VMWARE EXIT / DISASTER RECOVERY ARCHITECTURE
What Happens to Your
DR Architecture
After VMware?
If you're moving to cloud-native infrastructure, changing hypervisors, or introducing physical servers and Kubernetes into the mix, it's worth asking whether your disaster recovery architecture will still recover workloads on the platform you're moving to."
DR Built for VMware Doesn't Survive the Exit
Many disaster recovery platforms were designed around hypervisor-based replication. That works well when production and recovery environments share the same virtualization platform.
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But infrastructure is becoming increasingly heterogeneous. As organizations modernize, recovery flexibility often becomes constrained by platform dependencies rather than workload portability.
The Architectural Solution
RackWare's DR architecture takes a more flexible approach. Instead of replicating virtual machine constructs, RackWare replicates workloads at the operating system and file-system layer. The workload, not the hypervisor, is the unit of mobility.
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That enables migration, disaster recovery, and workload mobility across heterogeneous infrastructure without requiring identical hypervisors, storage platforms, or cloud providers.
Where to Start
Updating DR architecture doesn't have to wait on a migration decision, because with RackWare the DR landing zone can move off VMware first. Workloads fail over to, and fall back from, any new target while production stays in VMware, validating recovery before any migration commitment is made.​
Advantages of Filesystem-level Replication
VMDK-based replication only sees writes once they reach disk (not the transaction boundaries applications rely on) so it can capture a workload mid-transaction, especially with in-memory caching where writes flush unpredictably. Recovering that state often requires manual intervention before the application will boot. RackWare replicates from OS-level logical volume snapshots instead, capturing a consistent state automatically, so recovered workloads boot and initialize without manual repair.
Factor
Storage Sector/VMDK
Approach
Filesystem-Level
Approach
Replication method
Storage sector or VMDK level
Filesystem level, operating
on used data
Visibility into writes
Only writes that reach disk
OS-level logical volume snapshot
captures consisent state
Data consistency
Compensated via Journaling
and OS hooks
OS-level logical volume snapshot
captures consisent state
Application recovery
Often requires significant manual intervention to bring applications to functional state
Complete restoration of application functionality
Network outages
Sensitive, often requiring complete
re-replication
Handles even long-term outages
without re-replication
In-memory applications
(e.g. SAP HANA)
Requires special configuration or
product extensions
Standard operation, no extra
configuration
Initial replication scope
Entire disk
Only used data
Disk Defragmentation
Sensitive
Not sensitive
Why It Matters
Designed for heterogeneous infrastructure — not just homogeneous environments.
For engineers & architects
​OS and file-system level replication instead of hypervisor-dependent replication
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Asynchronous replication throughout migration, not just before or after cutover
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Recover workloads across different infrastructure without requiring identical virtualization platforms
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One platform for migration and disaster recovery instead of separate operational toolchains​
For IT Leaders
For IT leadersPreserve disaster recovery while modernizing infrastructure​​​​
Eliminate DR redesign as a separate migration project​​​
Reduce operational complexity by consolidating migration and DR
​​​Enable phased modernization without sacrificing recoverability