstallation, but I was able to make the change by running the change in modify mode..

Specifically, I logged into Windows on the SRM Server, drilled into Control Panel > Programs and Features, right-clicked the SRM program and selected Change.  A wizard appeared that looked much like the original installer.  The only item I changed in the wizard was the Listener Port, which I set to 9007.   I did not have to provide any other data, because the wizard provided all of my original settings as defaults, except for passwords (for the PSC account and embedded database user), which I had to reenter.  The Wizard applied the change and restarted the SRM service.

I was further surprised to see that it worked the first time without requiring additional steps.  I was immediately able to logon to SRM and test the recovery plans that I previously built.  I expected to need to manually modify the Windows Firewall to allow the custom port (9007), but I did not actually have to do so.

For more details, see Modify a Site Recovery Manager Installation the SRM 6.1 documentation.