The Roadmap to Recovery, Simplified: Learn, Plan, and Try VMware Cloud DR – Cloud Blog – VMware

We’re often told one of the biggest challenges our customers have in creating a reliable DR plan is the lack of guidance in getting started. We hear you and we want to help you succeed.

We’ve simplified the end-to-end experience and have officially integrated with VMware Cloud Launchpad! VMware Cloud Launchpad is an interactive platform that supports a wide range of multi-cloud initiatives for today’s organizations. Think of Launchpad as a one-stop-shop where you can get access to VMware products in a self-serve manner while simultaneously:

• learn about various multi-cloud solutions, which now includes Disaster Recovery
• are guided through a step-by-step approach to plan and prepare for…
• successfully executing your multi-cloud strategy

Furthermore, you can now purchase VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud DR instantaneously from the Purchase Online page. This is the fastest, most streamlined way to purchase both services.

Your DR Journey Starts Here

Already went through the Launchpad experience and are coming from the VMware Cloud DR Purchase online page? Skip down to the Getting Access to VMware Cloud & VMware Cloud DR

section to get started and activate VMware Cloud and VMware Cloud DR now!

Visit the VMware Cloud Launchpad homepage and navigate to the Disaster Recovery solutions track. By clicking on Learn More, you’ll land on the VMware Cloud DR Launchpad page. From here, you can customize your experience depending on your level of expertise in DR operations.

If you’re not yet familiar with the set of capabilities in VMware Cloud DR, the overview tab is the way to go. On this page, we provide a solution overview as well as a technical deep dive of the product in case you’re curious about how things work behind the scenes. You’ll also learn about the product functionalities; snapshots stored in their native vSphere format and powering on VMs instantaneously via LiveMount are just a couple examples of our rich set of features.

Dive Deeper

Feeling extra curious? Want to understand the details about our technology? To become a VMware Cloud DR guru, the resources tab has additional content for you to continue your education. You will find technical documentation, tools, blog posts, service level agreement, service description, as well as a detailed overview our roadmap.

All Roads Lead to Rome

Regardless of where you start, you’ll want to end up in the journey tab. Here we’ve broken down your DR journey into three stages: Learn, Plan, and Try. Let us take you through each stage in a step-by-step approach to ensure you’ve checked off everything needed for a successful deployment. Let’s dive right in.

Learn

You’ve already covered the basics in the overview section, so in the Learn stage you’ll immerse yourself into the VMware Cloud DR UI and round out your knowledge. Whether you’re a visual learner and enjoy watching videos or prefer to read product documentation, we have you covered.

Plan

Let’s address the elephant in the room – planning for DR can be incredibly daunting. Well, it should not be, and there’s a way to avoid that. We’ve simplified this process by building a VMware Cloud DR Planner to help you size, cost, and plan for your specific DR scenario. With some information about the workloads you’re looking to protect, we’ll provide you a detailed breakdown of what to expect, in terms of costs and resources needed, to successfully protect and recover those workloads during a DR event.

In this stage, you’ll also complete an infrastructure planning checklist and review operational scale limits — this will ensure your bases are covered and that there are no surprises down the road.

Try

Finally, you’re ready to Try VMware Cloud DR! If you’ve not yet already activated VMware Cloud and VMware Cloud DR, that’ll be the first step. When you click on Get started with VMware Cloud DR, you’ll be brought to the VMware Cloud DR Purchase Online page.

Pre-charge Amount Reduced to $200

As part of the release, we’ve also reduced the credit card pre-charge amount from $2,000 USD to $200 USD to lower the entry barrier for you to start taking advantage of VMware Cloud on AWS as your recovery SDDCs. Any SDDC usage in your first 60 days will be charged against this pre-charge amount. View the terms and conditions regarding the pre-charge here.

Getting Access to VMware Cloud & VMware Cloud DR

From here, you can review our pricing options and pick one that matches your needs. After you’ve reviewed and agreed to the Terms and Conditions, —and we highly recommend that you carefully read through it all—click on Start Purchase. You’ll need to sign in with your VMware ID or create a new account if you don’t already have one. If you’re setting up a new account, you’ll also need to create an org and add a credit card, which will be your default method of payment. And that’s it!

From here you will land on the VMware Cloud Launchpad page and navigate to the Disaster Recovery solutions track. If this is your first time on the VMware Cloud DR Launchpad page, we encourage you to spend some time learning and planning before deploying the service. Scroll to the Your DR Journey Starts Heresection for additional guidance.