Enterprise Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Expertise

VMware's popular Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is an extension to VMware vCenter that allows you to orchestrate, automate and test a consistent process for restoring services rapidly after an outage. SRM provides centrally managed and automated disaster recovery, application mobility, plus non-disruptive site migration, failback and re-protect. SRM also allows non-disruptive testing for disaster recovery, upgrades and patches and can generate audit reports to confirm complete service restoration, validate SLAs and prove compliance.

Site Recovery Manager works natively with VMware vSphere Replication, can be used with third-party disaster recovery solutions from leading storage vendors like NetApp, and integrates with Microsoft software products for advanced, application-aware data protection. SRM's support for automated, single-click orchestration of failover and failback processes allows you to minimize Recovery Time Objective (RTO). SRM's support for array-based synchronous replication enables zero-data-loss Recovery Point Objective (RPO) at metro distances. Combined with VMware's NSX network virtualization platform, SRM can recover the entire logical network topology at the recovery site.

Progent can provide the support of a certified VMware VCDX consultant to help you plan, deploy, test and manage a disaster recovery solution based on VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX. Progent's Microsoft-certified Windows Server 2022 integration professionals, Windows Server 2019 integration experts, and Windows Server 2016 consultants can help you set up SRM on Windows Server at the protected site and the recovery site and can also help you configure mission-critical applications by providing services such as Exchange Server 2019 planning and configuration consulting, Exchange Server 2016 migration, SQL Server 2019 migration consulting, SQL Server 2017 upgrade expertise, and SQL Server 2016 integration consulting. Progent's Cisco CCIE consultants can help you design and deploy a robust network infrastructure for Site Recovery Manager, and Progent can provide a NetApp-certified SAN storage expert to help you integrate a NetApp clustered storage solution with SRM.

Key Features of VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware Site Recovery Manager servers and VMware vCenter servers, running at the protected and recovery sites in conjunction with VMware vSphere and hosted by Microsoft Windows Server, work together to ensure that recovery virtual machines (VMs) are immediately and transparently started up when protected VMs are shut down. The virtual machines at the recovery site use the data replicated from the protected site and are therefore able to continue providing the same services.

SRM's migration of data and services between the protected and recovery sites is controlled by a recovery plan, an automated runbook that defines the order in which VMs are shut down and started up, their allocated resource pools, and the networks the VMs can access. You can configure multiple recovery plans to orchestrate recovery scenarios for specific applications or to handle entire sites. You can centrally manage VMware SRM recovery plans via the vSphere Web Client.

In addition to providing a strong disaster recovery solution to protect against unplanned downtime, VMware SRM also allows non-disruptive execution of planned processes such as disaster avoidance in anticipation of a major storm, moving a datacenter to a new location, testing upgrades and patches, testing a recovery plan to demonstrate compliance, and failback/re-protect after a partial or complete site shutdown. If your protected and recovery sites have a high-bandwidth, low-latency connection within a metro area, you can use array-based storage and synchronous replication with zero data loss (RPO) and rapid recovery time (RTO).

Site Recovery Manager can be configured in a variety of topologies to support different failover scenarios. In an Active-Passive configuration, a production site runs applications and services and a fully-provisioned secondary site waits unused until it is needed for recovery. This traditional topology is quickly falling out of favor because of its low utilization of IT resources. In an Active-Active topology, less urgent workloads such as testing or development are run at the secondary site until the recovery plan calls for them to be shut down to make room for critical workloads following outage. This allows the recovery site to stay productive. In a Bi-directional deployment, production workloads can be run at two sites which Site Recovery Manager will use as mutual protection and recovery sites. If either sites fails, SRM will activate its workloads on the surviving site.

VMware Site Recovery Manager also supports stretched storage clusters that span protected and recovery sites. Stretched clusters allow you to migrate workloads between two geographically proximate sites to balance services without downtime. This combination of technologies delivers the disaster recovery orchestration, automation, and audit reporting capability of SRM plus the ability of stretched clusters to enable fully active datacenters with on-demand, non-disruptive workload balancing.

Additional topologies supported by VMware Site Recovery Manager include shared recovery, where multiple remote sites such as branch offices are protected by the same recovery site, and shared protection, where a single site fails over some applications and VMs to one recovery site and others to one or more other recovery sites. All of the various architectural alternatives for deploying a disaster recovery solution based on VMware SRM have inherent advantages and problems and range in complexity from simple to very challenging. Progent can provide the support of an VMware VCDX-certified expert who can clarify the issues, recommend a topology that fits your organization's technical requirements and IT budget, and provide as-needed guidance and support to help you implement and manage your disaster recovery solution.

Combining Site Recovery Manager and VMware NSX
Because the IP address of a running virtual machine cannot be altered without incurring some downtime, protected sites and recovery sites supported by VMware Site Recovery Manager must have L2 network connectivity to achieve the fastest possible failover time. One way to accomplish this is through VMware's NSX network virtualization platform. The network virtualization provided with VMware NSX makes it possible to preserve L2 and recover the entire logical network topology at the recovery site. NSX also supports APIs for automating recovery at the network layer to optimize RPO and RTO. By combining NSX with a disaster recovery solution based on VMware Site Recovery Manager, you can streamline the recovery of critical networking services at the secondary site including logical switches, distributed logical routers, and distributed firewall (DFW) policies.

For seamless spanning of network and security policies across multiple sites you can use an external replication/synchronization technology like vRO (vRealize Orchestrator, formerly called vCenter Orchestrator), or you can use the Cross-VC feature of VMware NSX. Cross vCenter NSX simplifies the process of deploying Universal Logical Switches, Universal Distributed Logical Router, and Universal Distributed Firewall to create a single unified logical network (L2, L3, DFW) across the protected and recovery site. This permits rapid failover and recovery without requiring you to re-create the network on the recovery site or manually map and remap IP addresses.

Progent can provide the services of a VMware-certified NSX expert to help you integrate VMware Site Recovery Manager with VMware NSX and to configure a disaster recovery solution automated by vRO or Cross vCenter NSX.

How Progent Can Help You with VMware Site Recovery Manager
Progent can provide online or onsite access to a VMware VCDX-certified subject matter expert with world-class knowledge and experience deploying and configuring VMware Site Recovery Manager and VMware's NSX network virtualization platform for disaster recovery and business continuity. Progent offers expert understanding of VMware vCloud Director (vCD), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and vCloud Suite used for managing private and hybrid cloud environments that feature high availability, fault tolerance, and application continuity. Progent has expertise with VMware vSAN native-vSphere storage, EMC VNX and VMAX storage systems, Dell EqualLogic storage arrays, NetApp's SAN storage product family, plus storage solutions from Pure Storage and Tintri. Progent also offers advanced consulting for underlying storage technologies including RAID, JBOD, ZFS, VMFS, Fibre Channel (FC), NFS, and iSCSI plus key network technologies including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, LACP, OSPF, and BGP.

Progent's VCDX-certified VMware Site Recovery Manager and NSX subject matter expert has worked with datacenter architects, network engineers and department directors of some of the world's largest technology companies, major financial institutions, and government agencies to design solutions to improve disaster recovery RPO and RTO. Experience with large-scale projects includes working in environments scaling above 1500 ESXi hosts and 45,000 virtual machines.

Fault Tolerant Technologies Supported by Progent's Consultants
Progent's certified support professionals can help your business to create a cost-effective, high-availability system that resolves critical issues covering a wide range of networking solutions and operations including:

Business Continuity Planning
Progent's business continuity planning professionals can show you how to design a workplace recovery plan so you can resume IT functionality in the event of an IT network disaster. Progent can assist you to create a complete disaster recovery plan that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery assessments and testing. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-authorized professionals can also show you how to build an affordable, zero-downtime network solution that addresses availability issues involving a broad array of network technologies and procedures. To find out more, see Business Continuity Consulting Services.

CRISC-Certified IT Risk Management
The Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) certification program was initiated by ISACA to validate an IT professional's ability to design, deploy, and maintain information system control mechanisms to reduce risk. Progent offers the services of a CRISC-certified consultant to assist you to create and carry out a workplace continuity strategy that follows industry best practices promoted by CRISC and crafted to align with your company's risk appetite, business goals, and budgetary guidelines. To read more, see CRISC-Premier IT risk control experts.

Windows Server 2019 High Availability Failover Clustering
Microsoft Windows Server 2019 incorporated significant improvements in scale, throughput, manageability, cybersecurity, application compatibility, Linux support, Kubernetes technology, and hybrid combinations of on-premises and cloud-hosted resources. Headline new features of Windows Server 2019 include Windows Admin Center for unifying the management and monitoring of hybrid local/cloud-hosted deployments, System Insights for taking advantage of advance predictive intelligence to control local environments, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection Exploit Guard for host-intrusion prevention, container orchestration with Kubernetes, Cluster Sets technology for building and administering massive high-availability scale-out clusters, and Storage Migration Service for streamlining the upgrade process from legacy editions of Windows Server. For more information, see Windows Server 2019 Fault-tolerant Failover Clustering Expertise.

Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Progent's Windows Server 2016 disaster recovery/business continuity experts can help you to plan and deploy a disaster recovery system built around Microsoft's latest Failover Clustering technologies such as Cluster Operating System Rolling Upgrade for non-intrusive migration to Windows Server 2016, Storage Replica for crash-consistent recovery, Storage Spaces Direct for enterprise-class network-attached storage using industry-standard equipment, VM Load Balancing for improving the speed and fault-tolerance of Failover Clusters while minimizing capital investment and operational expenses, and Cloud Witness for fast, economical creation of a failover cluster quorum arbitration point. For details, visit Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Support.

NetApp MetroCluster Disaster Recovery Platform
NetApp MetroCluster is a disaster recovery platform that uses array-based storage clustering along with continual replication to deliver fast, zero data loss disaster recovery between sites that are as far as 185 miles (300km) apart. Progent offers access to a certified NetApp MetroCluster consultant who can assist you to plan, configure, administer, update, test and repair a disaster recovery solution built around NetApp MetroCluster. Progent can help you to select an architecture for your MetroCluster deployment that aligns with your technical requirements and budget. Progent can make sure you follow leading practices for configuring your MetroCluster solution by delivering help with tasks such as assigning shelf IDs, determining aggregate layout, provisioning FlexVol volumes, setting up Data ONTAP configuration replication service, provisioning switches, designing a tiebreaker mechanism, designing a TCP/IP configuration replication network between your peered clusters, and testing your disaster recovery system to verify adherence with information assurance standards and regulatory requirements.

Fault Tolerant Load Balancing
Progent offers high availability load balancing consulting that addresses system load balancing, load balanced applications, LAN/WAN infrastructure routing, and content dispatching products including F5 Networks 3DNS. Non-stop load balancing products for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Microsoft Windows 2003 and 2008 Server Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Presentation Server, Cisco CSS, Cisco Content Distribution Manager and ACNS, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. For more information, visit Non-stop Load Balancing.

Non-stop Colocation
Progent's Data Center professionals can help you select fault-tolerant data centers that match the specific needs of your business. Fault tolerant Internet Data Centers are especially appealing to small and mid-size organizations because of their low cost and simplified logistics compared to taking a do-it-yourself approach. Attempting to create an on-site data center that offers even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is too costly for typical small organizations. Progent is ready to show you how to get all the advantages of non-stop colocation facilities by offering a full range of consulting and maintenance services. To find out more, go to Fault Tolerant Data Centers Solutions.

High-Availability Inter-office Connectivity
Progent's multi-site connection engineers can help businesses create non-stop interoffice connectivity solutions through fully redundant networks with transparent failover. Progent's Cisco-premier CCIE network engineers can design and deploy high-availability Inter-office connections supported by zero-downtime EIGRP routers or zero-downtime OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can demonstrate how multi-path connections and transparent fail-over offers economical non-stop interoffice networking. For more information, go to Fault Tolerant Inter-office Connectivity.

24x7 Internet Connections
Progent's Cisco-certified IT professionals can show you how to build an affordable, high availability Internet connection solution that can deliver non-stop Internet access through a broad array of fault tolerant Internet access solutions including non-stop BGP, transparent fail-over, and redundant Internet Service Providers. Progent offers CCIE consultants to show you how to utilize the most up-to-date technology for fault tolerant Internet access to build an affordable, completely redundant Internet network with automatic failover and other features to deliver fault tolerant Internet access. For more information, go to Fault Tolerant Internet Connectivity Solutions.

Backup and Recovery Solutions Consulting Services
Progent can provide affordable remote support from IT engineers with expertise in a wide range of utilities and technologies that deliver solutions for backing up Windows, Mac, and Linux servers and workstations plus notebooks and smartphones. Progent can provide expertise for leading data protection platforms including Acronis, Symantec Backup Exec, BackupAssist, CrashPlan PRO, Double-Take Software, MozyPro, Retrospect for Macintosh, Time Machine, VMware Data Recovery, and Oracle Solaris FLARs. Progent can assist you to install, enhance, or maintain backup solutions for a range of environments including local, remote, cloud-based, or a mix. To learn more, go to Backup and Recovery Solutions Consulting.

System Center Data Protection Manager Data Recovery Consulting Experts
Progent's expert Microsoft SCDPM support professionals can help your company to create an effective business continuity plan, design a cost-effective fault-tolerante network infrastructure, configure a Microsoft SCDPM-based recovery solution, thoroughly validate your system, train your IT personnel or regular consultants how to maintain SCDPM, or provide complete information technology support outsourcing such as remote hosting of SCDPM servers in Progent's data center facility. For details, visit System Center Data Protection Manager Consulting and Support Services.

Barracuda Backup On-premises and Cloud Data Backup and Disaster Recovery
Barracuda Backup is a low-cost, subscription backup/restore platform for small and mid-size businesses. A Barracuda Backup solution can incorporate a custom-designed physical appliance manufactured by Barracuda or a virtual appliance with similar features but which uses your existing storage infrastructure. Barracuda Backup safeguards critical business data generated locally, at one or multiple remote locations, or in the cloud. For disaster recovery, you can replicate data to the Barracuda Cloud, to Amazon AWS, or to any site with a Barracuda Backup appliance. Progent is a Barracuda partner and Progent's Barracuda Backup consulting experts offer a wide array of consulting services to assist your business to plan, integrate, operate and troubleshoot a backup and disaster recovery solution based on Barracuda technology. For more information, visit Barracuda Backup and disaster recovery consulting.

ProSight Altaro VM Backup Software for Data Protection and Disaster Recovery
Hornetsecurity's Altaro VM Backup provides small and mid-size businesses a dependable and budget-friendly solution for backing up and restoring Hyper-V and VMware-based VMs. Altaro VM Backup can be used for local, remote, multi-site, and cloud environments and also enables cost-effective cloud backup to Microsoft Azure storage. Altaro VM Backup includes advanced capabilities like Immutable Cloud Storage for enhanced protection from ransomware. Progent is a certified Altaro partner and offers a wide range of online or on-premises services to assist you to design, install, manage and troubleshoot a modern backup and disaster recovery solution powered by Altaro VM Backup. With ProSight DPS Altaro VM Backup, Progent delivers a managed backup/restore service based on Altaro VM Backup. To find out more, see Altaro VM Backup consulting.

ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup Services for Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 provides rudimentary archiving but does not have native support for crucial data protection services such as Exchange Online backups or long-term point-in-time data recovery for OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup delivers a feature-rich platform for programmable backup and quick restoration of all your company's M365 mailboxes, Teams Chats, SharePoint sites, OneDrive files, and content on Windows desktops and laptops. Progent is an authorized Hornetsecurity/Altaro partner and has designed ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup to deliver end-to-end management services for Hornetsecurity's 365 Total Backup product. ProSight Data Protection Services 365 Total Backup delivers a budget-friendly backup-as-a-service (BaaS) solution that defends M365 components against data loss or corruption caused by user or system error, malicious deletion, and malware assaults such as ransomware. To read more, go to ProSight DPS 365 Total Backup solutions for Microsoft 365.

Fully Managed Cloud Backup: ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO
ProSight Data Protection Services ECHO provide small and mid-sized businesses an affordable end-to-end service for secure backup/disaster recovery (BDR). Available at a fixed monthly price, ProSight DPS ECHO automates your backup processes and allow fast recovery of critical files, applications and virtual machines that have become lost or corrupted due to component breakdowns, software glitches, natural disasters, human error, or malicious attacks like ransomware. ProSight DPS ECHO can help you back up, retrieve and restore files, folders, applications, system images, plus Hyper-V and VMware images. Important data can be backed up on the cloud, to an on-premises storage device, or mirrored to both. Progent's BDR specialists can provide world-class expertise to set up ProSight DPS ECHO to to comply with government and industry regulatory standards such as HIPAA, FIRPA, PCI and Safe Harbor and, whenever necessary, can assist you to restore your critical information. Read more about ProSight DPS ECHO managed backup.

ProSight MSP360 Backup Solutions
Progent can help your company to design, deploy and troubleshoot a backup/restore plan built around MSP360 software. MSP360 enables file or image backup/restore for VMs and physical computers, works with all popular public clouds, and permits you to build a backup ecosystem with a low Recovery Time Objective and a granular Recovery Point Objective (RPO). With ProSight MSP360 Backup, Progent can provide end-to-end monitoring and management of your backup system to protect against data loss caused by human miscues, system glitches, malicious insiders, and external attacks such as ransomware. To read more, go to ProSight MSP360 Backup services.

Consulting Services Double-Take Software for Data Backup/Restore
Double-Take Software offers a selection of tools intended to provide small businesses a variety of affordable solutions for replicating and recovering vital workloads such as Exchange, Microsoft SQL, Blackberry, and Microsoft SharePoint. Progent's business continuity planning consultants have extensive backgrounds incorporating Double-Take products into small company information networks to create an advanced level of availability and business continuity capability at an affordable cost. For more information, visit Consulting Services Double-Take Solutions for Backup.

Why Choose Progent for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Planning Solutions?
Because Progent is a Microsoft Certified AI Cloud Partner and offers professional application support for a broad variety of business software programs, Progent is able to assist clients to arrive at efficient information technology solutions that substantially enhance the business value of your IT network. As a Registered Partner for Cisco, Progent offers the support of premier engineers and specialists with experience in designing, configuring and troubleshooting networking solutions built on Cisco technology. The breadth of Progent's IT know-how and Progent's sensitivity to the needs of small businesses make Progent a great partner for creating and running a cost-effective, fault-tolerant information system.

Contact Progent for Help with VMware SRM Disaster Recovery Solutions
For more information about Progent's consulting services for VMware Site Recovery Manager, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.