The InformationWeek -- Blogs
Backup and Business Continuity Blog

Topics:   Backup and Business Continuity : Virtualization

  • Email this page E-mail this page
  • Print this page Print this page
  • Bookmark and Share
  • icon

Virtualization For Disaster Recovery - SunGard Gets It


Posted by Howard Marks, May 11, 2008 06:51 PM

It should be clear to most of us by now that server virtualization changes the disaster recovery game dramatically. Rather than having to maintain a server at your DR site for each server in your production environment, you can replicate physical, and/or virtual, servers from your production site to virtual servers at your DR site, reducing the cost of protecting production systems or increasing the number of servers you can protect.


The fly in the ointment has been that the virtual server environment at your DR site would have to handle your production loads in the event of a disaster, so you couldn't stack too many virtual servers on a single host. SunGard's new business continuity services for VMware addresses this problem by using different virtual server hosts during normal operations and during a disaster.

Even though the solution relies on host based replication services during normal operations, they, and their disk subsystems, are pretty lightly loaded. Their applications, including database and messaging servers, are suspended and they only need to process replication traffic. Production servers also need to deal with database queries and disk reads. That means SunGard can pack more virtual servers on each virtual server host, even combining virtual servers from multiple customers on the same host, and can use lower cost high-capacity SATA disk arrays to support these servers.

When a customer declares an emergency, SunGard uses VMotion and Storage VMotion to move the customer's virtual machines, and their data, to a production environment that has enough compute horsepower and disk performance to support the user's production loads.

If SunGard's pricing model reflects the rationalization of costs that this architecture creates, this could be a great solution for the SME (small and medium enterprise) market.

SunGard plans to expand its offerings to include VMware's Site Recovery Manager, and array based replication, when that application ships in the next few weeks.

« Shameless Self-Promotion | Main | Google CEO Schmidt Asks: 'What Recession?' »



Sign Up Now
For InformationWeek News Alerts




This is a public forum. United Business Media and its affiliates are not responsible for and do not control what is posted herein. United Business Media makes no warranties or guarantees concerning any advice dispensed by its staff members or readers.

Community standards in this comment area do not permit hate language, excessive profanity, or other patently offensive language. Please be aware that all information posted to this comment area becomes the property of United Business Media LLC and may be edited and republished in print or electronic format as outlined in United Business Media's Terms of Service.

Important Note: This comment area is NOT intended for commercial messages or solicitations of business.




 
 

  1. Sequential Programming: Like Eating Peas with a Straw.
  2. Biomolecular device using self-assembled DNA nanostructures?
  3. Coreinfo v2.0: A Simple Utility to Understand the Manycore Complexity in Windows


Join The InformationWeek Group On LinkedIn


                           


  1. Too Much Netbook For Too Litl?
  2. Sprint And T-Mobile Headed The Wrong Direction
  3. More Reasons Why Linux Misses The Desktop
  4. Windows 7 Is Broken, So What?


  1. Florida Hospital Dials Up iPhones For Nurses
  2. Is Antivirus Software Dead?
  3. Securing The Cyber Supply Chain
  4. CIO Profiles: Christopher Rence, Chief Information And Business Transformation Officer Of FICO
  5. InformationWeek Analytics Research: Federated Search
  6. Practical Analysis: The Fastest-Growing Security Threat

 

  Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Channel 9 Forums
CRN Blogs
Dr.Dobb's Portal: Blogs
Engadget
Gizmodo
GrokLaw
  Lifehacker
Schneier on Security
Slashdot
TechCrunch
Techdirt
Techmeme
Valleywag

  DECEMBER 2008
NOVEMBER 2008
OCTOBER 2008
SEPTEMBER 2008
AUGUST 2008
JULY 2008
JUNE 2008
MAY 2008
  APRIL 2008
MARCH 2008
FEBRUARY 2008
JANUARY 2008
DECEMBER 2007
NOVEMBER 2007
OCTOBER 2007
SEPTEMBER 2007