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Announcing VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery! (VCDR)

Duncan Epping · Sep 30, 2020 · 2 Comments

Most of you probably saw the announcements around the acquisition of Datrium not too long ago. One of the major drivers for that acquisition was the Disaster Recovery solution which Datrium developed. This week at VMworld this service was announced as a new VMware disaster recovery option. The service is named VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, and it provides the ability to replicate workloads from on-prem into cloud storage, and recover from cloud storage into VMware Cloud on AWS! The three key pillars of the service are ease of use, fast recovery, cloud economics.

The solution is extensively covered in three VMworld sessions (HCI2876, HCI2886, HCI2865). I have watched all three and will provide a short summary here. What capabilities does VMware Cloud DR (VCDR) provide and why is VMware heading into this space?

The why was well explained by Mark Chuang in HCI2876, customers are saying that:

  • “DR is very complex and expensive to manage, and I can’t add IT Headcount”
  • “Our data grows 10-15% every year, with physical DR it is hard to accommodate the growth in the datacenter to meet the needs”
  • “We only test full DR once a year because it is disruptive. Any time there is a major change, how can we know it still works? It is a huge issue!”

I guess that makes it clear why VMware is interested in this space, it is a huge problem for customers and the solution typically comes at a high cost. VMware has always been in the business of solving complex solutions in preferably a simple way, and that is exactly what VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery delivers, a simple solution at a relatively low cost.

So what does it bring from a feature/functionality stance?

it all starts with cloud economics, to which ease-of-use also contributes, in my opinion. VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery is super simple to configure and it replicates data to “cheap and deep” cloud storage. This ensures that the cost can be kept low, and note that all of the typical cost that comes with cloud storage (network etc) are all included in the service offering by VMware. The challenge however typically with cloud storage is that it is relatively slow when it comes to restoring, but this is where the “on-demand” capabilities come into play. VMware Cloud DR provides the ability to instantly power-on workloads through a live mount option, without the need to convert the stored data back to a VM format.

When configuring the VMware Cloud DR solutions you will need to install/configure a DRaaS Connector on-prem. This on-prem Connector connects you to the SaaS platform and will provide the required details to the SaaS Orchestrator, note that you can have multiple DRaaS connectors for resiliency and performance reasons. When the connection is configured you will then be able to create “Protection Groups” and “DR Plans”. Those who have worked with Site Recovery Manager will recognize the terms. For those who haven’t:

  • Protection Groups – These groups list the workloads which will be protected by VMware Cloud DR. Of course you can define the protection schedule, basically how many snapshots need to be shipped remote cloud storage per day/week/month.
  • DR Plans – These plans list workloads that would need to be failed over when the plan is triggered, and for instance, include the order in which the workloads need to be powered on. Also, if workloads need to get a different IP address in the cloud, then you can specify this here also.

Of course besides creating protection groups and DR plans you have the ability to test and failover the workloads in those plans, again, very similar to what Site Recovery Manager offers. Before I forget, you will have the option of course to select the snapshot you want to recover from. So you can go back to any point in time. What is unique here is that VMs are powered without (initially) moving data from cloud storage to your VMware Cloud on AWS. It basically mounts an NFS share from the SaaS platform and the scale-out file system ensures that the VMs can be instantly be powered on. After you have tested the recovery you can then decide to migrate the VMs to your SDDC, or you can of course also discard the workloads if that is something you desire. Last but not least, of course, you also have the ability to replicate back to on-prem, so that you can bring your workloads back whenever you have recovered your environment from the disaster that occurred and you are ready to run those workloads on-prem again.

Now there are many more details, but I am not going to share those in this post, I may do a couple of additional blogs at a future time. I hope the above gives a good overview of what the offering will provide. For more details, I would recommend watching the VMworld sessions on this topic (HCI2876, HCI2886, HCI2865). The last thing I want to share though is where the solution will be available, or at least what is being planned. As shown below, the offering should be available in multiple regions soon.

vSAN 7.0 U1 File Services with SMB and NFS support demo

Duncan Epping · Sep 21, 2020 · 11 Comments

I created this quick demo last week, and I figured I would share it here. It shows vSAN 7.0 U1 File Services with SMB and NFS support. I wrote about vSAN File Services and what is new in this post here, make sure to read that as well, and of course, it also details all the other introduced changes for vSAN 7.0 U1.

Top 5 newly added VMworld sessions to register for!

Duncan Epping · Sep 17, 2020 · Leave a Comment

As VMware has just done a major announcement (vSAN 7.0 U1 and vSphere 7.0U1), additional sessions have been added to the VMworld agenda. I already did a top 15 post not too long ago, so I figured I would create a short post that contains my 5 favorite sessions that were just added to the extensive list of available sessions at VMworld. Here we go:

  1. Introducing VMware HCI Mesh, Powered by vSAN [HCI1405] by Peng Dai and Kris Groh
    In this session Peng (lead developer) and Kris(Product Manager) will be telling you all about this cool new feature which allows you to mount vSAN datastores from another vSAN Cluster! Any more I need to say?
  2. Deep Dive: vSAN Data Persistence Platform [HCI2529] by Gopala and Mansi
    You hopefully all have seen the announcements around the vSAN Data Persistence platform by now, Gopala and Mansi will dive deep into what this platform exactly is, what it will bring to you as a customer, and how it works!
  3. What’s New in vSphere [HCP2110] by Jared Rosoff
    I am not 100% sure this session was just added, but I do expect Jared will be discussing some of the enhancements and changes VMware has introduced for vSphere with Tanzu with vSphere 7.0 Update 1. Make sure to attend!
  4. Maximize the Power of Modern Databases and Stateful Services [HCI1979] Industry panel host by Lee Caswell
    This session will be all about the new vSAN Data Persistent platform, partners like Cloudian, Datastax, Dell EMC, and MinIO will be providing details on what they bring to the table and how DPp makes life easier for you as a customer. On top of that, there’s a customer joining the panel as well!
  5. vSphere with Tanzu Deep Dive [KUB2469] by Bo Fu and Derek Beard
    In this session the newly announced VMware vSphere with Tanzu  is going to be discussed. Will be an interesting session for sure!

What’s new for vSAN 7.0 U1!?

Duncan Epping · Sep 15, 2020 · 4 Comments

Every 6-9 months VMware has been pushing out a new feature release of vSAN. After vSphere and vSAN 7.0, which introduced vSphere Lifecycle Manager and vSAN File Services, it is now time to share with you what is new for vSAN 7.0 U1. Again it is a feature-packed release, with many “smaller enhancements, but also the introduction of some bigger functionality. Let’s just list the key features that have just been announced, and then discuss each of these individually. You better sit down, as this is going to be a long post. Oh, and note, this is an announcement, not the actual availability of vSAN 7.0 U1, for that you will have to wait some time.

  • vSAN HCI Mesh
  • vSAN Data Persistence Platform
  • vSAN Direct Configuration
  • vSAN File Services – SMB support
  • vSAN File Services – Performance enhancements
  • vSAN File Services – Scalability enhancements
  • vSAN Shared Witness
  • Compression-only
  • Data-in-transit encryption
  • Secure wipe
  • vSAN IO Insight
  • Effective capacity enhancements
  • Enhanced availability during maintenance mode
  • Faster host restarts
  • Enhanced pre-check for vSAN maintenance mode
  • Ability to override default gateway through the UI
  • vLCM support for Lenovo

[Read more…] about What’s new for vSAN 7.0 U1!?

Virtual Events, my thoughts.

Duncan Epping · Sep 8, 2020 · 6 Comments

Over the past 9 months, I have done more “zoom” sessions / “virtual events” than I have in the past 5 years. I have seen all the complaints from regular presenters (and attendees) about virtual events, and the flood storm of Zoom requests many have been getting, but personally I seem to be part of the other side of the spectrum as I thoroughly enjoy the virtual events. First and foremost, it helped to relieve stress. To the point where my family noticed a significant change in my mental state/wellbeing, not just the mental aspect, also the physical aspect. It is much easier to have a consistent diet and training regime when you don’t need to hop on a flight to go to an event every other week.

But not only that, I just like the virtual event format. Well, the format which Cormac, Frank, and I developed for our Virtual VMUG Roadshow. Also, the format of the Virtual TAM Roundtable sessions which Cormac and I have been presenting has worked really well. Now, don’t get me wrong. I always enjoyed going to events, having dinner with (new) friends, and talking to people at/during the event… but is it sustainable when you do 20+ events per year as a presenter? And is this model sustainable for attendees when employers are expecting more with less? Not really in my opinion, hence my preference for this virtual world. But that doesn’t answer the question of why I think it has worked for us very well, while it hasn’t worked as well for some others? [Read more…] about Virtual Events, my thoughts.

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the HCI BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007) and the author of multiple books including "vSAN Deep Dive" and the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series.

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