VMware Live Recovery Reviews

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 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. 

We have implemented SRM to replicate around the 800 virtual machines to the data recovery files. Due to the fact that we implemented to data centers as well as the primary and secondary data center, we use SRM to replicate around most of the virtual machines in order to be the secondary site.

If you can plan and create a recovery plan correctly, it will do and replicate virtual machines and when a disaster occurs, you can easily replicate off the secondary site. If you create a proper primary recovery plan, you have good protection.

The most important features that we're using are the replication of VMs as well as the integration with the EMC recovery platform. The replication solutions to replicate the LAN and data storage to the secondary external storage.

The solution is quite stable. We haven't had an issue with the performance.

The solution is very flexible. 

VMware introduced the two next versions of the solution. They are SRM 6.5 and 6.7. I don't have any experience with these two products. However, if I was to talk about version 6, which we are using, at that time we faced a problem specifically when we create recovery plans. After the creation of the recovery plan, sometimes an issue happened in the GUI, in the Center. I'm not sure if that has since been resolved.

We've faced issues with the licensing. If you don't choose a specific license, you can only cover around five or ten virtual machines.

The biggest issue for us is that this product does not have any demo for customers. They should offer demos so that clients can try it out before they commit to buying a license.

At this point, I have been using the solution for about two or three years.

The stability of the solution is very good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable.

In terms of scalability, you can integrate the POC and you can distribute SRM on three sites. At our project, we use VPLEX architecture to distribute storage between two data centers and therefore we could publish an important file related to SRM virtual machines and the active LANs, which is distributed between two data centers. In terms of scalability and holding of data storage, we can put a doc online whenever we need to.

Our team has around six members for virtual support and maintenance of the VMware infrastructure. In terms of the customers that are related to using the VMware services, there are around 800 people.

Due to the sanctions in my country, in Iran, we can not use direct support from VMware and there is not a partner in my country. Therefore, we need to study, we need to design, we need to support everything directly and focus on providing maintenance service to our customers ourselves.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not too complex. 

Deployments can typically take two months.

In the first month, I dedicate focus on learning and conducting POC sessions. For around two or three weeks, I also spend some time implementing SRM at the site.

I am responsible directly for installations.

I work with a specific team that includes three members. I'm responsible as a team lead and VMware engineer. I have two other team members, one member has a specific focus on its storage concept and another is working on the networking.

We are always looking for solutions that are more affordable. SRM is more expensive than, for example, VirtualBox.

I have looked into Zerto. I attended a seminar two years ago. If we ever moved off of this solution, we may switch to that. It is quite affordable and is very hands-on. It may even be easier in terms of deployment. They are very similar solutions overall.

We are using two product versions. We are using product versions 6.0 and 6.5.

We need to use only on-premises deployment models. This due to the fact that there are sanctions in my country. We cannot use the cloud services directly as there is no support.

For customers who are using VMware infrastructure, I recommend using VMware SRM due to the fact that it has the ability to integrate with other products like HP, SRA, or even CSRA. It has good features that integrate well with a storage concept.

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

VMware SRM is used for our disaster recovery site, which is an on-premises colo (Colocation) facility. The general use case is for disaster recovery for three of our applications those being imaging, payroll, and real estate.  

I would say SRM's ability to recover my virtual machines in a timely manner and to perform bi-annual testing are the two things it has provided that are really valuable.  

I would say VMware has room for improvement with this product. I am sure it is probably better in their 7.0 version, but there are still some bugs in the 6.O version that relates to using it with different browsers. I think a lot of what I run into is related to the 6.0 version. I believe a lot of those bugs have been fixed in the UI once you upgrade to 7.0.  

We have been using the VMware SRM solution for about six years.  

The stability of SRM has been excellent. I would give it a nine-out-of-ten. It is a pretty solid solution.  

I believe it would probably scale just fine. I only protect 25 VMs based on our licensing and I do it that way even though I actually have about 200 virtual servers. I can not really say I have done a lot to test scalability. In the six years that I have been dealing with SRM, I have just been protecting those 25 VMs. I do not have hands-on experience as to how well it would scale out.  

I have dealt with the technical support at times in the last year. I would give VMware's tech support a nine-out-of-ten. They are responsive and get you a useful reply.  

Disaster recovery was completely done with physical servers prior to when we started using VMware. When we went to VMware, we started using SRM. So the first time we went with the virtual environment we deployed SRM. We just went straight with SRM just because it is a VMware product. It was already well-integrated and did what we needed it to do.  

The installation and initial setup were pretty straightforward. The deployment, overall, was pretty straightforward. There was a little implementation structure we had to factor in related to my storage array. But besides that, it was pretty straightforward and easy enough all the way around.  

I pay for SRM per year. It is about $3,000 a year for the 25 pack. The package gives you the ability to protect up to 25 virtual machines.  

From what I have seen, a lot of these new hyper-converged systems come with certain components that do a lot of what SRM does. My opinion and advice to people considering SRM would be to look to your hardware vendor or consultant. They may have some replication pieces in there that allow you to possibly not use SRM or go ahead and stay with what you already have. Depending on your situation, different combinations might prove more beneficial either within the architecture or by cost-benefit. There are a lot of options out there now for disc replication and bringing machines up at other locations.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate the SRM as about an eight-out-of-ten.  

In my company, we use VMware SRM for virtual machine replication.

The most valuable feature of VMware SRM is RTO, better described as recovery time. In most places, my company uses SRM along with backup software since SRM cannot be used as a backup product as it is just a replication tool.

VMware SRM is not a popular product anymore since all the other backup products can provide the same functions as SRM. With Veritas, Arcserve, or Commvault, you can take care of the replication part. VMware SRM is not a popular choice among users anymore since it is a highly costly product while also being complex to configure. When it comes to backup products, you can use RTO and RPO, so there is no need to have a separate solution like SRM. In general, the drawbacks of VMware SRM, where improvements can be made, stem from the fact that it is an expensive and complex product.

I have been using VMware SRM for six to seven years. My company has a partnership with VMware.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

At the moment, just one of our company's customers uses the solution since we have replaced the native backup software used in our company. We need to take care of the renewal of SRM since, right now, we only take care of the renewal of vSphere in our company.

The solution's technical support is excellent.

The solution's initial setup was easy, but if you try to integrate it with other storage solutions, then it gets complex and difficult.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

For first-time users, VMware SRM can be a very difficult tool to use, especially considering the product's configuration part. The configuration is very difficult.

With VMware SRM, you have to download the separate appliance and think about Windows to build a separate native appliance while also having knowledge about ESXi, making it a difficult process. When it comes to VMware SRM, the technical things are very difficult to start in the first place.

I rate the overall tool a five 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.

We primarily use the solution for migrating our DR site.

We have a system that can now move us to a DR site. I have yet to experience any major crisis, however, so I haven't yet tried it. 

The solution runs well in the background, just in case we need it. 

It is stable. 

The solution has the capability to scale well. 

I don't have any notes for improvement.

I'd like the installment and configuration to be more seamless.

The user experience could be more friendly.

It's, by definition, a complicated product. 

We'd like the entire solution to be more automated. We'd like as much automation as possible. 

The solution is very expensive. 

I've been using the solution for more than five years. 

We haven't had any stability issues. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable.

We have not tried to scale the solution. However, we are aware that it can be quite scalable. It depends on the license. 

The initial setup and configuration can be complex. It's a complicated product. I'd rate the complexity of implementation eight out of ten. 

It took us a few months to fully deploy the solution. 

We had an in-house team and professional service to manage the setup process. We did not do it fully by ourselves.

The pricing is very high. However, you get what you pay for. You need to invest a lot of money in order to gain any functionality. In order to have a DR site and maintain it, you need the investment. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's expensive. However, it's a good investment. 

In terms of recovery, if you have a test job script, you can put it on top of it. You can create custom steps so that it will be more granular. It will be an easy, one click solution when it comes to the recovery application.

It would be good if this solution could integrate configuration management software such as Chef Infra.

I've been using VMware SRM for more than a year.

The stability is always good because we replicate daily. I have never seen any issues because the replication is always 100% successful.

You can add multiple appliances, and it supports enterprise environments.

Technical support is very good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The deployment takes about three hours.

VMware SRM is the best sustainability solution, I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.