VMTN Blog

via the new blog, VMGuy, from VMware SE Dave.

Link: VMware Communities: Manual Automation: Site Recovery Manager is a Hit!.

I have more testing to do but can report that I'm starting 4 VMs from a single replicated LUN in 8 minutes. And I'm not talking about from the time of just powering on, I'm talking about pressing the "big red (test) button" - powering-up the VMs - starting the Windows services - and the recovery plan completion. Try that using physical servers! Sorry, but even restoring servers from a B2D solution that's replicated to your DR site won't be as fast.

I demonstrated SRM for the DR team and initially got a "that's all?" kind of reaction. I quickly realized that SRM, with the combination of array-based replication, +worked too well+! Meaning, it did such a good job of hiding the complexity and number of steps required to get from A to Z that my non-technical DR teammates didn't understand what SRM was really bringing to the table. If there's only one thing you take away from this article, make sure it's that you're better off explaining in simple terms the steps SRM is executing in the background before running a demonstration.

Talking about the virtues of SRM is one thing (the recovery run book, the steps it automates, the testing capabilities (which are awesome by-the-way), etc.), demonstrating these product features for your DR team is another. If your experience is like mine, you'll find it dramatically influences the discussions on