What’s New in VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery: Integrated Data Protection and Accelerated Ransomware Recovery

If you're here, you probably already know why you need a Disaster Recovery plan. With ransomware attacks skyrocketing to cost the world over $10T (USD) by 2025[1], it is the need of the hour. But this isn't just about having a plan. It's about being able to trust your plan. The question now is, do you trust your plan? And does that plan align with your other business needs and priorities?

We want to help you trust your plan. Trust that you are optimizing your costs while meeting your SLAs, that you're able to recover in the face of ransomware attacks, and that you're able to adopt cloud at your own pace to support your digital transformation. And trust that you're doing this in the simplest possible way, without piecemeal approaches that expose you (and your business) to irreversible data loss.

Because trusting your plan requires the right DR capabilities, we are continuing to deliver a robust set of new and enhanced features that will help you sleep better at night. Let's unpack the new enhancements in VMware Cloud DR which make it ideal for organizations looking to simplify their DR operations in a scalable, simple and reliable way.

Expanded Data Protection and Ransomware Capabilities

At VMworld, we announcedFile-Level Recovery and Integrated Data Protection for VMC_A VMs, and now it's available in our latest release. Customers can now recover faster, choose to do so at a granular level or at scale, and preserve application consistency throughout the process. In addition, customers will gain access to a unified solution that covers their DR, ransomware protection as well as backup/restore use cases. The addition of Volume Shadow Service (VSS) quiescing improves application recovery, as it ensures the applications are in a consistent state before being backed-up or replicated. This preserves data integrity and speeds up the recovery process.

New Lower Cost Deployment Options

With the latest enhancements in VMware Cloud DR, customers can further optimize failover infrastructure costs, as we now support high-capacity 2-host i3en.metal clusters for Pilot Light Mode deployments. This makes VMware Cloud DR a versatile solution which can be tailored to each customer's capacity needs. 2-node i3en clusters are a new, lower-cost entry point for storage intensive workloads-removing the constraint of the higher cost of i3en 3-node clusters or the lower storage capacity of i3 hosts.

We are also introducing 1-host Pilot Light deployments and support for 2-host multi-clusters. This provides added deployment flexibility for customers looking to minimize their cloud failover footprint by keeping 2-host clusters versus 3-host clusters. It is also particularly useful for those looking to scale up the DR footprint for a test or failover commit and still preserve a 2-host Pilot light deployment after failing back, as this provides them the ability to customize their individual deployments to match their DR infrastructure needs.

Simplified Operations for Multi-Site Protection

In addition, VMware Cloud DR now supports deployments in multiple regions per org. This facilitates billing and operations as everything can be managed from a single, federated, global DR console. Each orchestrator can support up to four cloud filesystems, each of which are mapped onto a recovery SDDC (in the same region), as shown in Figure 1 below. For more details on our air-gapped Scale Out Cloud Filesystem (SCFS), refer to this recent blog by Sazzala Reddy, Chief Technologist at VMware.

Protected Cloud Migration, UX Enhancements and More

The latest version of VMware Cloud DR supports vSphere 7.0u3 and HCX .

Migrate + Protect: Interoperability with HCX allows customers to simultaneously migrate and protect their on-premises workloads using HCX and VMware Cloud DR -with no DR protection downtime.

UX Enhancements include added operational visibility with improved replication progress reporting, connectivity checks between the source site and target and an In-Product Feedback feature.

Konnichiwa, Osaka! VMware Cloud DR now supports VMware Cloud on AWS Osaka region, which brings it to a total of 18 VMware Cloud on AWSregions globally.

We know that protecting your data also includes complying with industry and government regulations, so we've accomplished the below compliance milestones, which provide a strong foundation for our continued commitment to support our customers' needs.

ISO 27001/27017/27018: VMware Cloud DR has achieved the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certificate, supporting 27001, 27017, and 27018 standards. ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization who brings together experts to share knowledge and develop international standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges. Please visit the VMware Cloud Trust Center to learn more and to download the ISO certificate.

Cyber Essentials Plus: VMware Cloud DR has achieved the Cyber Essentials Plus certificate. Cyber Essentials is a UK Government-backed framework that helps protect organizations from different cyber-attacks. The Cyber Essentials Plus certification requires an accredited third part to conduct external vulnerability testing to ensure security systems are protected. Please visit the VMware Cloud Trust Center to learn more and to download the Cyber Essentials Plus certificate.

Ready to learn more? Check out the following resources or reach out to your VMware Partner or Salesperson.

Accelerated Ransomware Recovery with VMware Cloud DR

Saving your Organization from Ransomware

Get Started with VMware Cloud DR

[1]Cybersecurity Ventures