VXCD-certified Consulting for Virtualization and Disaster Recovery

VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) permits organizations with multi-site private cloud and hybrid cloud deployments to define, automate, and test disaster recovery solutions. VMware also allows enterprises to automate routine operations such as moving datacenters to new sites, migrating applications between datacenters for workload balancing, performing failback and re-protect after a site outage, and installing patches and upgrades, all without disrupting the delivery of business-critical services. VMware's SRM's centrally managed audit reporting streamlines the process of proving disaster recovery compliance, confirming SLA targets, and validating disaster recovery workflows.

VMware SRM works natively with VMware vSphere Replication and integrates seamlessly with disaster recovery solutions from leading SAN storage providers such as NetApp. VMware SRM can also be used to provide application-aware protection for key Microsoft applications like Exchange and SQL Server. Single-click failover and failback orchestration reduces RTO, and array-based synchronous replication allows zero-data-loss RPO within metropolitan distances. When used with VMware's NSX network virtualization technology, VMware SRM can quickly recover the complete logical network topology at the recovery site.

Progent can provide the expertise of a certified VMware VCDX-NV consultant to assist your organization to design, configure, test and administer a disaster recovery solution built around VMware Site Recovery Manager and integrated with the VMware NSX platform for the Software-defined Data Center (SDDC). VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) is the highest level of certification offered by VMware, and in 2016 there were fewer than 250 VCDX's worldwide. The VCDX-NV certification requires enterprise-class networking and network virtualization skills with a focus on VMware NSX. Certification is achieved through a rigorous design defense process that requires candidates to submit and successfully defend a production-ready VMware solution before a panel of veteran VCDX holders. This peer-vetting ensures that VCDX holders are world-class consulting architects.

Progent's Microsoft-certified team of Windows Server 2022 integration professionals, Windows Server 2019 integration experts, and Windows Server 2016 consultants can help you set up Site Recovery Manager on Windows Server at protected and recovery site and can also help you configure mission-critical applications by providing services such as Exchange Server 2019 planning and deployment services, Exchange Server 2016 migration, SQL Server 2019 migration consulting, SQL Server 2017 upgrade expertise, and SQL Server 2016 integration consulting. Progent's Cisco CCIE consultants can help you architect and configure a resilient physical infrastructure for VMware SRM and NSX, and Progent can provide a NetApp-certified SAN storage expert to help you integrate NetApp clustered storage with SRM and NSX for a best-of-breed disaster recovery solution.

Capabilities of VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware vCenter servers located at protected (primary) and recovery sites and running in conjunction with VMware vSphere allow the rapid recovery of virtual machines (VMs) by staring up recovery VMs when the primary site experiences a shutdown. The recovery site VMs use the data replicated from the protected site to provide the same services. Data and services migration from the primary site to the recovery site automatically follows a defined recovery plan, which stipulates the precise order in which VMs are shut down and started up and defines the resource pools allocated to them and the networks they can access. You can create multiple recovery plans to accommodate specific applications and manage SRM recovery plans from the vSphere Web Client.

Besides protecting against unplanned outages, VMware Site Recovery Manager also allows you to run routine planned processes non-intrusively. These include disaster avoidance, relocating a datacenter, patch and update testing, failback and reprotect, plus testing and timing your disaster recovery solution to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements or SLAs. If your primary and recovery sites are located at metro distances and connected via a high-speed/low-latency channel, you can deploy array-based storage and synchronous replication to achieve zero data loss RPO and minimal RTO.

VMware Site Recovery Manager supports various deployment models to handle different failover cases. With a traditional Active-Passive deployment, a primary site runs applications and services and a fully-provisioned standby recovery site waits idly until the primary site experiences a shutdown. This is simple to configure and manage but expensive to operate due to poor resource utilization. An Active-Active topology allows you to run non-critical workloads like development or testing at the recovery site until the site is needed after a primary site outage. This keeps both sites engaged in useful work. Bi-directional deployments spread production workloads between the primary and secondary sites for mutual protection. In case of a site shutdown, Site Recovery Manager can automatically switch all workloads to the site that is still operating.

VMware Site Recovery Manager also supports stretched storage clusters that span protected and recovery sites. This deployment model lets you move workloads between sites within a metro area for active, non-disruptive load balancing. The combination of VMware SRM with stretched clusters provides the disaster recovery orchestration, automation, and reporting features of VMware SRM with the transparent workload balancing capabilities of stretched clusters.

VMware NSX Virtualized Networking and the Software Defined Data Center
VMware NSX extends the benefits of virtual technology from the traditional areas of compute and storage over to the network by abstracting virtual networks from the underlying physical network. NSX virtualizes core networking services including logical switching, static and dynamic routing (OSPF, BGP), distributed firewalling with Active Directory support, L4-L7 load balancing, VPN, Quality of Service, VXLAN to VLAN bridging, and monitoring. By creating entire networks in software and embedding them in the hypervisor layer, NSX allows networks to be provisioned instantly and managed consistently with a high level of automation regardless of the of hardware used by the underlying IP network. This completely virtualized operational model makes up the foundation of the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) that allows IT managers to treat physical network resources as a pool of on-demand transport capacity.

For cloud management, NSX has native integration with vRealize Automation and OpenStack and features a RESTful API for integration into third-party cloud management platforms or for customized automation. With NSX, networking and security policies are attached to their associated workloads rather than underlying hardware, which streamlines the replication of application environments for disaster recovery, datacenter migration, or creating hybrid cloud solutions.

Using Site Recovery Manager and VMware NSX for Disaster Recovery
Changing the IP address of a running VM requires downtime. Because of this, primary and recovery sites protected by VMware Site Recovery Manager need Layer 2 connectivity for the fastest possible recovery time. VMware NSX can snapshot a complete application architecture and transfer the entire virtualized, logical network topology to the secondary site for one-click disaster recovery. NSX features APIs for automating recovery at the network layer to improve RPO and RTO. By combining NSX with VMware Site Recovery Manager, you can streamline the recovery of critical networking services at the secondary site including logical switches, distributed logical routers, and distributed firewall (DFW) policies. To span network and security policies across multiple sites you can use Cross vCenter NSX. This dramatically simplifies the work of configuring Universal Logical Switches, Routers, and Firewalls to deploy a single unified logical network across the primary and secondary sites of a disaster recovery environment. Cross vCenter NSX allows fast failover and recovery without the need to re-create the network on the recovery site or map and remap IP addresses manually.

Progent offers the expertise of a VMware VCDX-certified NSX consultant to help you integrate VMware Site Recovery Manager with VMware NSX and to design, deploy and test a disaster recovery solution automated by VMware Cross vCenter NSX.

How Progent Can Help You with VMware Site Recovery Manager
Progent offers remote or on-premises access to a VMware-certified VCDX consultant with advanced expertise in designing and configuring disaster recovery solutions built around VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware Cross vCenter NSX. Progent can show you how to make efficient use of VMware's private cloud management tools such as vCloud Director, vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator and vCloud Suite. Progent can also help you integrate leading SAN storage products with your disaster recovery environment by providing services such as NetApp SAN storage consulting as well as support for EMC VNX and VMAX storage systems, Dell EqualLogic storage arrays, Pure Storage products and Tintri VMstore.

Progent's VCDX-certified VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX expert has worked with datacenter architects, network engineers and department directors of some of the world's biggest technology companies, large financial institutions, and government agencies to plan and deploy disaster recovery solutions with optimum RPO and RTO. Experience with large-scale projects includes spearheading deploymnts scaling to more than 1500 VMware ESXi hosts and over 45,000 VMs.

Contact Progent for Help with VMware SRM Disaster Recovery Solutions
For more information about Progent's consulting support for VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware NSX, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.