VMware's popular Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is an extension to VMware vCenter that allows you to orchestrate, automate and test a consistent process for restoring services rapidly after an outage. SRM provides centrally managed and automated disaster recovery, application mobility, plus non-disruptive site migration, failback and re-protect. SRM also allows non-disruptive testing for disaster recovery, upgrades and patches and can generate audit reports to confirm complete service restoration, validate SLAs and prove compliance.
Site Recovery Manager works natively with VMware vSphere Replication, can be used with third-party disaster recovery solutions from leading storage vendors like NetApp, and integrates with Microsoft software products for advanced, application-aware data protection. SRM's support for automated, single-click orchestration of failover and failback processes allows you to minimize Recovery Time Objective (RTO). SRM's support for array-based synchronous replication enables zero-data-loss Recovery Point Objective (RPO) at metro distances. Combined with VMware's NSX network virtualization platform, SRM can recover the entire logical network topology at the recovery site.
Progent can provide the support of a certified VMware VCDX consultant to help you plan, deploy, test and manage a disaster recovery solution based on VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX. Progent's Microsoft-certified Windows Server 2022 integration professionals, Windows Server 2019 integration experts, and Windows Server 2016 consultants can help you set up SRM on Windows Server at the protected site and the recovery site and can also help you configure mission-critical applications by providing services such as Exchange Server 2019 planning and configuration consulting, 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 design and deploy a robust network infrastructure for Site Recovery Manager, and Progent can provide a NetApp-certified SAN storage expert to help you integrate a NetApp clustered storage solution with SRM.
Key Features of VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware Site Recovery Manager servers and VMware vCenter servers, running at the protected and recovery sites in conjunction with VMware vSphere and hosted by Microsoft Windows Server, work together to ensure that recovery virtual machines (VMs) are immediately and transparently started up when protected VMs are shut down. The virtual machines at the recovery site use the data replicated from the protected site and are therefore able to continue providing the same services.
SRM's migration of data and services between the protected and recovery sites is controlled by a recovery plan, an automated runbook that defines the order in which VMs are shut down and started up, their allocated resource pools, and the networks the VMs can access. You can configure multiple recovery plans to orchestrate recovery scenarios for specific applications or to handle entire sites. You can centrally manage VMware SRM recovery plans via the vSphere Web Client.
In addition to providing a strong disaster recovery solution to protect against unplanned downtime, VMware SRM also allows non-disruptive execution of planned processes such as disaster avoidance in anticipation of a major storm, moving a datacenter to a new location, testing upgrades and patches, testing a recovery plan to demonstrate compliance, and failback/re-protect after a partial or complete site shutdown. If your protected and recovery sites have a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection within a metro area, you can use array-based storage and synchronous replication with zero data loss (RPO) and rapid recovery time (RTO).
Site Recovery Manager can be configured in a variety of topologies to support different failover scenarios. In an Active-Passive configuration, a production site runs applications and services and a fully-provisioned secondary site waits unused until it is needed for recovery. This traditional topology is quickly falling out of favor because of its low utilization of IT resources. In an Active-Active topology, less urgent workloads such as testing or development are run at the secondary site until the recovery plan calls for them to be shut down to make room for critical workloads following outage. This allows the recovery site to stay productive. In a Bi-directional deployment, production workloads can be run at two sites which Site Recovery Manager will use as mutual protection and recovery sites. If either sites fails, SRM will activate its workloads on the surviving site.
VMware Site Recovery Manager also supports stretched storage clusters that span protected and recovery sites. Stretched clusters allow you to migrate workloads between two geographically proximate sites to balance services without downtime. This combination of technologies delivers the disaster recovery orchestration, automation, and audit reporting capability of SRM plus the ability of stretched clusters to enable fully active datacenters with on-demand, non-disruptive workload balancing.
Additional topologies supported by VMware Site Recovery Manager include shared recovery, where multiple remote sites such as branch offices are protected by the same recovery site, and shared protection, where a single site fails over some applications and VMs to one recovery site and others to one or more other recovery sites. All of the various architectural alternatives for deploying a disaster recovery solution based on VMware SRM have inherent advantages and problems and range in complexity from simple to very challenging. Progent can provide the support of an VMware VCDX-certified expert who can clarify the issues, recommend a topology that fits your organization's technical requirements and IT budget, and provide as-needed guidance and support to help you implement and manage your disaster recovery solution.
Combining Site Recovery Manager and VMware NSX
Because the IP address of a running virtual machine cannot be altered without incurring some downtime, protected sites and recovery sites supported by VMware Site Recovery Manager must have L2 network connectivity to achieve the fastest possible failover time. One way to accomplish this is through VMware's NSX network virtualization platform. The network virtualization provided with VMware NSX makes it possible to preserve L2 and recover the entire logical network topology at the recovery site. NSX also supports APIs for automating recovery at the network layer to optimize RPO and RTO. By combining NSX with a disaster recovery solution based on 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.
For seamless spanning of network and security policies across multiple sites you can use an external replication/synchronization technology like vRO (vRealize Orchestrator, formerly called vCenter Orchestrator), or you can use the Cross-VC feature of VMware NSX. Cross vCenter NSX simplifies the process of deploying Universal Logical Switches, Universal Distributed Logical Router, and Universal Distributed Firewall to create a single unified logical network (L2, L3, DFW) across the protected and recovery site. This permits rapid failover and recovery without requiring you to re-create the network on the recovery site or manually map and remap IP addresses.
Progent can provide the services of a VMware-certified NSX expert to help you integrate VMware Site Recovery Manager with VMware NSX and to configure a disaster recovery solution automated by vRO or Cross vCenter NSX.
How Progent Can Help You with VMware Site Recovery Manager
Progent can provide online or onsite access to a VMware VCDX-certified subject matter expert with world-class knowledge and experience deploying and configuring VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware's NSX network virtualization platform for disaster recovery and business continuity. Progent offers expert understanding of VMware vCloud Director (vCD), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vCloud Suite used for managing private and hybrid cloud environments that feature high availability, fault tolerance, and application continuity. Progent has expertise with VMware vSAN native-vSphere storage, EMC VNX and VMAX storage systems, Dell EqualLogic storage arrays, NetApp's SAN storage product family, plus storage solutions from Pure Storage and Tintri. Progent also offers advanced consulting for underlying storage technologies including RAID, JBOD, ZFS, VMFS, Fibre Channel (FC), NFS, and iSCSI plus key network technologies including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, LACP, OSPF, and BGP.
Progent's VCDX-certified VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX subject matter expert has worked with datacenter architects, network engineers and department directors of some of the world's largest technology companies, major financial institutions, and government agencies to design solutions to improve disaster recovery RPO and RTO. Experience with large-scale projects includes working in environments scaling above 1500 ESXi hosts and 45,000 virtual machines.
Fault Tolerant Technologies Provided by Progent's Consultants
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consulting experts can help your company to build a sensible, fault-tolerant network that resolves major issues covering a broad range of networking technologies and operations such as:
Disaster Recovery Planning
Progent's disaster recovery engineers can show you how to design a workplace recovery plan so you can resume IT operations in the event of an IT system catastrophe. Progent can help you to define a comprehensive disaster recovery plan that includes scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and drills. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified professionals can also show you how to build an affordable, fault-tolerant network architecture that addresses reliability issues involving a wide array of infrastructure technologies and processes. To learn more, see Disaster Recovery Consulting.
CRISC-Premier Network Risk Mitigation
The Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) certification program was established by ISACA to verify an IT professional's ability to plan, implement, and support IS controls to reduce network risk. Progent can provide the services of a CRISC-certified engineer to assist you to develop and carry out a workplace continuity or disaster recovery strategy based on leading practices identified by CRISC and geared to align with your organization's risk appetite, business objectives, and IT budget. To learn more, visit CRISC-Premier IT risk control specialists.
Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering
Windows Server 2019 incorporated important improvements in scale, throughput, management, security and compliance, app compatibility, Linux co-existence, Kubernetes networking, and hybrid combinations of on-premises and cloud-hosted resources. Headline new features of Windows Server 2019 include Windows Admin Center for centralizing the management and monitoring of hybrid on-premises/cloud-hosted resources, System Insights for taking advantage of advance predictive analytics to control local environments, Windows Defender ATP Exploit Guard for host-intrusion defense, container orchestration with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets technology for creating and administering massive non-stop scale-out clusters, and Microsoft's Storage Migration Service for streamlining the upgrade process from outdated releases of Windows Server. To learn more, see Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering Expertise.
Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Progent's Windows Server 2016 disaster recovery/business continuity consultants can help your organization to plan and deploy a DR solution based on Microsoft's cloud-tested Failover Clustering technologies including Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade for non-intrusive migration to Windows Server 2016, Storage Replica for crash-consistent Recovery Point Objective (RPO), Storage Spaces Direct for enterprise-class network-attached storage using low-cost equipment, Virtual Machine Load Balancing for enhancing the performance and fault-tolerance of Failover Clusters while reducing TCO and operational expenses, and Cloud Witness for easy, affordable deployment of a stretch cluster quorum witness. To read more, see Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery Help.
NetApp MetroCluster High Availability and Disaster Recovery Technology
NetApp MetroCluster is a high-availability and disaster recovery software suite that combines array-based storage clustering with synchronous replication to deliver fast, zero RPO disaster recovery between sites located up to 185 miles away from one another. Progent offers the skills of a certified NetApp MetroCluster expert who can help your business to design, deploy, administer, upgrade, test and repair a disaster recovery system built around NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can help you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster environment that meets your technical needs and IT budget. Progent can ensure you adhere to leading practices for installing your MetroCluster environment by delivering help with procedures such as assigning disk pools and shelf IDs, determining aggregate layout, setting up NetApp FlexVol volumes, setting up NetApp Snapshot, installing Cisco and Brocade switches, implementing a tiebreaker mechanism, designing a configuration replication network between your peered clusters, and testing your MetroCluster disaster recovery solution to show compliance with industry standards and government mandates.
Fault Tolerant Load Balancing
Progent provides high availability load balancing support covering network load balancing, load balanced programs, network backbone routing, and content dispatching technology including Cisco Content Engine. Fault tolerant load balancing technologies for which Progent offers consulting expertise include Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Access Gateway, Cisco Content Services Switch, Cisco Distributed Director and Cisco CDN Software, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. To find out more, see High Availability Load Balancing.
Non-stop Data Centers
Progent's Data Center consultants can show you how to find high availability data centers that meet the particular needs of your company. High availability co-location sites are especially attractive to small and mid-size organizations because of their affordability and simplified logistics in comparison to pursuing a do-it-yourself strategy. Trying to create an on-site data center with even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is too expensive for the majority of small companies. Progent can help you reap all the advantages of high-availability colocation facilities by offering a full array of engineering and maintenance services. For details, visit Fault Tolerant Colocation Expertise.
Fault Tolerant Interoffice Networking
Progent's multi-site connection professionals can help businesses achieve non-stop branch office connections through redundant networks with automatic failover. Progent's Cisco-premier CCIE engineers can design and deploy high-availability Inter-office networks based on zero-downtime EIGRP routers or zero-downtime OSPF configurations of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how redundant connectivity and automatic fail-over offers affordable non-stop interoffice connectivity. For more information, visit 24x7 Inter-office Networking.
Non-stop Internet Connectivity
Progent's Cisco-authorized IT experts can show you how to design an economical, fault tolerant Internet configuration architecture that can achieve 24x7 Internet access through a wide array of fault tolerant Internet access solutions including high availability BGP, automatic fail-over, and multiple Internet Service Providers. Progent offers Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert consultants to show you how to apply the most advanced technology for fault tolerant Internet access to create an economical, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other capabilities to create zero-downtime Internet availability. To find out more, go to 24x7 Internet Access Architecture.
Backup and Recovery Technology Consultants
Progent offers economical online support from IT engineers with expertise in a broad range of products and technologies that provide solutions for protecting Windows, Apple Mac, and Linux/UNIX servers and desktops as well as laptops and smartphones. Progent can provide expertise for all major data protection platforms such as Acronis Backup and Recovery, Symantec Backup Exec, BackupAssist Software, HP Data Protector, Double-Take Backup, MozyPro, Retrospect, Time Machine, vSphere Data Protection, and FLARs. Progent can help you to install, enhance, or maintain backup systems for a variety of architectures such as local, edge to datacenter, cloud-based, or hybrid. For more information, go to Backup and Recovery Technology Consulting and Support Services.
System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) Backup and Recovery Consulting and Support Services
Progent's expert Microsoft SCDPM consultants can assist your company to develop a practical business continuity strategy, design an affordable fault-tolerante IT infrastructure, configure a Microsoft SCDPM-powered backup and restore system, thoroughly test your DPM system, train your IT personnel or regular consultants how to manage SCDPM, or provide extensive IT support outsourcing such as off-site hosting of SCDPM servers in Progent's data center facility. To learn more, visit Microsoft SCDPM Consulting.
Barracuda Backup Multi-site and Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is an affordable, subscription-based backup/restore platform for small and mid-size organizations. A Barracuda Backup solution can incorporate a purpose-built hardware appliance manufactured by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with comparable features but which utilizes your own storage infrastructure. Barracuda Backup safeguards critical company data generated on-premises, at one or more remote sites, or in the cloud. For disaster protection, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon Web Services (AWS), or to any location with a physical or virtual Barracuda appliance. Progent is a Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consultants offer a wide range of consulting support services to help you to design, integrate, operate and repair a backup and disaster recovery system based on Barracuda technology. For details, go to Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consultants.
ProSight Data Protection Services Altaro VM Backup Software for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup offers small businesses a dependable and budget-friendly solution for backing up and restoring Hyper-V and VMware-powered VMs. Altaro VM Backup can be used for on-premises, remote, multi-site, and cloud-hosted environments and also enables cost-effective backup to Azure Block Blob storage. Altaro VM Backup includes advanced features such as Immutable Cloud Storage for an extra layer of recoverability from ransomware. Progent is an Altaro partner and can provide a broad range of remote or on-premises services to assist you to design, deploy, optimize and troubleshoot a modern backup and disaster recovery system powered by Altaro VM Backup software. With ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, Progent delivers a managed backup/restore service based on Altaro VM Backup software. To learn more, visit Altaro VM Backup consulting services.
ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup Solutions for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 provides rudimentary archiving but does not include native support for crucial data protection capabilities like Exchange Online backups or greater than 30-day point-in-time data recovery for OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup delivers a feature-rich BDR solution for programmable backup and quick restoration of all your company's M365 mail, Teams Chats, SharePoint sites, OneDrive data, and content on Windows desktops and laptops. Progent is a certified Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and offers ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) 365 Total Backup to deliver comprehensive managed services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup product. ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup delivers a low-cost backup-as-a-service (BaaS) solution that protects M365 apps against data loss or corruption resulting from human or software mistakes, malevolent deletion, and cyber attacks such as ransomware. For more information, visit ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup solutions for Microsoft 365.
Fully Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO
ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO from Progent offer small and medium-sized businesses an affordable and fully managed service for secure backup/disaster recovery (BDR). For a low monthly rate, ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO automates and monitors your backup processes and allow fast recovery of vital data, applications and VMs that have become lost or corrupted due to hardware failures, software glitches, natural disasters, human mistakes, or malware attacks such as ransomware. ProSight DPS ECHO can help you protect, recover and restore files, folders, applications, system images, plus Hyper-V and VMware virtual machine images. Important data can be backed up on the cloud, to a local device, or to both. Progent's cloud backup specialists can deliver world-class expertise to configure ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO to be compliant with regulatory requirements like HIPAA, FIRPA, and PCI and, when necessary, can assist you to restore your critical data. Read more about ProSight DPS ECHO managed cloud backup.
ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup Services
Progent can assist you to create, implement and troubleshoot a backup/restore plan based on MSP360 technology. MSP360 offers file/folder or image backup/restore for virtual machines and physical computers, works with all leading public clouds, and allows businesses to create a data protection ecosystem with a low Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and a defined Recovery Point Objective. With ProSight DPS 360 Backup, Progent can provide comprehensive monitoring and remote management of your backup environment to protect against data loss caused by human mistakes, computer glitches, ill-intentioned insiders, and malware assaults such as ransomware. For more information, go to ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup solutions.
Consulting Services Double-Take Software for Backup
Double-Take offers a selection of products intended to deliver small and midsize companies a variety of cost-effective solutions for replicating and restoring vital applications including Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, RIM Blackberry, and Microsoft Office SharePoint. Progent's disaster recovery planning experts have in-depth experience integrating Double-Take Software technology into small business information systems to create an advanced level of availability and disaster recovery capability at a budget-friendly price. To find out more, visit Consulting for Double-Take Solutions for Data Backup.
Why Pick Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning?
Since Progent is a Microsoft Partner and provides professional application consulting for a wide range of business applications, Progent is able to assist customers to arrive at complete information technology solutions that maximize the productivity of your IT network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco, Progent can provide the support of premier engineers and specialists with experience in architecting, installing and managing infrastructure solutions built on Cisco products. The depth of Progent's technical experience and Progent's sensitivity to the needs of small and midsize businesses make Progent the perfect resource for creating and maintaining an affordable, fault-tolerant network.
Contact Progent for Help with VMware SRM Disaster Recovery Solutions
For more information about Progent's consulting services for VMware Site Recovery Manager, call