VMware Cloud Well-Architected Framework- Backup and Disaster Recovery for Google Cloud VMware Engine
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Protecting workloads in Google Cloud VMware Engine is crucial in ensuring business continuity in case of an unexpected situation or disaster. Google Cloud VMware Engine supports a variety of third-party backup solutions that are certified by VMware for vSAN and use a VMware vStorage API for Data Protection (VADP) protocol. Agent-based backup approach can be used as well. For workloads that are being migrated from on-premises environments, a VADP-based backup approach is preferred because it provides more flexibility of backup repository locations and requires fewer changes to the workloads. Please refer to the Google Cloud VMware Engine official documentation for a list of supported third-party backup solutions.
When designing the backups for Google Cloud VMware Engine workloads, organizations must identify required recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for the workloads. Also, when choosing backup locations, organizations should consider available location capabilities, identified SLAs, network charges, and storage cost. For example, using a different cluster in the same Google Cloud VMware Engine private cloud may provide the lowest RTO but storage cost may be higher. Using on-premises storage may incur higher network charges, but it leverages existing backup storage so the storage cost may be lower.
There are third-party backup solutions that can be used with Google Cloud VMware Engine as well, such as Veeam and Zerto. For more information on using third-party backup solutions, please refer to the official Google Cloud VMware Engine documentation.
Having a disaster recovery plan for the Google Cloud VMware Engine SDDC is important as well. One of the simplest ways to enhance resiliency of Google Cloud VMware Engine is to deploy multiple instances in different regions. Depending on the recoverability requirements, another site may be needed to serve as a secondary site for the Google Cloud VMware Engine SDDC, whether it is an on-premises environment or another Google Cloud VMware Engine SDDC in a different region. VMware Site Recovery can be leveraged to configure and automate the disaster recovery operations.
On the other hand, Google Cloud VMware Engine can be a part of the disaster recovery plan for the organization’s on-premises environments, leveraging VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM). Organizations can use VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) along with vSphere replication to protect the on-premises environment and use the Google Cloud VMware Engine SDDC as a recovery site. A vSphere appliance is deployed in the on-premises environment to perform replications of virtual machines between the two sites.