My understanding is vCHB do following step to failover vCenter Server to DR site:
1. Stop vcenter server on Primary Server.
2. Hide principle network on Primary server.
3. Make Secondary Server to Active Role.
4. Reveal principle network on secondary server.
5. Change DNS name of vCenter Server FQDN to new principle network
6. Start up vcenter server on Secondary Server.
So basically it's just DNS name different with HA mode. We don't have right to change DNS name by script, so I tried to change DNS name manually, but looks like vCenter Server cannot start up on Secondary Server.
If you take a look this KB, you will know how complicate to re-point a vCenter Server 5.1...so how vCHB can only change DNS name by a script to make vCenter Server 5.1 to running on Secondary Server?
I got following error message in vpxa.log when failover to Secondary Server under DR mode ( I only protect vCenter server, SQL DB is remote)
2013-06-20T04:40:59.070-05:00 [01020 info '[SSO][CreateSsoFacade]'] [CreateUserDirectory] Groupcheck URI set to: https://VCENTER-LAB.contoso.com:7444/sso-adminserver/sdk
2013-06-20T04:40:59.164-05:00 [02488 info 'Default'] Thread attached
2013-06-20T04:40:59.164-05:00 [02488 info 'ThreadPool'] Thread enlisted
2013-06-20T04:40:59.164-05:00 [02492 info 'Default'] Thread attached
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 error 'Default'] Found dangling SSL error: [0] error:00000001:lib(0):func(0):reason(1)
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 error 'Default'] Found dangling SSL error: [1] error:00000001:lib(0):func(0):reason(1)
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 error '[SSO][SsoFactory_CreateFacade]'] Unable to create SSO facade: vmodl.fault.SystemError.
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 warning 'VpxProfiler'] Vpxd::ServerApp::Init [Vpx::Common::Sso::SsoFactory_CreateFacade(sslContext, ssoFacadeConstPtr)] took 873 ms
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 error 'vpxdvpxdMain'] [Vpxd::ServerApp::Init] Init failed: Vpx::Common::Sso::SsoFactory_CreateFacade(sslContext, ssoFacadeConstPtr)
--> Backtrace:
--> backtrace[00] rip 000000018018a8ca
--> backtrace[01] rip 0000000180102f28
--> backtrace[02] rip 000000018010423e
--> backtrace[03] rip 000000018008e00b
--> backtrace[04] rip 00000000003f5c2c
--> backtrace[05] rip 0000000000416512
--> backtrace[06] rip 0000000140270701
--> backtrace[07] rip 000000014026a51c
--> backtrace[08] rip 000000014048c92b
--> backtrace[09] rip 000007fefd71a82d
--> backtrace[10] rip 0000000076f6652d
--> backtrace[11] rip 000000007719c521
-->
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 warning 'VpxProfiler'] ServerApp::Init [TotalTime] took 118123 ms
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 error 'Default'] Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...
2013-06-20T04:40:59.944-05:00 [01020 info 'vpxdvpxdSupportManager'] Wrote uptime information
2013-06-20T04:41:01.940-05:00 [02796 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-469873c0] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-06-20T04:41:13.953-05:00 [02796 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-62e2141c] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-06-20T04:41:22.377-05:00 [01020 info 'Default'] Forcing shutdown of VMware VirtualCenter now