VMware Live Recovery Reviews

We use SRM for our failover strategy. It is for disaster recovery on failover.

Our systems fail over using SRM. So, we do a big bang DR, which is biannual, and we fail over our fairly massive Epic electronic health record (EHR) and our core applications. It takes us about 30 minutes to fail over using SRM, which is pretty good. In most hospitals that have Epic installed, Epic does the audit to make sure that we can fail over if something were to happen. Normally, sites will have a DR solution specific to the EHR, but right now, our pain point is the third-party tier-one clinical applications.

We've had configuration issues on occasion. We start to fail over, and then we have to call it off because the configuration is not right, or the data stores aren't configured correctly in the secondary data center. Oftentimes, it is just the experience level of the team, and we have to bring in the vendor to help and validate our configuration.

I have been using this solution for probably five years.

Their support is excellent.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. There is some complexity there, and that's where I would bring it down from a 10.

We are consultants in disaster recovery software. We implement VMware products for our clients.

It is easy to implement for my clients. 

It's a very nice product.

I would like to see this solution be more scalable.

We currently use our security in addition to VMware SRM.

I am certified in VMware and VCloud. 

I have been using VMware SRM for ten years.

We have no issues with the stability of VMware SRM.

VMware SRM is scalable, but it can be improved.

We have 15 to 20 customers who are using SRM. We have customers not only in the US but in the UK also.

They provide very good technical support that is affordable.

We are also using Zerto.

It is very easy when it comes to integrating with a data center or an appliance, but it's a bit complicated.

The length of time it takes to deploy depends on the database we are accessing. It can take two hours to deploy.

We have two senior persons to deploy and maintain it.

I am not involved with the pricing. 

We have a procurement team and sales team that work with the vendors.

I would definitely recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate VMware SRM an eight out of ten.

We vetted out that data center a number of years ago. We were told SRM would improve our footprint within the data center and that was attractive to us at the time so we went with it.  

We are using VMware SRM but we are also currently looking into alternatives that could replicate the benefits that SRM currently provides for our on-premises installation. Once we are in the cloud, we are looking at whether or not we need dual availability zones. We also are looking at what functionality we could get from not having to change RPs (Recovery Point) as we do now with SRM.  

I would not be able to tell you the features and benefits that are best for the Engineering Teams. That would be more a question for my Engineering Manager and those guys. I am in service delivery and I am familiar with the product but not with hands-on use.  

The decision to move to another product is a matter of room for improvement around functionality and requirements that we had with AWS and moving to the cloud. We are not going to be procuring any more licensing for SRM when we make the move to the cloud. We were looking at a cloud-native solution in order to provide the same functionality as the SRM provides but in the cloud. That is just a matter of the changing environment.  

If the functionality of SRM could be replicated in the cloud, that would be the improvement we are looking for in the product.  

I have been using SRM (Site Recovery Manager) for probably six years.  

I have contacted technical support multiple times. I would not say that I am satisfied. They are not very good and need to make an effort to improve.  

The initial setup and installation were pretty straightforward. It was ten plus years ago so I do not remember the exact details, but I do not remember it being difficult at all.   

The cost of SRM is on par with market rates. So I think the costs for this product are fine.  

I personally will not continue using the VMware SRM solution. That is not a question of what is best. Our position moving forward is that we will not be having a footprint in the VMware space. If someone had the ability to focus on lots of things with using VMware in the cloud then there no issues at all with the product and this is a good solution for that purpose. The product functionality is fairly high-quality. Our decision is more based around the direction that we are taking. We will be cloud-based and we will be using AWS predominantly as our cloud-provider solution.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this solution overall as an eight-out-of-ten. It would not be closer to a ten because there is still some work that we need to carry out with regular maintenance and then there are the increasing license costs. An eight seems about right.  

I use VMware SRM for DR testing and VR.

The solution is simple to use and has effective automation.

VMware SRM does not have the capacity to do DR tests. We had issues whenever we were doing tests with the root cause analysis. We had 70 to 80 percent successful results because the vCenters were overloaded and that was the reason that we were having capacity issues.

We have been experiencing an additional problem when adding a regular VM in the replicated storage. By default, it will show an error. However, there is not any monitoring mechanism that would show you are not supposed to have a regular VM which is non-VR in the replicated SRM storage. Whenever we used to do testing we had to figure out that a regular VM is there and remove it manually.

I have been using this solution for approximately seven years.

The stability should be smooth, and as for the capacity, we should be able to run the test successfully. However, from our research and DR test results, we came to the conclusion that we have to run the DR test during the non-production hours. Logically, they should be able to be done during the production hours, but that is not the case. We have to ensure that the vCenters are free and are not doing regular work for us not to have any issues during the DR test.

There needs to be better stability during heavy capacity in future releases.

The solution is easy to scale.

The solution is used extensively in our large organization.

When we first started out using this solution we encountered a few issues and used the support but we now know how to fix most of the issues and have not used them. Additionally, we have our own team for support.

The installation is logically simple and in the medium range of difficulty. However, you need to make sure you have the proper infrastructure.

I have evaluated Veritas and Zerto.

I would advise others looking into implementing VMware SRM not to totally be dependent upon it. Review other solutions, such as Veritas regulatory platform and Zerto. There are newer VM DR options coming out regularly and they should not have only one solution.

I rate VMware SRM a six out of ten.

Trying to analyze the feature and functionality of this combined product. SRM is current been used in the production. However, with new DR requirement, we are look for other solutions.

It made the DR process a lot faster and easier for recovery after we were familiar with the product operation.

• vSphere Replication does not take snapshots, although it will keep your snapshots. Site Recovery Manager with SAN Replication does not take snapshots of the VMs, but will take snapshots on the LUNs via the SRA to the storage provider.
• When you perform a failover, the LUNs can be chosen to sync or not, so you do have that option. With vSphere replication, it is the same concept, while it is live. The standalone VR will allow you to choose either.

• SRM may hit some OS issues related to IP changes, but they are usually OS related, especially in the 2008 realm. SRM runs a batch file on the OS through tools that will change the IP stack. If something fails with that, or it hits duplicates or hidden devices, it can cause issues.
• Veeam had some weird issues redoing the Server 2008 VM IPs and this requires a MS hotfix. Apparently, that is an MS issue. Though, SRM does not require any hotfixes.
• One thing which is lacking from the SRM is reporting.

We are evaluating to determine if there are other products which can provide cheaper solutions.

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.

We use the product to implement discovery for server and database solutions.

The software is user-friendly. It has a good and effective user interface.

The product's stability could be better.

We have been using VMware SRM for eight years.

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten. Sometimes, we need to restart the system as it stops working. It needs improvement.

We have 400 VMware SRM users in our organization. I rate its scalability a ten out of ten.

The technical support services are good.

The initial setup is straightforward. We need to download the application file and deploy it in vCentre Server. Later, we need to register a static manager to create a bridge between two environments. After that, we check if the static environment is configured with the data centers.

The software is expensive. There is a one-time cost involved in purchasing the license.

I recommend VMware SRM to others and rate it a ten out of ten. I advise other users to always install the latest version.