VMware Cloud Director Availability

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2022: Cloud Director Availability 4.4

On June 24, 2022, VMware released an updated version of its data center availability solution based on VMware Cloud Director - Cloud Director Availability 4.4.

According to the company, Cloud Director Availability is designed to create a backup infrastructure in one of the public clouds of service providers based on VMware vCloud Director (the so-called Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service, DRaaS).

Back in the last version of Cloud Director Availability, it was possible to expand the Layer 2 network into the cloud, both for VMware Cloud Director installations based on VMware NSX-T Data Center and NSX Data Center for vSphere.

This allowed cloud providers using VMware NSX to stretch customers' premium networks onto their clouds. With this, they can offer customers a seamless migration path to their clouds using both versions of the NSX solution.

Now the product has acquired the following key features:

Disaster-proof vSphere DR and migrate data to the cloud without Cloud Director

Previously, the Cloud Director Availability disaster tolerance infrastructure required that the solution be deployed both on the client's onsite and in the service provider's cloud. Now version 4.4 allows you to connect infrastructure redundancy for those clouds where only VMware vSphere infrastructure is present.

To do this, 2 deployment modes were added:

• The virtual model of the vCenter Replication Management Appliance is installed by the client on the cloud site.
• A similar Cloud vCenter Replication Appliance module is deployed at the client site.

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4

This architecture allows you to manage the entire disaster tolerance infrastructure through the vSphere Client using the VMware Cloud Director Availability vSphere Client Plug-In, without alarming the service provider about the deployment of their own DR infrastructure.

In this case, both online replication of VM data and their migration will be provided between sites. If the main site fails, the user will always be able to make Failover and rotate replication in the opposite direction using the built-in data availability mechanisms, as well as switch back to the online site after its recovery (Failback).

Data Center Migration to the Cloud by Click

Now VMware vSphere users directly from the vSphere Client can start migrating to the cloud with one click, avoiding complex procedures for preparing and configuring environments on their side and on the side of the service provider.

To do this, from the context menu of an object (for example, a virtual machine), select the Fast Migration option from the Cloud Provider DR and Migration section. The process of starting the migration itself does not require almost any input from the user.

Updated Recovery Task Execution Reports

Now there are reports in the product called Recovery Plans Execution Reports. They have information about migrations and recovery (Disaster Recovery), indicating the completed plan steps and the result on each of them.

Here, information about the time of execution of each of the steps is also useful so that the administrator can understand how much this process takes and, based on this, plan the regulations for infrastructure recovery operations in the event of a failure.

Another report is information about RPO policy violations (the allowable loss rate expressed in terms of data change time) over a specified period of time. Recovery Point Control (RPO) is a critical metric for asynchronous replications, so an administrator here can understand whether a company is meeting the requirements.

Configuring Replication

Other changes

This is a collection of small changes that appeared in Cloud Director Availability version 4.4:

• Built-in feedback has appeared, where both the client and the service provider can send messages to VMware about the product.
• Pre-compatibility checks of the remote site, in the case when the user updates one of the virtual modules on his own or cloud site.
• Collecting support bundles directly by the service provider - now it can get them directly from the interface to create a support ticket.
• Network Extension features for VMware Cloud on AWS to stretch the datacenter network into the cloud, optimizing migration and post-migration procedures.
• Filter by resource capacity, which allows you to understand how many and what resources are required on the target site so that you can protect all workloads.
• Replication Optimization - The appropriate storages storage profile on the target site is now automatically selected for the replicated load.
• For managed replications, you can now set the client organization as the owner of custom replications, not just individual administrators.

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.4 supports direct updates only from versions 4.2.1 and 4.3.1.