Disaster recovery for VMware labs: our approach explained

For several decades, VMware has provided high-quality virtualisation software to enterprises globally. As software goes, it's highly capable, widely used and very complex.

This means that a company using VMware services needs staff who know their ESXi from their vSAN.

The best way to achieve this is through virtual sandbox training of the kind supplied by authorised VMware Education Delivery Partners (VEDPs).

These provide isolated, secure and highly reliable sandbox environments for learners to practise core activities in – activities that closely resemble real-life scenarios. When they emerge from the sandbox, they're ready to put out real fires in real production environments.

At Ascend Cloud Solutions, we provide the lab hosting services for VEDP course providers to use. This involves maintaining the underlying infrastructure, timely troubleshooting and extensive resource provisioning.

But what if disaster strikes? What if there's a systems failure midway through a training session? How have we prepared for these kinds of eventualities?

Well, our approach to disaster recovery goes way beyond traditional backups. Our priority is to keep training environments available around the clock and around the world through high availability, rapid recovery procedures and resilient infrastructure.

The whole point is to prevent downtime from interrupting learner flow and reducing training ROI for employers.

Here, then, are six key aspects to our approach to disaster recovery.

1. Redundant, geographically distributed infrastructure

In traditional IT training, lab resources are available only in the lab. If something goes wrong, you have to stop and wait for the technicians to come in.

In virtual training, by contrast, lab resources are spread across multiple isolated availability zones and geographic regions. This eliminates those single points of failure that can grind a lesson to a halt.

It's a bit like having multiple sources of WiFi in one area. If one fails, you can quickly join another.

In the case of redundant infrastructure, however, the services are geographically distributed. So, if a component experiences a problem, services continue from another location.

2. Automated failover

Disruption is the enemy of learning. For young learners, this might be down to bad behaviour. But for adult learners trying to wrap their heads around VMware software, disruption usually comes in the form of system glitches, downtime and lag.

This is why we work so hard to ensure automated failover. If a system component fails, traffic is automatically redirected to backup infrastructure.

Neither instructor nor student lifts a finger. Instead, the system automatically rescues itself thanks to our automated failover procedures.

3. Continuous monitoring

Disasters sometimes come from without – malware, DoS attacks and the like. But more often than not, they come from within and are a direct consequence of issues with server health, network performance and application uptime.

This is why a key part of our approach is to continuously monitor these things. And when we say "continuously", we mean 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

This isn't just for the sake of it or so we can boast about big numbers. It's so that issues can be detected and contained before they turn into disasters.

And if disaster does strike from outside, automated failover means disruption is kept to an absolute minimum.

4. Infrastructure as Code

After a system failure, stable lab environments must be redeployed. We achieve this partly through Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices.

This is a DevOps practice that automates the provisioning and management of servers, databases and network rather than physical hardware and GUIs.

IaC means we can consistently restore lab environments after failures – something that's good for learners, instructors and employers alike.

5. Automated provisioning and scaling

Demand for lab environments changes as learners join and leave. If a system lacks the capacity to accept new learners, disruption can be caused.

That's why we automate provisioning and scaling, creating – and retiring – virtual machines (VMs) to meet changing demands in real time.

This helps maintain availability during busy training periods and fulfil the promise of wide-scale frictionless training.

6. Ongoing maintenance

With our lab hosting services, the VEDP provider only has to provide course content. Maintenance is left to us: updates, security patches and lab resets.

This division of labour means each party can focus on its strengths. Learners learn, instructors instruct and we work behind the scenes to ensure recovery-ready lab environments for all.

Why is disaster recovery important for virtual training?

Without disaster recovery, virtual training is a precarious affair.

This is mainly because disaster recovery minimises downtime. Downtime is the enemy of both learners and instructors, interrupting the session's flow and quickly leading to frustration and disengagement.

Disaster recovery means that failed servers, storage systems or networks are quickly back up and running.

It also means that learner progress is protected. Lab states and configurations, for instance, can be reliably saved from one session to the next.

Disaster recovery approaches often have security at their heart – especially where backups and recovery procedures are concerned. Prioritising disaster recovery means prioritising data protection and business continuity compliance.

VEDP and other online training providers regularly serve students spread across geographical locations. A solid disaster recovery strategy supports this global, round-the-clock availability.

Finally, disaster recovery helps protect instructors and course providers from costs incurred by cancellations and rescheduling. Availability means reliability means profitability. It's a great example of how a technical issue has real-world business benefits.

Our other disaster recovery services

As well as providing disaster recovery services for VMware labs, we also provide cloud disaster recovery services for enterprises. Our services include:

Designing and implementing disaster recovery sites
Integrating technologies like VMware HCX
Leveraging VMware expertise alongside backup platforms
Developing cloud backup and disaster recovery strategies for business continuity

Are you looking for VEDP lab hosting or a robust disaster recovery strategy? At Ascend Cloud Solutions, we harness industry-leading VMware expertise to help build and protect the future of the cloud. Get in touch with our experts to book a consultation today.