VMware Live Recovery Reviews

I have mostly worked with VMware SRM, which is a solution tightly integrated with the product.

The most valuable feature of VMware SRM is its integration with the VMware platform.

VMware SRM's platform agnostics should support on-cloud usage as well. VMware SRM has to add a couple of features related to the cloud.

I have been using VMware SRM for five to six years.

VMware SRM is currently a very stable solution, but we came across many issues three to four years back.

I rate VMware SRM a nine out of ten for stability.

VMware SRM is a scalable solution. Our clients are generally enterprise businesses.

I rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten for scalability.

VMware SRM's technical support is very good.

We also used to have Datto and Carbonite for DR.

I rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten for the ease of its initial setup.

The solution's deployment took a few days.

VMware SRM is a little bit pricey. On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate VMware SRM's pricing a seven out of ten.

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

The interface of VMware SRM is quite basic and doesn't offer much in terms of features. The solution is strong when it comes to protection and analytics, with the latter being added later on. Protection has been the major feature that we have been using, and it has been quite effective for our needs.

The two main areas for improvement in VMware SRM are pricing and administration guides. Pricing is always a consideration, and it could be improved. The administration guides can be complicated and difficult to use, so it would be helpful if it was made easier. Administrators don't want to find themselves in a situation where they can't find what they need, so it's important to make sure that the tools are easy to use.

I have been using VMware SRM for six to seven years, which is also the longest experience I have had with any VMware product. Our company recommended it to one of our customers initially, and after that, we had complete freedom to implement it for them. It was a good experience overall. Additionally, my company has a partnership with VMware.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The scalability of VMware SRM is good. Scalability for Azure and AWS is also good. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

My company deals with enterprise-sized customers.

VMware's vendor support was good. I rate VMware's technical support an eight or nine out of ten. To be more specific, I rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

I rate the initial setup process of the solution a seven or eight out of ten on a scale where one is difficult, and ten is easy. The setup process was not too difficult or too easy. Essentially, we were imaging all their physical servers on the cloud.

In our company, the deployment process takes about an hour. In some cases, due to the size of the data we were dealing with, it took a couple of days, which was the maximum, but usually, it was completed within a few hours.

I rate the solution's pricing a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive.

l always recommend others to have a POC in place. It's always about whether a solution suits your environment or not. So if it does, then go for it. If it doesn't, one should go for another solution. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for VMware SRM is automatization.

The features I have found most valuable are the ability to script test failover and the ability to re-IP.

In my opinion, the integration with Peer Persistent Storage could be improved.

I have been using this solution for about five years.

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

As a vendor, I did not have contact with technical support.

My impression is that the initial setup process is relatively straightforward.

The deployment model of this solution that we are using is on-premises.

If you are buying this solution in an EOA bundle, then the pricing doesn't really matter that much. However, if you're buying a one-off license, the solution is pretty expensive.

I would rate pricing a three, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

Overall, I would rate this solution a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

We use SRM to replicate our important servers to our VR site. We are customers of VMware and I'm a junior manager. 

The replication part of SRM is really good. We once had our production site collapse completely and we were able to recover all the data. The restore level of the application is very good. 

The solution is on the expensive side. 

I've been using this solution for four years. 

We've found the solution to be stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

We used the documentation for our initial setup and had some difficulties. The deployment was carried out in-house and took a day or two. We had some help from colleagues in other companies and had a couple of people from our company involved in the deployment. 

We initially took out a five-year contract and recently extended it for another 12 months. It's quite an expensive solution. 

I think this is a good tool that's easy to manage and worth the cost, so I rate it nine out of 10. 

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.

It was working very well with VMware since it's a VMware product. We didn't have any issues. It was quite smooth when doing drills, when we were trying to recover VMs from other sites.

There's an option where you can test VM, when you can test the drill. That option was very valuable.

It's easy to set up. 

The solution is scalable. 

It is stable. 

Technical support can take some time to respond. We'd like a faster response. 

In the previous year, we were using SRM, and then we shifted to another software called CR2. We're replacing SRM. However, we used SRM for a few years. It's been about four years. 

The solution is stable. Its performance is reliable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product can scale well. It's not an issue. 

We have three or four people on the solution right now.  They are mostly infrastructure engineers. 

We don't have plans to increase usage. 

Support is good, although we would like them to be faster. 

Positive

We had a simple vertical setup. We have VMware engineers at our disposal, and their expertise made it easy.

The deployment took one to two days. It was not complicated. We only needed one or two people to handle the deployment and maintenance tasks. They are engineers and junior staff. 

We pay a yearly licensing fee. 

We have some nodes which are still running VMware. We currently do have some nodes still running VMware like ESXi 7.0, however, not for production. It's right for testing purposes.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

I'd recommend the solution as it is very stable and does the job. 

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. 

I mainly use VMware SRM for automation, creation of VMs, and monitoring.

VMware SRM's most valuable features are its convenience and its use of stretched clusters.

SRM has to be installed on two separate data centers, so both have to be coordinated very well, which becomes complicated when configuring the software for disaster recovery. It would be much simpler if there was just one centralized, cloud-based place to manage both sites.  

I've been using VMware SRM for five years.

VMware SRM is stable.

VMware SRM is quite scalable.

The initial setup is complex and took almost a week to deploy. I would rate the installation experience as two-and-a-half out of five.

We used an in-house team.

VMware SRM is quite expensive.

If you're able to overcome the initial hump of setting up VMware SRM, it works very well. I'd give VMware SRM a rating of seven out of ten.

We are using this solution to serve our customers in different sectors.

We are using VMware SRM as a disaster recovery solution for our customers. We are working with vSphere, vSAN, and other infrastructure VMware solutions. VMware SRM is completing the solution.

VMware SRM is very effective between two sites with identical twin storage, you can have synchronization between the two sites. 

We have had an issue when some customers have traditional designs and sites. For example, on one another site, they are using hyper-converged, using VMware, or Nutanix. We have a problem with the synchronization between the storage for site to site. This is the main issue. We are adding some other tools to support the synchronization to allow the movement of the workload from site to site easily.

Not all customers have VMware in all workloads. Some customers have a difference, VMware environments, such as Red Hat or Nutanix. VMware SRM is very effective for VMware customers. However, when you have other workflows with other vendors, you can not always use this solution.

I have been using VMware SRM for approximately 12 years.

VMware SRM we mainly use for our mid-size business customers. For small business-sized customers, we have different solutions we can deliver, such as Veeam. If they are a small customer that does not have a professional DR site we have a variety of solutions we can deliver depending on the customer's needs.

Enterprise businesses have many VM and the amount depends on the design of the data centers, which storage is being used, or is it hyper-converged or converged. We are choosing the best solution depending on the customer's need.

When comparing the difference between VMware SRM and Dell EMC RecoverPoint there are many differences between them both. VMware SRM is an automated tool for disaster recovery, RecoverPoint can do a similar job but it has better protection more than an automated tool for moving VMs. 

With our customers, we are delivering both solutions, Recovery Point and SRM, because they already had the Dell EMC storage and owned Dell Recovery Point, we only added the VMware SRM tool for moving the VMs and storing them from site to site, as an automated tool.

Dell RecoverPoint has the edge over VMware SRM in one area because they can work with other vendors, not only Dell EMC. Some customers have workloads on the cloud, Dell RecoverPoint is very effective for them.

I have used Veeam and other solutions.

The price of VMware SRM depends on how many VMs the customer has to move. There is a difference between the standard and enterprise license. I'm presenting the standard license to my customers because the total of VMs is not more than 50. The customer needs only the standard license and the cost is very effective for him.

I rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten.

We use the solution primarily for off-site disaster recovery. A site act as the headquarters, and there is also DR site. This means that we move application data from primary to secondary sites for storage level replication purposes. We also back up our virtual machines and their applications to the DR site. Essentially, we do disaster recovery from the primary site to the DR sites.

Before using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, we were running on a batch storage solution backup, which was conducted by one of my team members. However, prior to carrying out the copying, he backed up the application to local storage before copying it to the tape drive. This means that the storage controller must be up before copying was made to the tape drive, which clearly precluded the possibility of us restoring the backup. There was nothing we could do when this happened. Now, subsequent to the installation and implementation of the VMware Cloud Solution, there is no need for us to rely solely on a single storage controller. This makes things easy for us once the storage level application replicates our data to the DR site. This means that even if the entire primary site goes down, we can still fall back on the data and the application that is available on the DR site. This allows us to consistently maintain the state of our application and business data.

We feel the ability to move virtual machines while they are still running to be the most valuable feature. Consequently, the application can be migrated from one host to another in respects of virtual machines without the user taking notice.

The automation should be simplified or improved. Usually throughout the day, during peak periods, one or another task cannot be carried out. Moreover, if one wishes to move large data, the user's application response may be affected. So, it would be best if such tasks can be automated to allow such tasks to be undertaken not during peak periods. As a consequence, this would lessen the impact to the underlying resources. 

I would also like to see interoperability between various virtualization and cloud solutions. It would be nice to be able to move my VM from Windows or Hyper-V to VMware and from this to Citrix. The adding of these features would be awesome.

I have been using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery since 2012. 

The solution is very stable. We have hardly had any issues with it. VMware is perfectly stable, except there is a problem with the underlying hardware infrastructure. 

The solution is very scalable. While using it we upgraded from 5.0 to 5.5, from this to 6.0, and from 6.0 to 6.7. As part of this process we also upgrade the underlying hardware. We are able to migrate our data with ease.

I found the support to be excellent. I am in Nigeria and, at the time, so we got the procurement through HPE Nigeria.
We benefit from VR support with HP, in addition to our support license which, too, is covered.

Before going with VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery we used Windows Backup, solely for backing up the page. 

I found the initial setup to be okay. It doesn't require much to accomplish, as it is not very complex. Its installation and commencement are very easy.

The solution took less than a month, perhaps no more than two weeks, for us to deploy.

Yes, the solution was implemented through a vendor. Their customer support and service were excellent.

I feel the solution has given us a very good return on investment since having implemented it in 2012. At the time, I believe we implemented the 5.0 or 5.5. The solution has supported our business over the years and generated tens of millions of dollars in revenues. 

I would say VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery is very expensive in comparison with other available virtualization solutions.

We did evaluate other solutions before settling on VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery. We are talking about a global company that has a presence in Nigeria and other countries, where the clients were already implementing such solutions in the business units of these countries. As a consequence, we simply adopted the use of VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery. At the time we did contemplate alternatives.

The solution is mostly on-premises and private cloud.

There are as many as 100 users in our organization that are using the applications running on VMware.

I rate VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery as at least a nine out of ten.

The advice I would give to others who are considering implementing the solution is that they should do proper planning and make sure their needs are met. Someone who does not have the benefit of experts or support personnel may consider engaging an experienced consultant. This would minimize mistakes.