VMware vSphere Site Recovery Manager (SRM)

VMware vSphere Site Recovery Manager (SRM) is a disaster recovery management product from VMware that provides automated failover and disaster recovery testing.

VMware SRM speeds disaster recovery time and can prioritize the recovery processes, specifying the order that virtual machines are restarted. VMware SRM automates the process of synchronizing recovery data between the primary and backup data center sites by using a third-part replication product or vSphere Replication to copy virtual machine data to a secondary site. VMware SRM is an add-on product and is not included as part of a vSphere edition. At least one vSphere license is required at both the protected and recovery site.

Administrators begin the disaster recovery planning process by creating recovery policies that specify how different workloads should be recovered. In the event of a problem at the primary site, or in the case of nondisruptive testing, VMware SRM automates this process to start VMs in the correct order and specify network configurations.