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Disaster Recovery Service for VMware Datacenters Uses AWS Cloud
Announced today, a new service from OneCloud Software for VMware-based environments uses the Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) cloud as a virtual disaster recovery datacenter.
OneCloud Recovery is unique in that it provides "built-in cloud cost optimization" that lowers costs, claimed OneCloud in a statement today.
The Boston-based hybrid cloud management specialist said its solution provides: auto-discovery of on-premises infrastructure by connecting directly to VMware's vSphere server virtualization platform; a simplified policy engine that provides recovery points and recovery times ranging between one and 24 hours; and failback that brings only modified application data back to a primary site from an AWS disaster recovery site.
The company said its service doesn't require customers to have any expertise or knowledge of AWS, as using the service requires them to only specify the recovery policies they desire to have provisioned.
"Disaster recovery has traditionally been a major challenge for IT departments," the company said. "Even with the advent of server virtualization and other technologies that have simplified DR implementation and some aspects of ongoing management, it is often still a complex and extremely costly undertaking."
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OneCloud Disaster Recovery (source: OneCloud)
Other solutions have also been developed to meet that major challenge using the AWS cloud. CloudVelox, for example, offers a service that uses public clouds, including AWS, as "secondary datacenters for high availability."
Some also specifically target VMware-based datacenters. For example, in February, Emind announced what it claimed to be "a first-of-its-kind DR service" that lets VMware users directly recover their virtual machines on AWS. "Until now, there hasn't been a way for these two platform giants to communicate," the company said at the time. "There are few cloud options for VMware users and none of them leverage AWS, the world's leading cloud platform."
Zerto also leverages AWS for on-premises disaster recovery, providing "continuous replication of production workloads from VMWare and Microsoft environments to AWS, delivering more options for disaster recovery."
HotLink offers a DR Express service that provides "a dramatically simple VMware Ready plug-in for VMware vCenter that extends administration and management capabilities to include backup and replication plus DR/BC at AWS.
AWS, meanwhile, offers a Management Portal for vCenter, VMware's centralized management platform for vSphere. "Once installed, it enables you to migrate VMware VMs to Amazon EC2 and manage AWS resources from within vCenter," AWS states. AWS also provides its own disaster recovery services for implementations running on its own cloud.
OneCloud said its new service is available today and will be on display at the upcoming VMworld conference in San Francisco.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.