Completed SRM Implementations

[Jay_Judkowitz]

Hello SRM Customers,

Now that we've been out for a few months, I'm looking to see how many folks on the forum have completed either evaluation or production SRM implementations. For those who have, I'd love feedback on some of the questions below:

• How long did it take to get going?

• How long does a test run take (RTO)? What is the improvement over the pre-SRM RTO?

• What was the VM recovery success rate? Is this any different from the pre-SRM rate?

• How many VMs are protected?

• How much data is protected?

• Have you discovered anything about your DR plan based on the results of SRM test runs?

• Have you run the reports by the auditors yet and if so do you have feedback on their usefulness to compliance?

• Does the product make good on the claims made in the various pitches you've heard and collateral you've read?

• If we fall short, where do we do so?

• Based on actual implementation experience (as opposed to paper study), what changes would you most like to see in the product?

• What was the most useful souse of implementation info (PSO? Channel partners? Storage OEMs? Outsourcers? Integrators? This forum? The docs?)

Thanks,

Jay

[rmagoon]

We just finished with the evaluation phase of SRM. The current results listed are from our limited lab results only. We are developing a much broader implementation that will protect dozens of VMs using the EMC RecoverPoint appliances, and I'll send the results once those tests are complete.

• How long did it take to get going? -- The first time SRM took me a few weeks of troubleshooting and figuring out how it worked. After I read the Evaluator's Guide, the frustration level greatly subsided. At the time, the Evaluator's Guide had the best overview on how the product works on an architecture perspective and the steps required to function. I also had difficulties understanding the SRA for Lefthand VSA which folks from the community had helped.

• How long does a test run take (RTO)? What is the improvement over the pre-SRM RTO? -- The test run was finished in a matter of a couple minutes. I only had 3 VMs in the lab configuration to failover to recovery site.

• What was the VM recovery success rate? Is this any different from the pre-SRM rate? -- I had no problems with recovering the VMs at the recovery site. We had no DR plan in place to compare it to.

• How many VMs are protected? -- Only 3 at this time.

• How much data is protected? -- About 200GB

• Have you discovered anything about your DR plan based on the results of SRM test runs? -- No

• Have you run the reports by the auditors yet and if so do you have feedback on their usefulness to compliance? -- We have not run any reports yet.

• Does the product make good on the claims made in the various pitches you've heard and collateral you've read? -- Yes, there are no shortfalls in what you claim can be accomplished with SRM that I have encountered yet.

• If we fall short, where do we do so? -- Initially the documentation was a problem until I discovered the Evaluator's Guide. Also, the vendor's SRA release notes and manual did not address some of the questions that I had. I see this being a potential issue for many other vendor-specific SRA documentation.

• Based on actual implementation experience (as opposed to paper study), what changes would you most like to see in the product? -- Automated failback would be a major improvement and prevent configuration errors in manually reversing the replication/failover. Also, we will require RDM support, which is hopefully fully supported in Update 1 of your product.

• What was the most useful souse of implementation info (PSO? Channel partners? Storage OEMs? Outsourcers? Integrators? This forum? The docs?) -- The evaluator's guide, forum, and storage OEM

[Jay_Judkowitz]

Hello SRM Community,

A few months ago I started this thread to get people, either anonymously or publicly, to describe their experience with SRM and the benefits acheived so far. Since we're in a new year and people have had more of a chance to get up and running, I thought I'd pop this to the top of the forum queue and see if we can get another few answers to this.

And, of course, if anyone thinks their organization would go so far as to be a public reference, please mail me directly so we can set that up.

Happy New Year folks and thanks for all the SRM interest, evaluations, and purchases in 2008!

Best regards,

Jay

[Paul_B1]

Hey Jay,

We are just in the process of getting SRM installed between our two sites and getting our current DR plan moved into SRM from platespin. I'll be sure to come back with an update once we've gotten a bit further. My plan is to have everything setup and configured by end of month, and hopefully most the stuff platespin was protecting moved into SRM.

Paul