VMware Live Recovery Reviews

In my area of expertise, which is resiliency, I primarily use VMware SRM for disaster recovery use cases. I also use it for backup and data loss prevention use cases, making it easier to manage and safeguard critical data within virtualized environments.

VMware SRM has improved our organization's value by consistently meeting our clients' time requirements when deploying solutions. When we implement SRM for our clients, it helps ensure that their disaster recovery and data protection needs are addressed within their expected timeframes. 

In terms of resiliency, the most valuable aspect of SRM has been its effectiveness.

There is room for improvement in the automation and orchestration aspects of this solution.

I have been using VMware SRM for ten years.

I would rate the stability of the solution as a seven out of ten. Like any software, we do encounter glitches and the need for patches and fixes from time to time, which is a normal part of maintenance. However, there is room for improvement in terms of patching processes, including reducing delays and addressing issues in applying patches. Additionally, better documentation would enhance the overall experience with the solution.

I would rate the scalability of VMware SRM as a six out of ten. Scalability challenges occur occasionally, especially during migrations from on-premises to the cloud, as it is often a gradual process over several months. Creating a financial model that aligns with this scalability can be quite challenging. Within our organization, which has a worldwide presence, approximately 90,000 people use this solution. However, in specific areas like the delivery organization and operations, the user count is in the hundreds.

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.

I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as a seven out of ten. In our company, VMware SRM is deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. It took about two months to deploy it and it was done in-house. The number of staff required for deployment typically ranges from two to six people, depending on the size of the project. Maintenance for this solution is typically provided by the developers or vendors. We have maintenance agreements with various providers like VMware, Rubrik, Veeam, and Commvault, and hardware maintenance is handled by the hardware provider through our maintenance contracts.

I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.

Overall, I would rate VMware SRM as a seven out of ten.

In my company, we use VMware SRM for its disaster recovery capabilities. It is a tool for automating and orchestrating the disaster recovery of our company's IT environment.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that you can independently run the disaster recovery without disturbing the production instances. You can demonstrate that your disaster recovery is foolproof without encountering any disaster in your IT environment. You can demonstrate to your company's leadership team that business continuity is available for all applications. Even in a disaster scenario, one would be able to recover their environment in a certain period of time.

Currently, the recovery manager is primarily for only VMware environments or virtual machines running on VMware. Suppose the recovery manager can be extended to a non-VMware environment. In that case, we can integrate all of the tools in an IT environment together and function using one single recovery manager. Allowing for integrations with non-VMware products and environments will really help.

I have been using VMware SRM for more than ten years.

It is a pretty stable solution.

Scalability will not be applicable to VMware SRM since it is a product that does disaster recovery. Its scalability can be considered because you can add additional nodes to the product if you want to scale while ensuring you have the required licenses.

We use the solution for more than 100 customers.

The initial setup of VMware SRM isn't straightforward because many customizations are required since it helps in the recovery of your IT environment. It is not the tool but the process that is complex. The tasks associated with using the tool in an environment for disaster recovery are complex.

The product's deployment process takes around three to four weeks to complete.

For the deployment process, you need to assess your environment before getting into the design phase, after which you need to understand the business objectives and goals clearly to design your target environment. Once your environment is ready, then you need to understand the steps you need to follow to configure VMware SRM to achieve your target state. I would say assessment followed by defining a clear business objective, and then after design, you have to build the environment.

There is a need for an architect to take care of the design part of the solution, along with a couple of engineers and a dedicated project manager to run the product during the deployment phase. There is a need for at least two engineers to run the product.

The licensing costs for the product are perpetual in nature. A person needs to buy the license only once there is a need to buy support on a yearly basis. The licensing cost for VMware SRM is expensive.

I recommend those wanting to use the solution completely understand their own environment since VMware SRM is meant for VMware environment only. You cannot integrate VMware SRM with other non-VMware products. If your requirements are very much restricted to VMware alone, then VMware SRM can be a good choice for managing activities related to disaster recovery. If you have a mixed environment, you need to think and look for other products in the market other than VMware SRM.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

VMware SRM is deployed with some clusters. However, if the customer uses a three-tier architecture or other configurations, SRM might not be applicable. The expectation is not always to achieve 100% coverage. SRM is used for virtual machines with stringent SLAs or critical business applications. SRM is often sold in packs of 25 virtual machines, and deployment and functionality testing are conducted based on customer needs.

The simplicity of VMware SRM is one of its most important features. SRM console is straightforward to manage. It offers simplicity in monitoring, managing, and deploying, making it a unique value proposition. Additionally, Nutanix solutions also provide a simple GUI, which helps in operational efficiency.

The solution's recovery processes are very simple but not intelligent because one can easily monitor the replication progress and how the application is going. There is a workflow defined for doing their testing.

I have been using VMware SRM as a partner for ten years.

VMware SRM is a scalable solution due to its ease of documenting virtual machines. The process is straightforward if a customer already utilises 25 virtual machine licenses and requires more. They can execute the addition of the following 25 licenses. Then, they can enable those licenses and add the corresponding virtual machines to their application jobs.

It depends. We have customers using both twenty-five virtual machines and those with more than one hundred virtual machines. Therefore, the usage of VMware SRM varies from customer to customer, resulting in a mix-and-match environment.

The initial setup is very straightforward, depending on the kind and number of virtual machines.

A customer is expecting 25 virtual machines to deploy from the SDR. So, it should not take more than two days of work. If fine-tuning is required, it may take additional time, depending on the bandwidth. It's dependent on the infrastructure and varies case by case based on the bandwidth capability. Data will replicate faster with higher bandwidth, whereas lower bandwidth will result in longer replication times. Depending on the scenario, with good bandwidth, it could be a matter of only 24 hours.

Furthermore, the primary site's data size and change rate also play significant roles. If there are frequent changes at the primary site, it will naturally take more time. Additionally, the size of the primary data is another crucial aspect to consider.

The challenge is the licensing has changed from physical software to core-based, from perpetual to subscription-based.

The pricing for VMware SRM can vary significantly based on factors such as the customer segment, brand, and specific requirements.

The solution is straightforward to deploy and easy since it provides all the SRM functionality, such as security manager, with a seamless experience. 

We need to simulate for DLP . We need to freeze the application and do audio testing, and if there is an update on our data site, we need to provide feedback.

Specific solutions are pure-play SRM solutions. This solution acts as a recovery manager because the providers understand the workflow, prepare it, and know the dependencies. For instance, they understand the dependencies between virtual machines and applications, databases, ADA DNS, CSV, etc., and document them in the workflow. This documentation ensures the workflow can be executed properly, leading to a minimal Recovery Time Objective. ADR minimize RTO through automation, improving the workflow within SRM and eliminating the need for third-party solutions for security and other aspects.

Once we receive an order, we initiate thorough planning and documentation. We prepare a comprehensive flow-level design and engage with the customers for confirmation. With a clear understanding of the entire expectation cycle, my team can effectively deploy the solution, ensuring seamless integration.

Maintaining VMware SRM involves setting it up correctly and regularly monitoring it for infrastructure changes. Once appropriately configured and monitored, it operates smoothly unless there are changes at the customer site, such as patch deployments or alterations to authentication or access rights. These changes can potentially lead to application failures. Therefore, ongoing vigilance is necessary to ensure the seamless operation of the solution. Bandwidth issues can also affect performance, so addressing such concerns is essential.

I strongly recommend confirming with the new Broadcom team whether their VMware SRM licensing has changed since the acquisition of Broadcom. They've consolidated their SKUs from over a hundred to ten if there have been significant changes in SRM licensing, features, or functionality.

VMware SRM offers simplicity in disaster recovery solutions. However, it's primarily optimized for VMware environments. If a customer prefers a non-VMware-focused solution at their data centre, SRM may face challenges. Converting virtual machines in such cases can be complex and cumbersome. 

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Our initial deployment of VMware's Site Recovery Manager in conjunction with PostgreSQL for automotive sales, and also involved integrating SRM with HP's triple storage systems. It leverages background storage replication to ensure stable and reliable business continuity.

Stability and ease of installation, along with straightforward maintenance through the graphical user interface, make this solution a practical choice. It eliminates the need for complex compliance requirements, making it a highly effective solution.

The primary site lacks adequate equipment, such as power backup and cooling, which can lead to downtime during issues like power outages or overheating.

We have been working with it for six years now.

It is a highly reliable solution.

It's important to note that the scalability of the solution should align with the customer's needs. If they anticipate increased workloads and data, they can easily scale up their storage systems. Site Recovery Manager simplifies this process, as it doesn't necessitate extensive reconfiguration, instead, it involves adding or extending data links in the replication groups, making it a straightforward and manageable process. It is well-suited for mid-sized and small companies that don't have extensive data replication needs. It's a practical choice for businesses in need of a reliable and scalable disaster recovery solution that matches their specific requirements.

VMware offers excellent support for its products, and we haven't encountered any noteworthy issues or negative experiences in our interactions with their support team.

Positive

In addition to our existing setup, we use backup software, Veeam, for replication on the disaster recovery side. With Veeam, we replicate virtual machines from the primary site to the secondary site. It is particularly advantageous because it doesn't require the same storage type on both the primary and secondary sides, which gives us flexibility and allows us to mix and match storage types if needed. One of the key benefits of Veeam is its ease of management, making it a valuable resource for replication. I believe it has a promising future, especially for handling data replication in various sectors. We also employ Veeam in the banking system to replicate data from different strategies across multiple departments. Its performance in replicating virtual machines is superior to SRM. The choice between SRM and Veeam largely depends on your storage environment and replication needs.

The initial setup was easy and straightforward.

The implementation process typically involves setting up VMware, configuring virtual machines, creating storage blocks, and installing the necessary components. For VMware to work seamlessly with the storage, a connector from the storage vendor is installed within the VMware environment, and once this is in place, replication can begin. In cases where there's a substantial amount of data to replicate, and the customer lacks a robust network link between sites, a physical transfer of data is undertaken. This involves physically moving storage devices from the primary site to the DR site, initiating the replication process, and then returning the storage to its original location once replication is completed. The replication process usually takes around two weeks, which is considered suitable for customers with relatively uncomplicated needs. For smaller customers with ten machines or so, replication is organized into groups based on different data sources on the storage system. Implementation requires the involvement of one or two technical experts who are well-versed in the equipment and storage systems. Monitoring the system is primarily the responsibility of the customer, with one or two IT personnel overseeing the process. Email notifications are often set up to keep track of system performance and any issues that may arise.

It is reasonably priced, and its cost hasn't been a significant factor in our implementation. We utilize various licensing options, but we typically purchase licenses upfront, avoiding monthly or yearly payment structures. We often opt for multi-year agreements, and if technical support isn't required, it allows us to maintain the same number of virtual machines and central traffic capacity.

If you're dealing with a more stable and homogeneous storage environment and have technical reasons to favor SAN, then SRM, which is tightly integrated with the storage vendor, may have some advantages. Veeam is a better solution when you have a mix of heterogeneous storage types, multiple sites, and diverse data replication requirements, as it operates independently of the storage application. For larger customers, such as those in the banking sector with diverse storage systems and extensive data replication needs, Veeam might be preferred. While it might have a slightly higher price point compared to SRM, it offers more flexibility and scalability. SRM, on the other hand, is well-suited for smaller customers with simpler storage environments and a smaller number of servers. It's more straightforward to configure and manage in such scenarios. Overall, I would rate VMware SRM ten out of ten.

We use SRM to invoke DR and to move workloads across the DR side.

The thing I like the most about SMR is the reduced cost of management.

VMware SRM lacks certain functions that other platforms have, such as better prioritization of allocation of resources and Boot profiles.

I've been using VMware SRM for a long time, almost ten years.

It's a good and stable product. They do a lot of testing.

I think it's scalable. When you work for big organizations, I don't think that's much of a problem. There are multiple and fairly large clusters. That's one of the ways that we reduce cost because we are building things like sequel clusters. Approximately 5,000 people use SRM at our company.

The technical support is great. VMware staff help with deploying and testing. In terms of building storage clusters, metro clusters, stretch clusters across sites so that, you get all of the benefits of a local cluster, but they're deployed between the lines and the DR side. It's a fantastic technology and VMware provides you with their best people.

Positive

Before VMware SRM, we were using Veritas Volume Manager and Veritas Replication Manager for stand-alone. When we went to virtualize, we moved to SRM. I did a lot of work with IBM PowerVM and it had some nice features. It had things such as better prioritization of allocation of resources and Boot profiles where you could put one VM across another so that it grabbed the resources. You could do things such as have thin DR VMs without much allocation of CPU or memory, and then as you boot them, they start to grab all of that automatically from all of the non-prod. Functions like that were quite good in Power VM, which aren't quite as present in the VMware world. PowerVM is extremely expensive to use and that's why everyone is shifting towards commodity computers.

I'm an architect so I did not install SRM myself, but I think there were no issues with installing it since it's a pretty standard tool nowadays. It does not require much maintenance. We are still running some old versions of VMware as there was a challenge around Oracle licensing. We are moving the Oracle workloads off of it now and addressing the architecture to get rid of the copies of the legacy versions of VMware. 

SRM is quite pricey and the license is renewed annually. I think that they do a lot of ULAs, the universal license agreements, where you pay a set amount and get unlimited usage. That's how it usually goes with big companies. Occasionally, they do true-ups to work out how much you've got and whether ULA pricing is appropriate. It might be too expensive for smaller organizations.

I would advise new users to start off with manual processes and document exactly what they want to come up with in the right order. Get your IT continuity plan defined very closely and with a great amount of detail. Then start to automate with your SRM tooling to make sure that things are brought up in the right order and ensure that if one service fails and you need to bring another one across for latency purposes, you really understand all of those requirements before you start to just implement SRM and marching on without really understanding how the services tie together and the dependencies between them.

Overall, I would rate SRM an eight out of ten.

In this scenario of disaster recovery, we start simply with our VMs. We have just two packs of 25 VMs. We just protect just about 15 VMs.

Thanks to SRM, we haven't had any kind of disaster in our environment.

The disaster recovery has been good. 

In the case of a disaster, the product is very simple. We have security and lower downtime. 

It's very reliable. The solution is stable. 

Its design is good and it does what it is intended to do. 

We are limited to 50 VMs.

The main limitation is the fact we can just activate the product in a disaster scenario. Sometimes we need to activate some VMs in the backup or disaster recovery sites, even if our main site is okay. However, in our current environment, we cannot do this due to the limitations of SRM.

The back sites sometimes are very, very complicated. It is the nature of the product. Sometimes we use vMotion to achieve this kind of objective.

We've used the solution for four years. 

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The soluton is scalable. We are doing preparing our environment to be active site-to-site - both the production site and secondary site.

We have 900 people in total on the solution. 

We're in the process of changing things now. 

Technical support is good. We've been very pleased with the responsiveness and helpfulness. 

Positive

We've only used SRM. We did not use anything previously.

More or less, due to the product itself, it's relatively easy to set up. However, in our environment, we have a VM, and that VM application is very complicated. Sometimes we have some issues in running this application on the backup site. This is not due to this SRM. Rather, it is due to our environment.

The deployment took about two years. 

We have a team of four people that can handle deployment and maintenance duties. They are all specialists. 

Sometimes we talk to the local reseller of VM products. We also consult with the vendor of the hardware product. In Brazil, for the government, we have a procurement process. It is not personal. We can just publish our request for a quotation. Any local reseller or national reseller can offer their services.

We've never calculated ROI. 

We pay 400,000 Brazilian Reals for the license. There are no other fees associated with the product.

Most of our VMs are VMware. However, we are changing some VM products, and maybe we will use something else. We are just evaluating at this time. We haven't really seriously evaluated anything. We just update our existing license to support and update.

We are just a customer. 

I'm not sure which version of the product we're using. However, we are updating right now, in the next month. 

Right now, our environment is on-prem. We want to install the hyper-converged to start moving to the cloud.

I'd advise others to maintain the solution and keep it up to date. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

My clients use the product for disaster recovery planning. 

The solution helps to improve business continuity processes. Its automatic failover and failback policies have been wonderful. 

VMware SRM needs to improve its pricing. 

I have been using the product for one to two years. 

I rate the tool's stability a six out of ten. We encountered a couple of issues with certification. 

I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. 

I rate the tool's ease of deployment an eight out of ten. It takes a few hours to deploy. 

We achieved ROI in time when using the product. 

I rate the tool's pricing an eight to nine out of ten. 

Our clients are enterprise customers. I would recommend the products to others. Its scalability, its stability, syncing capabilities, and security features make it valuable. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

In my company, we use VMware SRM for synchronous replication.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that vMotion is possible in VMware SRM, making it a great tool, especially when doing a DR drill. Synchronous replication and asynchronous replication are also some of the good features of the solution.

The weakness in VMware SRM is visible when, in our company, we try to do some cross-platform programming. For cross-platform programming, we might need some external tools, like Veeam or Commvault, for cross-hypervisor replication. It is not so easy to integrate it with other solutions. The aforementioned details can be considered for improvement of the solution.

The technical support is not quick enough to respond when a user tries to contact them. For improvement, the support should respond quickly to a user.

Cross-hypervisor restoration support or multi-platform support would be some of the best traditional features I would like to see in VMware SRM's future releases.

I have been using VMware SRM for two to three years. My organization functions as a cloud service provider. My company uses the product as well as recommends the product to the company's customers.

It is a very stable solution.

We haven't found any issues with VMware SRM's scalability.

In my company, most of the machines have been replicated through VMware SRM, which consists of very few and not many in numbers. We also use Veeam as a backup for external storage, making VMware SRM a handy tool for our company.

One or two administrators are enough to handle the solution.

Speaking about the product's future usage, our company doesn't have much of a requirement for VMware SRM because we majorly need it only for testing purposes. For our company, VMware SRM is not an important tool. Our company recommends VMware SRM to our customers since VMware has been putting out all these features, making its product better.

The solution's technical support is not bad since they are responsive. My company successfully resolved most issues we faced while working with the product. My company had raised only one or two issues with VMware, and they had successfully resolved our issues.

I rate the technical support a seven to eight out of ten.

Neutral

In our company, we use Nutanix Leap, which is similar to VMware SRM.

VMware SRM is available to users as a separate package from VMware, while Leap comes with Nutanix allowing users to use it anytime. In terms of utility, Nutanix Leap and VMware SRM are the same.

I was involved in VMware SRM's deployment phase two years ago, and it was an easy process.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

The setup phase of VMware SRM can be done within a day, and then the planning and all policies that need to be set up would take four to five days or even a week.

VMware SRM is expensive when compared to Veeam and makes Veeam look cheaper. For support, some additional payments need to be made over the licensing costs of the solution. Even with Veeam, additional payments must be made over the licensing costs.

VMware SRM is a handy solution since it does what it is told to do by its user while staying stable.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is for disaster recovery. We use the solution for two different sites, as well as our virtual machine backup. In a situation where one of our data centers goes down, our servers can go up on the other site.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the automatic recovery of the virtual machine if it goes down. In the event the VM goes down, we can either power it up automatically or manually depending on how we have the solution configured. When configured to power up automatically, the copy in the VM will power up.

The solution currently has a five-minute RPO, meaning if the VM goes down we can lose up to five minutes of data which is a big deal when it relates to database replication. The solution can be improved by reducing the RPO time to zero.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We only need to add a host whenever we want to expand our cluster.

The initial setup is straightforward and user-friendly. Depending if everything in the network layer is okay, we can configure VMware SRM for both sites in less than an hour or less. The replication process will depend on the size of the VM, so if the VM is large enough, the replication process will take some time. However, the configuration of SRM is straightforward.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We have a standard enterprise license for the solution.

The cost may be based on the number of simultaneous replication which is the limitation of the standard.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

The deployment and maintenance can be done by one engineer.

I am the consultant solution architect, and sometimes I am the deployment engineer.

I seldom ask for support from VMware because most of the problems are caused by bugs, which we can usually fix ourselves by consulting the knowledge base on the VMware website. However, there are times when the problem is at the hardware level and VMware is not at fault - for example when there is a bug in the VMware version used by the hardware vendor. In these cases, we need to ask for support from the hardware vendor.

VMware SRM is a great solution. I always recommend the solution because it is a native replication solution for VMware. Although there are other solutions such as Zerto, they may deliver a lower RPO in certain cases. I believe Zerto is a better solution than VMware SRM, but when it comes to functionality, and for regular customers, VMware SRM is enough.

We use this solution to run our applications and our server functions.

We find the back up feature of this solution to be particularly valuable.

We would like the patching management function of this product to be improved.

We have been using this solution for around 10 years.

We have found this solution to be very stable so far.

We have found that the technical support team are not always competent enough to help with our issues, and often have to escalate them.

Neutral

We found that the initial setup for this product was quite easy.

We implemented this solution using a third-party team.

The level of licensing required for this solution is dependent on the server instances in use.

I would advise organizations who wish to use this solution, to ensure that their threat protection software is in place and up to date, as there isn't any threat protection embedded in this product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.