VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR) is an on-demand disaster recovery service delivered as a SaaS solution. A virtual appliance (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.
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 and regions.
