Enterprise Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Consulting

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.

High Availability Solutions Provided by Progent's Experts
Progent's certified support professionals can assist your company to build an affordable, fault-tolerant information network that addresses critical challenges covering a wide array of networking technologies and processes such as:

Disaster Recovery Planning
Progent's disaster recovery planning engineers can show you how to create a workplace recovery strategy in order to restore network operations in case of an IT system disaster. Progent can help you to create a complete disaster recovery strategy that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery assessments and testing. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified consultants can also help you create an affordable, non-stop network solution that addresses reliability issues involving a broad array of infrastructure technologies and processes. To find out more, see Disaster Recovery Consulting and Support Services.

CRISC-Certified Network Risk Control
The Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) program was initiated by ISACA to verify a consultant's skills to design, implement, and maintain IS controls to reduce risk. Progent can provide the expertise of a CRISC-certified engineer to assist your company to develop and execute a business continuity plan based on industry best practices promoted by CRISC and geared to match your company's risk tolerance, business goals, and budgetary guidelines. To read more, visit CRISC-Premier IT risk mitigation specialists.

Microsoft Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering
Windows Server 2019 introduced significant improvements in capacity, throughput, manageability, security and compliance, application compatibility, Linux support, Kubernetes networking, and hybrid integration of on-premises and cloud resources. Top new features of Windows Server 2019 are Windows Admin Center for unifying the management of hybrid local/cloud resources, System Insights for taking advantage of advance predictive intelligence to control local networks, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Exploit Guard for host-intrusion prevention, container networking with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets technology for deploying and administering large high-availability scale-out clusters, and Microsoft's Storage Migration Service for streamlining the migration from outdated versions of Windows Server. For more information, see Microsoft Windows Server 2019 High Availability Failover Clustering Support.

Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Progent's Windows Server 2016 disaster recovery/business continuity experts can assist your organization to plan and deploy a DR system based on Microsoft's latest Failover Clustering technologies such as Cluster OS Rolling Upgrade for non-disruptive migration to Windows Server 2016, Storage Replica for zero-data-loss Recovery Point Objective (RPO), Storage Spaces Direct for high-performance network-attached storage using low-cost equipment, Virtual Machine Load Balancing for enhancing the speed and fault-tolerance of Failover Clusters while minimizing capital investment and management overhead, and Cloud Witness for easy, affordable deployment of a failover cluster quorum witness. For details, go to Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Help.

NetApp MetroCluster Disaster Recovery Software
NetApp MetroCluster is a disaster recovery software suite that uses failover storage clustering along with replication to deliver rapid, zero data loss disaster recovery (DR) between datacenters located as far as 185 miles apart. Progent can provide the skills of a certified NetApp MetroCluster expert who can assist your business to design, configure, manage, upgrade, test and troubleshoot a disaster recovery solution based on NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can help you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster deployment that meets your technical needs and budget. Progent can make sure you adhere to best practices for configuring your MetroCluster solution by providing help with procedures like assigning shelf IDs, arranging aggregate and plexes layout, setting up NetApp FlexVol volumes, setting up Data ONTAP configuration replication service, installing switches, designing a tiebreaker, designing a configuration replication network, and testing your DR solution to verify adherence with information assurance standards and government requirements.

Network Load Balancing
Progent provides fault tolerant load balancing support covering system load balancing, load balanced programs, network backbone routing, and content delivery products including Cisco Content Engine. Non-stop load balancing solutions for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Windows Server 2003 and 2008 Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Presentation Server, Cisco Content Services Switch, Cisco Content Distribution Manager and ACNS, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. To find out more, see High Availability Load Balancing.

Fault Tolerant Internet Data Centers
Progent's Data Center engineers can show you how to select high availability data centers that match the specific requirements of your business. High availability co-location sites are particularly attractive to small and mid-size companies because of their affordability and convenience in comparison to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Attempting to create an in-house data center that offers even a basic level of fault tolerance is too expensive for typical small businesses. Progent is ready to help you get all the benefits of high-availability Internet data centers by providing a complete array of consulting and support services. To read more, visit Fault Tolerant Colocation Expertise.

Failsafe Interoffice Connectivity
Progent's multi-site connectivity engineers can help businesses achieve zero-downtime branch office connectivity by means of fully redundant system architectures with automatic failover. Progent's Cisco-premier CCIE network engineers can plan and deploy high-availability Inter-office networks based on non-stop EIGRP network routers or zero-downtime OSPF configurations of Cisco routers. Progent can show you how multi-path connections and transparent fail-over offers economical non-stop interoffice networking. For more information, see Fault Tolerant Interoffice Connectivity.

Non-stop Internet Access
Progent's Cisco-certified network experts can help you create an economical, fault tolerant Internet configuration architecture that can achieve 24x7 Internet connectivity via a wide range of fault tolerant Internet network technologies including non-stop BGP, transparent fail-over, and redundant Internet Service Providers. Progent can provide CCIE consultants to show you how to apply the most advanced technology for 24x7 Internet access to build an affordable, fully redundant Internet network with automatic failover and other features to deliver fault tolerant Internet connections. To find out more, see Non-stop Internet Connectivity Architecture.

Backup and Recovery Solutions Consulting Experts
Progent can provide affordable online access to engineers with expertise in a broad range of products and services that deliver solutions for protecting Microsoft Windows, Mac, and Linux/UNIX physical and virtual servers and workstations as well as notebooks and smartphones. Progent offers help for all major data protection platforms such as Acronis Backup and Recovery, Symantec Backup Exec, BackupAssist Software, HP Data Protector, Double-Take Software, Mozy, Retrospect, Apple Time Machine, VMware Data Recovery, and Solaris FLARs. Progent can assist you to deploy, enhance, or troubleshoot backup solutions for a variety of environments including local, remote, cloud, or hybrid. For details, visit Backup and Restore Technology Consulting and Support Services.

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) Backup and Restore Consulting Services
Progent's certified Microsoft SCDPM consultants can assist your company to develop a practical workplace recovery strategy, implement an affordable high-availability network infrastructure, configure a SCDPM-powered backup and recovery solution, comprehensively validate your system, train your IT personnel or local consultants how to manage Microsoft SCDPM, or provide extensive IT outsourcing including off-site housing of Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager machines in Progent's world-class data center. For details, visit Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager Consulting Services.

Barracuda Backup Local, Offsite and Cloud Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is a low-cost, subscription-based backup/restore platform for small and mid-size businesses. A Barracuda Backup solution can include a purpose-built hardware appliance manufactured by Barracuda or a software-based appliance with comparable functionality but which uses your own storage hardware. Barracuda Backup protects vital company data produced locally, at one or more remote sites, or in the cloud. For disaster preparedness, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon Web Services (AWS), or to any location with a Barracuda appliance. Progent is a Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consulting experts offer a broad array of consulting support services to assist your business to design, configure, manage and troubleshoot a backup and disaster recovery solution built on Barracuda technology. For details, see Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consultants.

ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup Software for Backup and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup offers small organizations a reliable and budget-friendly solution for backing up and restoring Hyper-V and VMware-based virtual machines. Altaro VM Backup can be deployed in local, offsite, multi-site, and cloud-hosted architectures and also supports low-cost backup to Microsoft Azure storage. Altaro VM Backup includes advanced features such as Immutable Cloud Storage for enhanced protection from ransomware. Progent is a certified Altaro partner and can provide a wide range of online or on-premises consulting services to assist you to plan, deploy, optimize and troubleshoot a comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution powered by Altaro VM Backup. With ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, Progent delivers a fully managed backup/recovery service powered by on Altaro VM Backup technology. For more information, visit Altaro VM Backup consulting.

ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup Solutions for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 offers simple archiving but does not have integrated support for crucial data protection capabilities such as Exchange backups or long-term point-in-time recovery for OneDrive or SharePoint Online. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup delivers a feature-rich BDR solution for programmable backup and rapid recovery of all your company's M365 mail, Microsoft Teams Chats, SharePoint sites, OneDrive data, and content on Windows desktops and laptops. Progent is a certified Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and has designed ProSight Data Protection Services (DPS) 365 Total Backup to provide end-to-end management services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup suite. ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup provides a budget-friendly backup-as-a-service alternative that defends M365 apps against data loss or corruption resulting from user or system error, malevolent deletion, and cyber assaults such as ransomware. For more information, go to 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 provide small and medium-sized businesses an affordable and fully managed solution for reliable backup/disaster recovery (BDR). For a fixed monthly cost, ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO automates and monitors your backup processes and enable fast restoration of critical files, apps and VMs that have become lost or damaged as a result of component failures, software bugs, disasters, human mistakes, or malware attacks like ransomware. ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO can help you back up, retrieve and restore files, folders, apps, system images, as well as Hyper-V and VMware virtual machine images. Critical data can be protected on the cloud, to an on-promises device, or to both. Progent's BDR specialists can provide world-class support to configure ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO to to comply with regulatory requirements such as HIPAA, FIRPA, and PCI and, whenever necessary, can assist you to recover your business-critical data. Learn more about ProSight DPS ECHO managed backup.

ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup Services
Progent's data protection experts can help you to create, deploy and troubleshoot a backup/restore plan based on MSP360 software. MSP360 offers file/folder or image-based backup/restore for VMs and physical machines, supports all popular public clouds, and allows you to build a backup ecosystem with a minimum Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and a granular RPO. With ProSight Data Protection Services 360 Backup, Progent can provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your backup system to prevent data loss resulting from human mistakes, system errors, ill-intentioned users, and malware attacks like ransomware. To read more, go to ProSight DPS 360 Backup services.

Consulting Services Double-Take Software for Backup
Double-Take Software publishes a family of products designed to deliver small and midsize businesses a variety of affordable alternatives for backing up and recovering business-critical applications including Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Blackberry, and Microsoft Office SharePoint. Progent's disaster recovery planning experts have in-depth backgrounds integrating Double-Take Software products into small business information networks to create a high state of availability and disaster recovery readiness at a budget-friendly price. For more information, go to Consulting Services Double-Take Solutions for Backup.

Why Pick Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning?
Because Progent is a Microsoft Partner and provides specialized application consulting for a broad range of business software programs, Progent is able to help customers to find complete IT solutions that optimize the productivity of your information system. As a Registered Partner for Cisco, Progent can provide the services of premier engineers and specialists with expertise in designing, deploying and maintaining networking environments based on Cisco technology. The broad scope of Progent's IT know-how and Progent's appreciation for the requirements of small businesses make Progent the ideal partner for creating and running an affordable, high-availability 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 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.