JetStream DR stands apart from traditional and competing disaster recovery solutions by delivering enterprise-grade protection with a fundamentally modern architecture.
Cost-Efficient Storage Through Intelligent Architecture
Unlike competing solutions, which require expensive premium storage and computational resources at the recovery site, JetStream DR replicates data directly to cost-efficient S3-compatible object storage or Azure Blob Storage and requires only a minimal-size pilot-light cluster. This is further enhanced by inline data compression and embedded garbage collection, which actively minimize the storage footprint—translating into lower ongoing operational costs. With JetStream DR, customers allocate resources on demand only when a disaster occurs.
Continuous Data Protection Without the RPO Tax
Unlike backups that rely on periodic snapshot-based replication—which can leave hours of data exposed between capture intervals—JetStream DR employs Continuous Data Protection (CDP). By capturing and replicating data at the I/O level as it is written to primary storage, JetStream DR achieves near-zero Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), dramatically reducing the risk of data loss during an unplanned outage. Minute-granularity Point-in-Time Recovery is another advantage of CDP-based replication design.
Fast, Reliable Recovery When It Matters Most
Speed of recovery is a critical DR characteristic. JetStream DR is engineered for fast Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)—measured in minutes—enabling mission-critical virtual machines and their data to be fully restored quickly. This ensures organizations can maintain high levels of business continuity with minimal downtime—a key advantage over solutions that require lengthy restoration processes from backup repositories or cold storage.
Universal Datastore Coverage
Because JetStream DR captures data through VMware-native IO Filters, it is agnostic to the underlying storage layer. Whether the environment uses VMFS, NFS, VSAN, or any other HCI platform, JetStream DR provides consistent protection across all datastore types—something that purpose-built or hardware-specific DR tools simply cannot match. For example, JetStream DR can protect on-premises workloads using NetApp or Everpure storage and replicate them to cloud vSAN.
Non-Disruptive Failover Testing
One of the most common requirements for DR is non-disruptive failover testing. DR testing must be performed without any impact on running production workloads. This enables organizations to validate their recovery capabilities frequently and with confidence, without scheduling maintenance windows or risking service degradation.
Fault Tolerance by Design
One of the most common requirements of DR is fault tolerance. Hardware failures (such as a cluster host reboot or temporary primary storage issues) and software failures (such as a vCenter reboot or service failures and restarts) may cause RPO to grow temporarily, but must not cause DR failure, VM reprotection, or data corruption.
Network reliability is never guaranteed, particularly in hybrid and multi-site environments. JetStream DR’s fault-tolerant replication engine is designed to withstand interruptions without losing VM protection state, automatically resuming data transfer once connectivity is restored. This resilience is essential in real-world deployments where competing products may require manual intervention or introduce data gaps after a network disruption.
JetStream DR design fully satisfies all fault-tolerance requirements.
Lightweight Deployment, Familiar Operations
JetStream DR is deployed via a VMware-certified VIB and managed through a vCenter plug-in, meaning teams work within the environment they already know. There is no need for separate management consoles or disruptive infrastructure changes. In the event of a host being added or replaced, the JetStream VIB is installed on the new host seamlessly.
JetStream DR lifecycle management is fully automated both on-premises and in the cloud. Major cloud platforms implement a set of run commands for JetStream DR lifecycle management, including temporarily lifting the privileges required for operations like VIB installation.
Application Performance
Disaster recovery must not degrade production performance. With JetStream DR, intercepted write commands do not wait for the replication appliance to persistently store command data and metadata. JetStream DR features a unique write-back capability via its Replication Log—an asynchronous persistent replication buffer.
In JetStream DR, almost all data is replicated from memory without intermediate writes to the Replication Log. This avoids extra workload on primary storage that may negatively impact application performance.
Adjustment for Recovery Environment
With automated runbooks, JetStream DR adapts workloads to the varying requirements of failover, failback, and test failover environments. JetStream runbooks can be used for VM boot control, VM property and network changes, and more.
In summary, JetStream DR for VMware clouds combines continuous data protection, cloud-native storage economics, non-disruptive testing, and deep VMware integration into a single, highly scalable solution—making it a compelling choice for organizations that demand both resilience and operational simplicity from their disaster recovery strategy.