VMware Cloud Well-Architected Framework - Backup and DR for VMware Cloud on AWS
Backup and Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery is a crucial part of a data center design. VMware Cloud on AWS provides flexibility and agility for organizations to quickly implement a working disaster recovery solution and protect their on-premises environments. There are two main solutions that organizations can leverage for disaster recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS: VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR).
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)
Organizations can use VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) along with vSphere replication. This is an on-demand Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution that can be enabled as an add-on from the VMware Cloud on AWS UI. Once the add-on service is enabled, a vSphere appliance must be deployed in the on-premises environment for the sites to be paired and replications of virtual machines to begin. With this solution, organizations can protect their on-premises environment and utilize VMware Cloud on AWS as the disaster recovery site instead of having to invest in a separate, physical data center for disaster recovery.
VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR)
Another option is to leverage VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR), which is an on-demand disaster recovery service delivered as a SaaS solution. A virtual appliance called DRaaS connector is deployed in the protected site to replicate data to a cloud-based Scale-Out Cloud File System (SCFS). When a disaster occurs, a VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC is deployed and virtual machines are recovered to the SDDC. One of the main advantages to using this solution is that organizations do not have to create and pay for VMware Cloud on AWS SDDCs upfront. This, in turn, reduces overall cost for organizations to operate their data centers without having to worry about not being able to recover from an unexpected scenario.
Having a disaster recovery plan for the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC is important as well if there are critical, production workloads running in a VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC. One of the simplest ways to enhance resiliency of the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC is to use VMware Stretched Clusters. VMware Stretched Clusters span across two different AWS availability zones within an AWS region. Therefore, if there is an outage in an AWS availability zone, vSphere High Availability will automatically move the workloads to the other AWS availability zone. If there are more demanding recoverability requirements, another site may be needed to serve as a disaster recovery site for the VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC. The site can be an on-premises environment or another VMware Cloud on AWS SDDC. VMware Site Recovery can be enabled and leveraged to orchestrate the disaster recovery procedures between the sites.