VMware Live Recovery Reviews

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.

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. 

We used VMware SRM mainly for the DC-DR configuration.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the integration part, along with the subsequent hardware.

It would be better if we could get more reporting features in VMware SRM.

Wherever we have deployed the solution, we haven't faced any issues with stability.

I rate the solution an eight to nine out of ten for stability.

I have four to five customers for VMware SRM.

The solution’s initial setup is not very complex.

I don't see a challenge concerning the solution's deployment process. The deployment can be done once the design is finished. Two engineers are more than enough to deploy the solution.

VMware SRM is an expensive solution, and users need to pay extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

The implementation of VMware SRM helps with the overall business resiliency perspective. We are still using the virtualization layer for the application, which becomes closely integrated with the solution provided. So, that's a benefit to any organization. Moreover, the solution gives you a single dashboard through which you can look at everything.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven to eight out of ten.

Virtual Machine Recovery during DR situation, with automation and easy to use menus and options.

Earlier, in case of disaster or server failure we had to rebuild the whole server/virtual machine from scratch. This rebuilding process used to take anywhere from close to a day or more, affecting production time.

With VMware vSphere Replication and SRM combined, we were able to cut down outage windows to a maximum of one hour.

We are making good use of replicated VMs for testing of OS/application update, before applying same to the production environment.

In my view, if VMware comes up with an appliance-based solution like vCenter Server (which was also Windows-based), it will be much easier for deployment. It will also save Windows Server Operating System licensing costs, which for most of the organization recur annually.

Around five years (maybe more, I can't recollect exactly).

Not really for use and operation, but a version upgrade is a real problem. When upgrading to the latest version, there are always problems with the upgrade, normal functioning etc. Doing an upgrade is lot of hard work. Always had to rely on next minor upgrade.

VMware needs to do better software testing before release.

No.

Very good. They are very eager to support the customer and, more than just wanting to close the ticket, they strive for customer satisfaction.

Previously we were not using any DR solution, but we are using Veeam along with SRM.

SRM is being used for far-end recovery whereby the DR site is in another city.

Veeam is being used for near-end recovery, whereby the DR server is located in the same datacenter. This is useful for VM level recovery, where only a VM or handful VMs or vDisks are affected.

It was pretty straightforward. We kept the DC and DR servers together in the same datacentre during initial setup and VM syncing. After setup and syncing completion, we moved the DR server to the DR site.

Compare to hardware-based replication, I think software based replication is best and cheap. For a start, one can use vSphere Replication, which is available free of cost if vCenter is purchased for deploying a DR solution. It is very easy to deploy, though the recovery process will be manual. With SRM, the whole replication and recovery process can be automated for fast VM recovery.

No.

It’s a good product from VMware. Just ensure that for each version upgrade, be patient and look for reviews or, if possible, have a test (virtualized) environment for test deployment.

I use the solution for disaster recovery.

The solution is consistent. It is an automated DR solution. It has test features. We can test DR in advance. We are using the tool for disaster recovery. The product has improved automation. The automation of failover and failback has improved our operational efficiency significantly. It is quite easy to integrate the solution with other VMware products.

The solution must provide better integration with third-party vendors.

I have been using the solution for two years.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a seven out of ten. We have 10 to 20 users in our organization. We use the solution twice a month.

I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. The deployment takes a few months.

We deployed the product with a few in-house team members. The tool requires continuous maintenance. We need two or three people to maintain it.

I will recommend the solution to others. It is a nice product. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for DR.

We use the LDM component within our government. Additionally, SRM, a leading VMware product, is user-friendly and supports all our requirements.

There could be an integration between VMware SRM and Nutanix products, which can benefit many users.

I have been using VMware SRM since last year.

There is a minimum downtime.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good.

2000 users are using this solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

Whenever we have an issue or need help, we raise it directly to VMware.

Positive

The initial setup is simple.

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.

We have a cloud environment that requires disaster recovery capabilities. We utilize HZX to extend layer two connectivity and leverage Site Recovery Manager (SRM) for replication.

I recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use VMware SRM for disaster recovery.

VMware SRM replicates the VM from one site to another, and it helps us orchestrate the powering of VMs and DR when the DC goes down.

Currently, there is a limitation of consolidating only 15 sites per SRM.

Ransomware recovery or early detection could be incorporated into VMware SRM.

I have been using VMware SRM for three years.

VMware SRM is a stable solution.

VMware SRM is a scalable solution. I work with mostly small and medium businesses.

VMware SRM’s technical support is good.

Positive

We previously used Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator, which is more suited for small businesses. It doesn't offer as much flexibility as VMware SRM. For namesake, it's a DR solution, but it cannot compete with VMware SRM.

VMware SRM's initial setup is easy.

Two people can install VMware SRM in two to three hours.

We pay a yearly licensing fee for VMware SRM, which is not very expensive.

The fee is for the solution's license plus support. There are two options. One is subscription-based, which would be for a one or two years term base, and the other one is perpetual with support.

Just one person is enough to maintain the solution.

I highly recommend VMware SRM to other users.

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

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.