JetStream DR is an enterprise-grade software solution purpose-built to deliver comprehensive Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BC) capabilities for virtualized workloads. Designed natively for VMware vSphere environments, it provides organizations with the confidence that their critical virtual machines (VMs) and associated data are continuously protected and recoverable in the face of any unplanned disruption, whether that is hardware failure, a network outage, a natural disaster, ransomware attack, or any other event that interrupts normal operations at a primary site.
How It Works
JetStream DR is installed directly within a VMware vSphere environment using a VMware-certified IO Filter VIB—a lightweight component that integrates seamlessly with vSphere without requiring changes to existing infrastructure or application configurations. Furthermore, protection can be started while a VM is running. Once deployed and configured, JetStream DR continuously captures data as it is written to a VM’s virtual disks and replicates that data in real time to a designated secondary (recovery) environment. This replication targets cost-efficient storage destinations such as S3-compatible object storage or Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, avoiding the need for expensive hardware (compute and storage: SAN, NAS, vSAN) at the recovery site.
Based on the VAIO IO Filter API, JetStream DR is agentless and does not require VMware snapshots. JetStream DR employs Continuous Data Protection (CDP)—meaning that every write operation is captured and transmitted as it occurs and in the right order. This approach eliminates the data loss gaps that are inherent in interval-based snapshots and enables near-zero Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), ensuring that almost no data is lost even in the event of a sudden, unexpected failure. CDP enables Point-in-Time recovery (PITR) with minute granularity. It also eliminates the negative impact of snapshots on application performance.
Failover: Shifting Operations to the Recovery Site
When a disruption occurs at the primary site—whether planned for maintenance or unplanned—JetStream DR enables organizations to rapidly shift their VM workloads to a secondary environment with minimal downtime (in minutes) for mission-critical VMs and configurable RTO tiering for other VMs. For non-mission-critical VMs, the recovery process rehydrates the VMs’ data from the object storage at the recovery site and brings protected workloads back online, delivering the required SLA.
JetStream DR supports multiple failover modes to accommodate different scenarios: a full or partial unplanned disaster failover, a planned failover for scheduled migrations or maintenance, and a non-disruptive test failover that allows organizations to validate their recovery procedures against live production data without impacting the operation of protected workloads in any way. Additionally, JetStream DR supports a special recovery mode known as “force failover” that can be used if the production/protected site is not completely operational, but object storage can still be altered. In this case, the recovery site generates a special termination request/object. When the current owner detects this message, it terminates and then allows the failover process to proceed. This is the foundation of JetStream DR object storage IO-fencing.
Failback: Returning Operations to the Primary Site
Once the primary site has been restored and is ready to resume normal operations, JetStream DR enables a smooth and controlled failback process—returning VMs and their data from the secondary site back to the primary site without any data loss. Failover VMs continue running on the recovery site during failback. Failback completion is under customer control. This is a planned process that guarantees low, configurable downtime (in minutes). After successful failback, JetStream DR releases the recovery site resources used for business continuity.
Built for Enterprises
Beyond its core protection capabilities, JetStream DR is designed with enterprise operational requirements in mind. It is managed through a native vCenter plug-in, allowing IT teams to oversee DR operations from within their familiar VMware management environment. All administrative functions are also accessible via a command-line interface (CLI) and REST APIs, enabling integration with existing automation frameworks and scripting workflows. Automated runbooks allow organizations to pre-define the priority and parameters for failover and failback operations (including VM network configuration), reducing the risk of human error during high-pressure recovery scenarios.
The solution is also highly scalable. JetStream DR can protect hundreds to thousands of VMs with hundreds of TBs of data. Replication resources are estimated in advance based on captured live production VM activity. If needed, replication resources are expanded automatically to accommodate growing data volumes or changes in workload.
By virtue of its VAIO-based design, JetStream DR supports all storage types (SAN, NAS, and vSAN) providing the level of configuration flexibility required by enterprises.
In short, JetStream DR transforms disaster recovery from a reactive, high-risk process into a proactive, continuously managed capability—giving organizations the resilience they need to protect their most critical workloads and maintain business continuity in an unpredictable world.