VMware Live Recovery Reviews

We are in technology and services but we also do enterprise architecture and strategic planning. We always work on the customer side, but we work very closely together with key partners and key vendors in the industry. This includes VMware, but other vendors as well. We realize solutions on the customer's behalf and we are also always solution-oriented and committed to delivering what the client needs. That is why we work intensively and closely with vendors like VMware.  

With VMware SRM, we had a technical account manager before coming on with them and level three support all on standby just in case we were to encounter issues. We just happened to encounter a lot of issues.  

We integrated the product at the same time partly because of discovery and partly because we want to stay vendor agnostic. We work with whatever the client has if it is a viable product. One might be using Hyper-V and another one might be using KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) or Xen Project or AHV (Acropolis HyperVisor). We treat them equally to do what they need and also work with other parties, like Red Hat or Nutanix or whatever other solutions are necessary. Of course, we take our experiences from every client and every project with us on to the next opportunity.  

What I like the most about SRM is the delta sync. We typically approach a project from an architecture perspective and we do service grouping. For example, take a situation where we plan to do a migration. We decide to go with a setup where there is a front-end portal server, there are duplication servers and there is one back-end database server. This means there are four separate VMs each representing one particular service. To get the services across, we have to wait until we have the full image replication complete. By the time we kick it off, the replication has already begun to trickle in. You can parameterize a little bit. When you really want to do the migration — probably during a service outage on the weekends as it is for production — the majority of the data is already migrated to the other side. That helps a lot because you do not need to have a tremendous service outage with this model compared to doing it in a more traditional way.  

Of course, VMware SRM not the only solution that is capable of doing this anymore. But if you have a heterogeneous environment — environments are not equal on both sides — this solution can be an advantage. In our situation, we had completely different technical specs and technology foundations at the source and target. In this case, the product is really is an enabler on the condition that you have the same hypervisor on the other side.  

I would say a lot could be changed to improve the product in terms of troubleshooting and supportability. I think about every two weeks, we had an incident somewhere in the software stack. There were problems that we faced with the vRA (vRealize Automation) multiple times. We had to fix the problem and redeploy it more than once to get it to work properly. Then we had to completely redo our replication. That is a big drawback because it means we had to cancel other plans that had already been scheduled.  

To summarize it briefly: users need a lot of enhancement to the quality and functionality of the software for it to be very useful.  

For support of VMware version 3, a more recent patch needs to be released. There were a few times that fixes were released but we have already upgraded to those latest levels and the known compatibility problems are not fixed.  

The replication advantage the product has does not work for all VMs. For example, if you have a large difference in change frequency within a VM and the VM is big — in one case our VM was 42 terabytes — the data just does not get across in the migration. So the product is really not able to handle either very big VMs or a very large change frequency. I remember we tried it with one Data Mart SQL database where we do continuous ETLs (Extract, Transform and Load). The data reloads on a daily basis. The replication takes too long to complete. The next afternoon after the migration started, we were more or less at 50%. By the evening, we were at 70%. We scratched the data reloaded and started all over again. We found no means to accelerate that. By the time you appear to be progressing, you have to redo the migration. So that is another disadvantage when trying to use SRM.  

There are a lot of minor things that need to be in place on both sides of the migration to make it work. If something goes wrong in the middle of the migration, you will have a tough time trying to troubleshoot it. The product has an insufficient method of logging, an insufficient level of operability, and an insufficient level of detailed technical tracing. This lack of information makes it so you can not immediately pinpoint the issues to troubleshoot them. It cost us multiple weekends of lost time while trying to troubleshoot because we do not get this information from the product.  

But the things I would like to see for sure in a new release are:  

• Fix all minor connectivity issues with auto-recovery.  
• Auto-diagnose, auto-identify, and auto-correct issues as they occur and at least try to fix the issues a few times before allowing it to fail. If the fix is not successful then at least inform users that the fix attempt was made and the particular area where the issue is suspected so that users do not lose hours to troubleshooting.  
  
• Open up the solution to be more environmentally agnostic. It should not be so strongly integrated with vCenter. It should be loosely coupled with vCenter and allow other solutions.  
• Make the product more robust and much faster. Many replications we have initiated took two weeks before going to the switchover. A lot happens in two weeks. It seems like an eternity when you have no idea why replications stalled over that long of a period of time.  
  

I was using this between 2018 and 2019. I have been using it total for a year-and-a-half.  

The solution is not stable enough. If there are glitches in the process, it is not auto recovering from the issue. It is not even attempting to bring back a steady operational state. So stability is not sufficiently addressed.  

The product promises to be scalable. You can add multiple vRA's — as many as you want per what you want to do. But then again, you are bound by physical constraints. For example, if you want to have multiple vRA's with multiple targets, that does not work. They have to all be directed towards one individual target. It could be multiple data stores, but it still has to be directed to the same target.  

In one case, we wanted to extend to an additional target, so we initiated two targets. Of course, the targets had two different configurations, two different data stores, and so on. That will not work. So that is where scalability ends.  

We had to do a complete reconfiguration with new targets. Then push everything over to a new target, then destroy it again, and bring it back to the first. We have done that on a few occasions, back and forth, and it is quite a cumbersome process. It should not be the case.  

Again this particular case was kind of an advanced setup. But we also have tried some multiple vRA's with just one target. But even there we have encountered synchronization issues because they need to keep in sync, and it may not happen.  

Internal software synchronization issues amongst the vRA's paralyze the replications. There are some bugs in this functionality as well. We tried to patch them up using fixes provided from the VMware lab. Eventually, we ended up on version 6.5.1. Later on, those patches disappeared, apparently because VMware understood the patches did not fix the problems — or maybe created more.  

Because of all these issues, we are no longer using the product for the moment. This is because of all the problems and the fact that there is an ongoing license cost as well. I think at the peak we had 10 users. These were admins and engineers. I was using the product as a solutions design architect. But right now I would never use it unless it is for disaster recovery or rehearsal or something like that.  

The advice that I would give to other people who are looking into implementing this solution is that every software product comes with flaws. Products can evolve very rapidly. I think in our case that it was quite a good learning experience. It was a good learning experience for VMware as well — as they acknowledged. They said they would work on improvements in the various areas I brought up to them, and I liked that they will be making the effort.  

But if considering this product, I would also look at other compelling products, like Zerto, for example, or other replication tools like the Sun virtual platform. You could look at the ease-of-use of Nutanix. Their process for replication is very different compared to what SRM offers. But the ease-of-use comes with constraints. You do not always have the choice to have equal foundations for both source and target. Then there are backup solutions like Rubrik and Veeam. There are certainly alternatives out there that are categorically different product types with other ways to accomplish similar things. But a lot of what is potentially a viable choice depends on the use case.  

My recommendation would be to prepare carefully. Mimic your own live environment in testing as close as possible to the existing architecture with the vendor. Let the vendor prove that they are value-added resellers. Make sure you have tested in a representative set up at their facilities and can achieve what you are trying to achieve before going on to attempt to deploy and use it in your own environment.  

I do not think SRM is fully ready yet for a hybrid context where the workload is working across multiple clouds and on-premises. It is an evolving product.  

In a simple situation, the setup is a piece of cake. However, as soon as you start to work across various deployments based on various levels, the setup is much more cumbersome and much more complex. You need to deal with the interoperability issues like checking the vCenter on the left side and the vCenter on the right side, what is the ESX (Elastic Sky X) level, et cetera. You may need to downgrade your expectations accordingly, to make it still work.  

Also, if you have network routing in between two completely different, distinct environments, that can give you quite a lot of headaches as well. To give you an idea: in the initial setup of one migration, we could just not connect both VMs end-to-end. The site manager would not connect. The vRA's were connecting, but the site manager was not. It turned out to be a network routing issue. In actuality, the "issue" was not an issue. The routing was just was working like it should, following the default gateway. It just could never connect to the other site manager.  

At times you really need to go back down to the very basics yourself, and even then there may be no clarity about why it will not connect. It follows the route, the stage-gate goes through, and the connection does not happen.  

Then also the checkpoint restart is a problem. There is no checkpoint restart. What I mean by that is you can have eight VMs to migrate over a coming weekend and something goes wrong after the process is initiated, or somebody made a mistake in the service grouping. When you see this problem, you think you just need to remap, recalibrate, and then relaunch it. But there is no history track of what is already replicated. The service grouping does not reflect in that result. You need to start all over again. So there is no checkpoint for the restart. There is a checkpoint for an individual VM, but not for multiple VMs.  

As far as the time it takes to deploy, that will vary. We have had different levels of complexity in our deployments. We initially had a simple setup that was done in two days, but there were no different networks involved, no different vCenters, and also it was intra-cluster. When done like this it was very easy.  

It was a completely different story for the more complex setups. I think it took us about six weeks with a lot of effort. There was a lot of alignment, a lot of verification, a lot of troubleshooting, and a lot of diagnostics to get it working end-to-end on both sides. It was really too much time to take with that kind of project.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate VMware SRM as about a five. I am not open to giving a positive recommendation as the product stands. It is a little generous to give it a five considering all the issues.  

This review focuses a lot on the weaknesses of the product. But we were actually able to use the solution to get quite a lot of server images successfully, especially if the servers were relatively small, like a parasitic thermal server or an ordinary file server. That type of project went fine. So, if your use case is entry-level, beginning, and maybe intermediate, I think you will be fine using the product. But even if you do not have a lot of complexity and you try to work with this in a really big enterprise and a multi-region, multi-datacenter environment, you will have a lot of challenges ahead for sure.  

We have used it as a migration tool in support of a big transformation. I would think twice before using it for continuity on a permanent basis. I might think three times before more enhancements to the product are made successfully to enhance the utility.  

Our primary use is for our client. It's a system integrator frame. I have clients for whom we manage their data centers. Or, we do their integration and implementation. Basically, we use it to replicate their virtual machines, their user site, and their company site, and maybe to configure it and schedule their recovery. We use it for doing recovery tests from time to time, quarterly or yearly, for some of our clients. To test for a situation whereby a danger or a disaster could be affecting their data that is being replicated. This is good to do. Periodically, we run those tests and recover those virtual machines, and they try to work from their recovery sites to ascertain that everything is okay.

What I like about VMware is its capability to schedule, write and configure the recovery and scheduled steps, such that you don't have to come in and start manually trying to recover the entire machine. You just push a button to recover the VMware and everything is done.

What I think can be improved is the data replication aspect. For example, I know of another repetition solution called RP for VM. I don't really know how to use it since I've never used it before, but I've read about it. I know its features and I've spoken to some IT practitioners who have experience with RP for VM, who work with Dell EMC, and they gave me the feeling that RP for VM is better than VMware replication technology. The argument is that RP for VM has the ability to get your application going even when there is a loss of connectivity. Whereas in VMware you have to have something like 50% connectivity for the configuration. So in that respect, RP for VM has that feature which makes it better than VMware solutions. I guess VMware should make sure they are on top of their virtualization and data replication solution, more than every other company.

Overall, I can't point to any other thing, apart from whatever feature makes some people think artificial DNE is better than the replication application and SRM. If they can just take care of that then I don't think there's anything else.

I have been using VMware SRM for close to 6 years now.

I would say that it's stable. I think everything depends on how you design and manage your environment. For example, when it comes to data replication on the disaster recovery side, part of the challenge that most of our clients have is the link between the production site and the APR site. Sometimes the link will be having challenges and data replication won't work for a few minutes, or something like that. But I don't really think it's an issue with the VMware solution. So, I don't really have challenges with it. If you properly take care of your environment the virtual machines will not have issues. In your scenario, maybe you didn't configure your cluster very well, or your GRS is not working properly, or some virtual machines are not giving results - then most likely you are going to have challenges.

I have not scaled it before so I am not able to give feedback on that.

The environments we have deployed it on are enterprise environments, like the fashion wear industry, dotcom companies, and some other companies also.

The only time we've contacted VMware support was in a case where we had some virtual machines mistakenly deleted and they needed someone who was very experienced in VMware virtualization, someone who understood working from the command line in the process. They needed to do some troubleshooting from the command line. I was very new to VMware virtualization solutions at that point, so I had to contact support. But anyway, that was a long time ago, about 4 -5 years back, and I have not been in contact with them at support.

The initial setup is not that difficult. I would not say it's difficult because you just experience it when deploying some VMware solutions, especially a replication plan. The first time it's not always easy. But once you get the hang of it and get it right the first time, then you don't really have issues. Such as, do you need to go there and provide a key? I wouldn't say it's that difficult - it's not so straightforward but it's not that difficult. It's not complex for me.

I've done the deployment for different clients. So I would say the first time was not easy. But, for me to do it right now wouldn't take time.

My advice to people considering this solution is that they should just go ahead and get it. I think that is the best virtualization solution out there. Some people say Nutanix is better. I think VMware is the best. 

I would also advise making sure your virtual environment is well taken care of. I don't think there are any other challenges that you're going to have. It's necessary that when you see it side by side, to have an operations manager help you find problematic areas and possible issues you are going to encounter in the future.

On a scale of 1 - 10, I give it a 9.

We have three different VMs. During long business hours, we can shift from PR to DR. It has high availability.

Setting up VMs can be done quickly. It is easy to use. 

The improvements should be as per customer requirements. 

I have experience with VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery.

The stability of the solution is a nine out of ten, as it is highly stable. 

Two hundred users are using the solution at present. 

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. 

Overall, I rate the solution an eight 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.

SRM's best feature is automation.

An improvement for SRM would be better interface compatibility with other products.

I've been using VMware SRM for ten years.

I've never faced any issues with SRM's stability.

SRM is reasonably priced for the functionality it provides.

I'd rate SRM as eight out of ten.

It's user-friendly, for those who have learned and experienced the technology.

VMware is one of the best products in the industry when it comes to virtualization.

Technical support needs improvement, they are not very responsive.

You should be technically skilled enough so that you don't have to rely on its support. It's not easy when you don't get the support that you would expect to receive from VMware.

I have been working with this solution for more than five years.

VMware SRM is a stable solution. It's very reliable.

VMware SRM is a scalable solution.

We have always had trouble reaching out to support and connecting with their support engineers.

I would rate the technical support a three out of five.

Neutral

In terms of VMware, we use a variety of solutions, such as VMware vSAN, VxRail, Center, and SRM.

I would rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten.

SRM is implemented as part of VMware.

We use it for failover between geographical locations from one location to another location. Sometimes for maintenance purposes, we can failover services to another location so that we can maintain the technology at another location.

The solution works well. If you want to do failover, it works without any problem.

The product is stable.

The deployment process is fast.

The challenge it has is with the speed of failing over. Sometimes it can cause a bit of downtime during switchovers. Sometimes you realize that when you are failing over you can have downtime due to the fact that you're stepping down on one side and powering up on another side.

We've used the solution since 2012. It's been almost ten years.

The stability is great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The scalability is just a function. Whether you can scale or not depends on your resources. It depends on your bandwidth. The scalability will depend on the infrastructure it is using.

We have three people who work with the solution directly.

The deployment doesn't take long. It also takes just a couple of hours as long as you have prepared and long as you have a design.

For the implementation process, we needed three people, however, for implementation, we need a trained engineer. Just one engineer is fine.

If you have trained people who are certified, you can do it yourself. The most important thing is to make sure that it is done by a trained engineer.

We do have to pay a licensing fee in order to use the solution. We have an annual subscription. 

I don't remember the version of SRM that we're using now.

I'd recommend the solution to others.

I would rate it at an eight out of ten.

VMware SRM is used for disaster recovery automation.

VMware SRM is a very nice tool for disaster recovery for virtual environments.

The solution could improve by removing some of the limitations we have been facing. There could be better integrated.

I have been using VMware SRM for approximately 10 years.

The solution is stable.

VMware SRM is scalable.

We have approximately 25 people using this solution in my company.

The support could be improved, they are slow.

The installation is of a moderate difficulty level. The time it takes to implement depends on what vendor you are integrating it with, such as HP. The typical duration of implementation including the configuration is approximately five days.

We have one engineer for the maintenance and support of VMware SRM.

There is an annual license to use this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten.