SRM Licensing?

[CCDC]

Currently our enviorment looks like this:

• two hosts running 9 vm's
• Equal Logic SAN
• vCenter server 5.1
• vSphere Essentials (expired)
• about 3.5TB of data
• 55 employees

Looking to impliment SRM to a second site. I am planning on do the following:

• upgrade primary site to vShpere Essentials Plus 5.1,
• install a Dell T620, (128GB, 4.2TB RAID 6 local storage) at secondary site

1. If I was to use SRM can I use the license keys from my primary site on the server at my secondary site?
   1. If not, can I purchase vSphere Essentials for the second site?
   2. Or do both sites need Essentials Plus?
2. SRM has some nice features but I am wondering if its overkil for this small enviorment.

Thanks for your help

[cmpyx2]

Hi CCDC,

From your description, SRM would be overkill in your environment.  You need to have a vCenter server in both the protected and recovery sites.  For what you are trying to accomplish, I wonder if Veeam is better fit for you.

[CCDC]

Thank you for your reply. I have to agree with you. The more I look at SRM the more I question if its just overkill for our small office. I have started looking at Veeam on a recommendation of a friend.

I am currently very happy with our backup software, (Shadow Protect) and the features it provides us. Mainly the Head Start Restore feature that we are using.

Originally I was looking at just using Replication that is included in Essentials Plus.

[cmpyx2]

Well, if you don't like Veeam, and now 2 people have recommended this product to you, you can also look at other replication software like DoubleTake, which I believe has a VM failover/failback feature, but you will have to check with them on that.