VMware Cloud Director Availability™ is a Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) solution. VMware Cloud Director Availability On-Premises Appliance protects and migrates vSphere workloads between the on-premises vCenter Server instance and either a provider vCenter Server site or a multi-tenant cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director™.

VMware Cloud Director Availability is available through the Partner Connect Program. This solution provides multi-tenant workload protection and recovery between various cloud sites and with on-premises vCenter Server sites. Choose one of the two VMware Cloud Director Availability deployment types, depending on whether the destination cloud site is backed by VMware Cloud Director:
  • On-premises site and Cloud Director site:
    Replication management and monitoring between on-premises sites and multi-tenant cloud sites backed by VMware Cloud Director, by using a VMware Cloud Director Availability On-Premises Appliance at each on-premises vCenter Server site. For information about this architecture, see Deployment architecture for the On-Premises to Cloud Director Replication Appliance.
  • vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites:
    The VMware Cloud Director Availability On-Premises Appliance deployment file contains an additional appliance role that can replicate between an on-premises vCenter Server site and a cloud vCenter Server site. For this, during the initial on-premises appliance deployment, select its role as On-Premises to Cloud vCenter Replication Appliance. Then pair the new on-premises appliance with a vCenter Replication Management Appliance, deployed, licensed, and metered in the cloud vCenter Server instance. For information about this architecture, see Deployment architecture and requirements for vSphere DR and migration.
During the on-premises appliance deployment in the on-premises vCenter Server instance, depending on the cloud site type, select the appliance role as either:

As a provider, in the cloud vCenter Server site deploy:

vCenter Replication Management Appliance
Pairs to another cloud vCenter Server site, running vCenter Replication Management Appliance. Allows pairing from On-Premises to Cloud vCenter Replication Appliance. For more information, see Installing and configuring both appliances for vSphere DR and migration.
VMware Cloud Director Availability provides:
  • Test failover or failover on-premises workloads to the cloud site and failback of recovered in the cloud workloads back to the on-premises site.
  • Migration of protected virtual machines in the cloud site back to the on-premises site and vice versa.
  • Self-service protection and failover workflows per virtual machine.
  • One vApp or virtual machine replicates to a one destination site. That is, the same source workload can replicate only on a single destination.
  • Each deployment can serve as both a source and a recovery site. There are no dedicated source and destination sites.
  • Symmetrical replication flow that can be started from either the source or the recovery site.
  • Built-in secure tunneling that requires no incoming allowed ports in the firewall in the on-premises site.
  • Built-in end-to-end TLS encryption of the replication traffic that is terminated at each VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance.
  • Optional compression of the replication traffic.
  • VMware Cloud Director Availability vSphere Client Plug-In integration with the existing vSphere environment.
  • Support for multiple vCenter Server and ESXi versions.
  • Single installation package, distributed as a Photon-based virtual appliance.