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Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, vCloud Air would both be able to provide low cost DR.<br />
<br />
Issues<br />
<br />
1. Cost<br />
2. Middleware to execute the failover
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Hello,<br />
<br />
I will start off with a few questions as this could be larger then what is realized.<br />
<br />
re you looking for DR or Business Continuity?<br />
Do you have to have an SLA, <br />
What is your RTO and RPO<br />
<br />
If you just want th basics of DR, For example using vmware SRM or Veeam<br />
vmware cloud, Amazon AWS are two good options but can cost depending on activity.<br />
Otherwise something like Backspace and a VPN tunnel will work<br />
<br />
But if you use your Internet connection for DR. &nbsp;There is no QoS so if it gets slow or knocked out you are outta luck.<br />
<br />
You may need Dual internet connections, then this adds in BGP, ARIN etc<br />
<br />
So bottom line is DR just by itself is not really a cost effective term, it is a cost for the company to continue operating in th event of a disaster. &nbsp;Also Cloud Services may be cheap and easy to get started but after the initial year or few years they start to eat at &nbsp;budget.<br />
<br />
I know this is a lot to take in, but DR usually spawns more questions then quick cost effective answers.<br />
<br />
Hope this helps.<br />
<br />
Thanks
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I guess I do use the terms interchangeably - DR and business continuance. Good point. What I'm after is: <br />
<br />
The data center gets hit by the BIG ONE and I need to bring up DR and re-point DNS to the recently replicated VMs and their associated storage. Hopefully an RTO of two to four hours to get services back online (I have an external DNS service that propagates updates quickly.) <br />
<br />
We use both VMWare SRM and Veeam internally. But our internal DR site is - let's say uh - sub-optimal. :-)
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Since you’re using Veeam, you could look into subscribing to a Veeam Cloud Connect Provider (You can get a list of them here: &nbsp;<a href="https://www.veeam.com/find-a-veeam-cloud-provider.html" rel="ugc">https://www.veeam.com/find-a-veeam-cloud-provider.html</a> ).<br />
<br />
Since the Cloud Connect Provider (CCP) also runs Veeam B&amp;R, the integration is pretty tight, and fairly easy to setup. &nbsp;Add the CCP in your Veeam - it shows as a repository, which can be used as the target for Backup Copy jobs (which copy local Veeam backups to the CCP).<br />
<br />
Several of these providers offer a DR service in which they’ll restore your VMs in their infrastructure and host them for a period of time. &nbsp;Some do this at no additional cost. &nbsp;Others have a more formal DR offering, but charge for it.<br />
<br />
We set this up for a customer (much smaller than your environment), and it’s worked well for them. &nbsp;I’m not sure how much it would cost to scale to your needs, but I think the provider we used charged about $115/month per TB of space in the repository. &nbsp;Might not hurt to contact a few providers and discuss it with them.<br />
<br />
Hope this helps.
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All very helpful. Thank you!
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I have a Cisco UCS - 10 blades, 30TB storage, 2TB RAM. VMWare with 50 VMs, Windows server 2008/2012 on most. If I wanted to maintain this environment as primary but have DR in the cloud, what issues must I consider? And which cloud service provider would be able to provide the most cost effective solution to this infrastructure as a Service (I believe) scenario?
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I have a Cisco UCS - 10 blades, 30TB storage, 2TB RAM. VMWare with 50 VMs, Windows server 2008/2012 on most. If I wanted to maintain this environment as primary but have DR in the cloud, what issues must I consider? And which cloud service provider would be able to provide the most cost effective solution to this infrastructure as a Service (I believe) scenario?

DR in the cloud question

Cloud computing, also known as on-demand computing, is a kind of Internet-based computing where shared resources and information are provided to computers and other devices. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process their data in third-party data centers, relying on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale.

Cloud Computing

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Cloud services are services made available to users via the Internet from a provider's servers. Cloud services are designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources and services, and are fully managed by a cloud services provider. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Frequently offered cloud services are infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS). Examples of cloud services include online data storage and backup solutions, Web-based e-mail services, hosted office suites and document collaboration services, database processing, managed technical support services and more.

Cloud Services

Network design and methodology, also known as network architecture, is the design of a communication network. It is a framework for the specification of a network's physical components and their functional organization and configuration, its operational principles and procedures, as well as data formats used in its operation. In telecommunication, the specification of a network architecture may also include a detailed description of products and services delivered via a communications network, as well as detailed rate and billing structures under which services are compensated.