Veeam Replication 9.5 vs VSphere Replication 6.5?

[garymansell]

Would anyone like to compare and contrast the two solutions as the information I have found on the web is now out of date as it refers to older versions of each product?

VSR is obviously Free and Veeam an additional purchase (presumably for both the master site and the replica site if you want to be able to failback after a failover?)

I want to replicate a business critical Web Application server (Server 2012R2, Java/Tomcat and 10TB FileVault) and it's separate (busy) MS SQL Server DB server (Server 2012R2 & SQL Server 2014 SP2).

Areas of particular interest:

* Are there performance differences between the two products?
* I would like the App and DB Server Replica's to be as in sync with each other as possible - ie replicated at exactly the same time, if possible.
* What is the impact on the Source site of repeated replications using each product when both when using Application Consistent Replication and not?
* Do I really need to use Application Consistent Replication for such a system or is Crash Consistent adequate (but sure to work in time of failover)?
* Time to bring Replica site up after failover?
* Performance of Replica site upon failover (bearing in mind that snapshots seem to kill DB performance)?
* Testing Remote Site's consistency whilst not affecting Master site application
* Only a single VCenter server (possibly an issue with VSR - perhaps the mitigation is VCenter 6.5 HA)?
* Being able to regularly clone (not copy entirely again) Replicated System to update TEST environment

Thanks and Regards

Gary

[Gostev]

VSR is obviously Free and Veeam an additional purchase (presumably for both the master site and the replica site if you want to be able to failback after a failover?)

No, you only need to license the master side with Veeam. So technically, Veeam is also free assuming you are using it for backup already.

As far as the rest, it all depends on your requirements. Veeam is a lot more mature in terms of functionality, but you may not need any of that. I suggest you just run both products side by side to contrast and compare.

[HJP]

We found vSphere Replication more powerfull used together with VMware SiteRecoveryManager.
But you have to pay for SRM.
Another point is ease of use: In my opinion Veeam Replication is much easier to manage.
One of our customers used vSphere Replication with SRM. Since we changed the solution to Veam B&R, he spent less money (no SRM maintenance) and the administrators understand how the replication works. Used products: vSphere 6.0U1, Veeam B&R 9.0