Nutanix AHV to Cloud DR

[PaulCamp]

I am seeking some advice and I would greatly appreciate any input.
Presently I manage a 99% VMware infrastructure running Esxi 6.5, approximately 70 VM's, ~50TB used (~80TB allocated) storage capacity. We are a licensed Veeam Backup & Replication customer and use Veeam for backups, off-site backup copies and Veeam replication (some not all VM's) to another VMware cluster off-site. I am very pleased with the Veeam product and plan to keep it.

We will soon be migrating to a 5 node Nutanix (running AHV) solution that has been properly sized. I was informed that once we have converted to the Nutanix AHV we will no longer be able to leverage the Veeam replication unless the off-site infrastructure was also Nutanix or use Nutanix Replication to xiLeap cloud.

Here's the question: If I chose to not use xiLeap for my replicated cluster, what other options do I have? My concern is the reoccurring cost of xiLeap (~$6000 / Mo). Keep in mind that my off-site backup copies will remain (in that I am statutorily required to do so). I'm talking about a cold DR site. Options?

Thanks !

[ronnmartin61]

Correct we do not support any Veeam-native replication capabilities for AHV and if you wanted similar functionality you'd need to either invest in a second AHV cluster in an offsite location or, as you mentioned, leverage Xi cloud. It would certainly be less elegant (not to mention less functional) but assuming you could approximate your current replication RPO with AHV backups to your secondary site that already hosts a VMware cluster you could run instant VM recovery of your AHV VM's on VMware in a DR scenario. Failback would definitely be painful however...

[PaulCamp]

Thanks for the reply. I suspected as much. I often hear colleagues claim they have tested their ability to fail-over, and my response is have you tested fail-back. You can hear the crickets. It boils down to you get what you pay for. Thanks again.