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Customer Success Story - Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator

victorwu
Userlevel 7
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Today I will share a customer success story of Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator. This customer is looking for a disaster recovery solution to protect production virtual machines. VMware SRM and Veeam are common Disaster Recovery solution in my region.

 

Existing Environment

  • Platform: VMware vSphere 6.7 and vCenter 6.7
  • Storage Array: NetApp ONTAP Storage
  • Backup Solution: Veeam Backup and Replication v9.5

 

Requirements

  • Automatic data recovery and failover
  • No impact on production environment during data recovery and failover
  • Data recovery in an isolated network environment for internal testing
  • Application-aware processing
  • Test DR plans with zero impact to the production environment

After the discussion with their system team, I listed out the comparison table of VMware SRM and Veeam (refer to below table) for reference. Finally the customer chose Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator (VDRO) for DR solution because VMware SRM does not fulfill some requirements.

 

 

Proposed DR Solution

 

Summary

The customer chose the VDRO because of the following features are better than VMware SRM

  • Automatic data recovery and failover
  • Automatically verify the recovery of each VM, service and application before failover operation
  • Data recovery in an isolated network environment for internal testing
  • Application-aware processing
  • The minimum PRO is 2 seconds
  • The CDP feature can be enabled after upgraded the VBR to v11
  • The customer can choose the different DR approach (Veeam Replication, CDP and VDRO) depended on the different SLA
Victor Wu

16 comments

JMeixner
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Nice :sunglasses::thumbsup_tone3:

Jochen (Joe) Meixner | Veeam Vanguard 2024 | Veeam Legend 2021 - 2023 | Veeam Certified Architect (VMCA) 2022 | Twitter: @JoMeix | BlueSky: @jmeixner.bsky.social
Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Starting to love Orchestrator as I did a chapter on it and test it in my homelab.  Great product for DR.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
vmiss33
Userlevel 5
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Thank you so much for sharing this, Victor!

wesmrt
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

It’s great to know about customer stories. Thanks for share, Victor!

Wesley Martins @ Specialist Enginner at Veeam Technical Support | My blog: https://itproland.com.br (PT-BR)
Iams3le
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Excellent comparison and architecture :clap:

Microsoft MVP | Veeam Legend 5* | VMware vExpert 4* | Cisco Champion 3*
I
Userlevel 7
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Awesome !

Inder | www.thenetworkdna.com | Twitter @inder8588
victorwu
Userlevel 7
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Thank you so much for sharing this, Victor!

@vmiss33 Thanks for introducing to me this great DR solution in the webinar. :grin:

Victor Wu
victorwu
Userlevel 7
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This is the first reference case (VDRO solution) in Macau.:grin:

Victor Wu
dloseke
Userlevel 7
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I haven’t had any time to setup VDRO in the lab though I started to.  I have high hopes.  SRM is a great product, but doesn’t tick all the boxes live VDRO with the exception of working with storage-based replication.  SRM still has better support with vendor supplied SRA’s to support array-based replication on more storage arrays, but I expect that will improve with time and I honestly have only run into one client so far that was using storage replication on their compellent arrays.

Derek M. Loseke, Senior Systems Engineer | Veeam Legend 2022-2023 | VMSP/VMTSP | VCP6-DCV | VSP/VTSP | CCNA | https://technotesanddadjokes.com | @dloseke
victorwu
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

I haven’t had any time to setup VDRO in the lab though I started to.  I have high hopes.  SRM is a great product, but doesn’t tick all the boxes live VDRO with the exception of working with storage-based replication.  SRM still has better support with vendor supplied SRA’s to support array-based replication on more storage arrays, but I expect that will improve with time and I honestly have only run into one client so far that was using storage replication on their compellent arrays.

Actually both VMware SRM and Veeam VDRO are a great product, but VMware SRM only focuses on disaster recovery of virtual machine infrastructure, Veeam includes disaster recovery of virtual machine infrastructure and application level. So far I don't see any major improvements in VMware SRM (latest version, v8.5). Instead, VDRO is an end-to-end disaster recovery solution.

Victor Wu
Andanet
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

Hi @victorwu I’m studying this and your other article 

 about differences from VEEAM and SRM

One of attention point from these Solutions can be the replica status during failover tests. 

With SRM replica can be continue during failover tests instead with VEEAM this is not possible. 

So this means customer have not RPO during failover test period… it can be for a lot of days. 

what have you think about this? 

Thanks 

Antonio D'Andrea | VCP6-DCV | VMCE 2021 | VMCA 2022 | VMTSP2023 | Veeam Legend 2023 | VUG Italy Leader | I want it written on my tombstone "Please start a restore to the last valid backup"
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Very nice summary @victorwu . Thank you for sharing!

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
Scott
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

SRM shop here. I’ve been testing CDP and replication a bit. 

 

Using IBM SAN’s with storage replication our SRM implementation has been rock solid.  75 isn’t a hard limit, other than the fact the price goes up a little bit. If you have a good budget that wouldn’t be my deciding factor. 

 

That being said, I think I need to try Veeam with an aggressive DR policy to see how it works. There are benefits to both systems. 

 

 

victorwu
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Very nice summary @victorwu . Thank you for sharing!

@coolsport00 Thanks, it is my old article.

Victor Wu
victorwu
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Hi @victorwu I’m studying this and your other article 

 about differences from VEEAM and SRM

One of attention point from these Solutions can be the replica status during failover tests. 

With SRM replica can be continue during failover tests instead with VEEAM this is not possible. 

So this means customer have not RPO during failover test period… it can be for a lot of days. 

what have you think about this? 

Thanks 

@Andanet

No testing failover before actual failover if you use Veeam Replication. It support test failover if you use SRM. It supports the following if you use Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator.

  • Automated testing before failover
  • Automated verification during test / failover

  • Automated DR documentation

Victor Wu
victorwu
Userlevel 7
Badge +7

SRM shop here. I’ve been testing CDP and replication a bit. 

 

Using IBM SAN’s with storage replication our SRM implementation has been rock solid.  75 isn’t a hard limit, other than the fact the price goes up a little bit. If you have a good budget that wouldn’t be my deciding factor. 

 

That being said, I think I need to try Veeam with an aggressive DR policy to see how it works. There are benefits to both systems. 

 

 

For me, I will choose Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator.

Victor Wu

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