VMware Live Recovery Reviews

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. 

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.

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.

Our primary use case of this solution is for testing. 

The UI is very user-friendly and testing is easy, it doesn't require a lot of resources or a SAN team to enable testing, a single person can do it and get results. 

Unfortunately, SRM is not stable and it therefore requires continuous monitoring. If there are any issues associated with the Center, SRM doesn't work well and as a result, it generates a lot of tickets and productivity drops. 

I've been using this solution for five years.

Although this solution is a good tool, it lacks stability. We have five users in our team. 

The overall advantage of VMware is its scalability. But when it comes to SRM, scalability is not really relevant. It's only relevant in terms of the DR solution because SRM is a component of VMware, which requires vCenter. 

The technical support is quite good. 

Setup of SRM required the architectural team. The SAN team plays a very important role here because there's not enough stability. The DR test can fail because of the associated orchestration issues with regard to the SAN.

I've never used Zerto, but from my training and my personal analysis, I think it's better than SRM. 

I rate this product six out of 10.