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VMware
VMware’s private-cloud stack is VCF and vSphere Foundation — this hub covers itsdisaster and ransomware recovery, with the 2026 rename and the new purchase paths spelled out.
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Same software. Better outcome — at a lower cost.
The company, at a glance
Quick answer
Two intel pages. On-premises and cloud recovery.
VMware’s recovery products, one by one — every linked card is a full intel page, from on-premises vSphere failover and clean-room cyber recovery to SaaS recovery into VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware is a Broadcom company: see the Broadcom hub for Symantec, Carbon Black, Layer7 and Automic.
VMware Live Recovery
Site-to-site DR, now VCF Protection and Recovery.
Site Recovery runbooks, vSphere Replication, vSAN Data Protection and an on-prem clean room, sold via ACC or standalone SRM.
VMware Live Recovery Cloud
DR and ransomware recovery as a service.
Immutable snapshots held in a cloud file system and live-mounted into VMware Cloud on AWS, with a clean room to test restores.
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF 9.1)
Platform & engineThe full private-cloud platform, announced on 5 May 2026 with components released on 12 May; it includes vSAN ESA snapshots and vSphere Replication for RPOs greater than 5 minutes, but tighter replication, runbooks and cyber recovery cost extra
vSphere Foundation (VVF)
Platform & engineThe smaller platform, still sold in 9.1; it includes vSAN snapshots and vSphere Replication, and can add Site Recovery Manager or Live Recovery Cloud, but VVF customers cannot buy Advanced Cyber Compliance
Advanced Cyber Compliance
Platform & engineA VCF-only add-on sold since November 2025 that carries Live Recovery’s on-premises DR, the cyber recovery clean room with embedded EDR, and compliance tooling; per core, per Broadcom’s VCF 9.1 FAQ
vDefend, Avi, Private AI and VKS
Platform & engineAdd-on services on the VCF platform rather than DR products: vDefend supplies the network isolation for the on-premises clean room, Avi Load Balancer is also a VVF add-on, and Private AI and the vSphere Kubernetes Service run inside VCF
VMware sells across 2 of the products TechBag carries in backup & cyber resilience. The Backup & Cyber Resilience guide shows how the category splits and which part is yours. →
Why “which licence” is the whole story
Since Broadcom took over, the same recovery features arrive through different purchase paths — Advanced Cyber Compliance on VCF, standalone Site Recovery Manager, or Live Recovery Cloud. The licence sets the RPO and the cyber-recovery tools, so pick it before the product.
Site Recovery
Recovery plans fail VMs over in order, test without disrupting production, run planned migrations and reprotect for automated failback.
vSphere Replication
Copies VMs at the hypervisor; RPOs run from 1 minute to 24 hours with an ACC or Live Recovery licence, and above 5 minutes on VCF alone.
vSAN Data Protection
Native vSAN ESA snapshots for local recovery are included in VCF; replicating them to a remote site needs ACC or standalone SRM.
Isolated recovery environment
Recovered VMs are checked in isolation first: on premises with vDefend and EDR under ACC, or on VMware Cloud on AWS with Live Recovery Cloud.
Start with the job — vSphere failover between your own sites, or ransomware recovery in the cloud — then check which licence carries it.
Peer & market recognition
Every claim on this hub traces to one of these public signals.
No analyst placement for Live Recovery
no Gartner, Forrester or IDC rating was found for this product, and Gartner publishes no current DRaaS Magic Quadrant
Broadcom completes the acquisition
the deal closed on 22 November 2023 and VMware became a Broadcom business, sold as VMware by Broadcom
Perpetual licences ended
after the acquisition the range collapsed into VCF and VVF subscriptions, so DR is now bought as a subscription add-on
VMware Live Recovery launched
announced on 19 March 2024, joining on-premises Site Recovery and the cloud service under one name
SRA certification stopped
Broadcom stopped certifying storage replication adapters on 20 August 2025; array replication is still supported and storage vendors ship the adapters
On-prem DR moves into ACC
Advanced Cyber Compliance, a VCF-only add-on, now carries full on-premises DR orchestration and cyber recovery
Renamed VCF Protection and Recovery
release 9.1 arrived on 12 May 2026 with one unified appliance replacing the standalone SRM and vSphere Replication appliances
DR rests on patched vCenter and ESX
no recent Site Recovery advisory was found, but vCenter and ESX had critical ones, VMSA-2025-0004 exploited, per press
The company in six figures
See the platform, hear the pitch
Introducing VCF 9.1: Built for Efficiency and Resilience
Broadcom’s May 2026 tour of VCF 9.1, the release that renamed Live Recovery.
VMware Live Recovery and New Innovations in Cyber Resilience
A December 2024 overview of Live Recovery, recorded before the 9.1 rename.
VMware vSphere Foundation 9.1: Modernize the infrastructure you already have.
A short May 2026 introduction to vSphere Foundation, the smaller platform.
Where VMware sits — the grids
Two company-level views you won’t find on any vendor site — tap any dot for the rationale. The category-level grid lives on the product page.
VMware Across Its Solution Areas
Each dot is a VMware solution area: competitive position vs category momentum.
Site Recovery runbooks with vSphere Replication or array replication, native to vCenter; the home ground of Live Recovery.
Resilience Jobs Covered × Price Transparency
Breadth of resilience coverage per vendor — backup, DR, cyber recovery — plotted against the share of its prices made public.
On-premises DR runbooks, replication, an isolated clean room and cloud DR into VMware Cloud on AWS; no general backup, and no list price for any of it.
Positions are TechBag’s illustrative synthesis of public review-platform standings and vendor documentation — not a reproduction of any analyst graphic. Verify before relying on it.
New to this? Learn it properly.
Zero-jargon starting points, in reading order. Each links into the deep education on the product page.
Where should you start with VMware?
Answer three questions; we’ll point you at the right starting product. No email required — this isn’t that kind of quiz.
1. Where should your VMs come back up after a disaster?
2. What are you most worried about?
3. Which VMware licence do you hold today?
Two DR products, two destinations
Live Recovery fails over to a second site you run. Live Recovery Cloud recovers into VMware Cloud on AWS as a service.
Read →One product, three names
Site Recovery Manager became Live Site Recovery, part of Live Recovery, and in 9.1 VCF Protection and Recovery.
Read →ACC, standalone SRM or the cloud?
ACC adds DR and cyber recovery to VCF only. Standalone SRM is DR alone, for VCF, VVF or older vSphere.
Read →Which RPO does your licence give?
vSphere Replication runs down to 1 minute with ACC, from 5 minutes on legacy SRM, and above 5 minutes on VCF alone.
Read →Recovering from ransomware
Live Recovery Cloud picks a clean snapshot and checks it in an isolated environment before VMs go back into production.
Read →Where VMware fits in backup and resilience
The Backup & Cyber Resilience guides separate backup from DR and place VMware’s two DR products among their rivals.
Read →The acronym decoder
Every term on these pages, in one place- VCF
- VMware Cloud Foundation, Broadcom’s full private-cloud subscription and the only platform that can add ACC.
- VVF
- VMware vSphere Foundation, the smaller platform; it can add Site Recovery Manager or Live Recovery Cloud, but not ACC.
- ACC
- Advanced Cyber Compliance, a VCF-only add-on since November 2025 that carries on-premises DR and cyber recovery.
- Site Recovery Manager
- VMware’s DR runbook tool, later Live Site Recovery; still sold as a standalone licence for DR alone.
- VCF Protection and Recovery
- The 9.1 name for the on-premises stack once called VMware Live Recovery, shipped as one unified appliance.
- vSphere Replication
- Hypervisor-based replication that copies VMs to another site without depending on the storage array.
- Recovery plan
- The ordered runbook Site Recovery follows to bring VMs up during a test, a planned migration or a real failover.
- Reprotect
- The step that reverses replication after a failover, so a second planned migration can fail back to the original site.
- SRA
- Storage Replication Adapter, a storage vendor’s plug-in that lets Site Recovery drive array-based replication.
- Isolated recovery environment
- A clean room cut off from the network where recovered VMs are scanned and checked before they return to production.
- Pilot-light SDDC
- The small, always-on VMware Cloud on AWS cluster, two hosts at least, that Live Recovery Cloud recovers into.
- RPO and RTO
- RPO measures how old the latest recoverable copy is; RTO measures how long until the service is back up.
Buy it like you’ve done this before
The procurement playbook TechBag runs with IT buyers — steps, licensing cheat-sheet, and the pitfalls that cost quarters.
Check your platform licence
VCF can add ACC; VVF and older vSphere can add standalone Site Recovery Manager. Live Recovery Cloud attaches to VCF or VVF.
Choose the recovery site
Your own second site or Azure VMware Solution, GCVE, Amazon EVS or Oracle OCVS for on-premises DR; VMware Cloud on AWS for the cloud service.
Match the RPO to the licence
A 1-minute RPO needs ACC or a Live Recovery entitlement; VCF alone replicates at more than 5 minutes, and the cloud service is snapshot-based.
Count what the quote counts
Cores in every protected vCenter for ACC, per Broadcom’s FAQ; protected VMs plus TiB for the cloud service; the unit for SRM comes on the quote.
Rehearse the failover
Run a non-disruptive test of each recovery plan, then a clean-room recovery drill, and keep the reports as evidence for auditors.
Get it priced in rupees
Broadcom bills upfront in USD with no list price. TechBag sizes the subscription, confirms the units and quotes in INR with GST.
The licensing cheat-sheet
| Product | Licensing model | How you enter | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Cyber Compliance | VCF-only add-on · per core across every core in the vCenter where VMs are protected, per Broadcom’s VCF 9.1 FAQ | Quote · USD, upfront | On-prem DR plus cyber recovery |
| Standalone Site Recovery Manager | DR orchestration only, no cyber recovery · for VCF, VVF and legacy vSphere · confirm the unit on the quote | Quote · USD, upfront | DR on VVF or older vSphere |
| VMware Live Recovery Cloud | Per protected VM plus per protected TiB · 10 TiB minimum per region, then 1 TiB steps | Quote · 10 TiB minimum | Cloud DR and ransomware recovery |
| VMware Cloud on AWS hosts | Pilot-light recovery SDDC of at least 2 hosts, billed separately from Live Recovery Cloud | Quote · 2-host minimum | The cloud recovery target |
| Included in VCF | vSAN ESA snapshots and vSphere Replication for RPOs greater than 5 minutes · no runbooks | No extra charge | Basic local and remote copies |
| Existing Live Recovery per-VM | Customers on the 2024 per-VM offer keep Site Recovery plus Live Recovery Cloud, subject to TiB purchase | Renewal quote | Current Live Recovery holders |
Broadcom publishes no list price for any VMware product; subscriptions are quoted and billed upfront in USD. TechBag gets the quote itemised for India.
Five pitfalls that cost buyers quarters
Expecting one licence to cover both
The 2024 single Live Recovery licence is history for new buyers: ACC, standalone SRM and Live Recovery Cloud are bought separately.
Planning ACC on vSphere Foundation
ACC is a VCF-only add-on. VVF customers can add Site Recovery Manager for DR, but not the on-premises cyber recovery workflows.
Quoting a flat RPO
vSphere Replication reaches 1 minute only with ACC or Live Recovery; the cloud service is snapshot-based, minutes rather than seconds.
Recovering into your own AWS account
Live Recovery Cloud recovers only into VMware Cloud on AWS, and the on-premises product does not work with VMware Cloud on AWS.
Upgrading 9.0 appliances in place
Release 9.1 deprecates the standalone SRM and vSphere Replication appliances; moving to the unified appliance means a redeploy.
The evaluation kit
Each intel page carries an 8-question vendor checklist and a value calculator:
Skip the homework entirely
Bring your requirements and current tool bills — a TechBag advisor models the whole decision for you.
Book a discovery call →The forces shaping this market
Four trends with momentum scores (TechBag’s read of analyst and market signals) — and what each means for your next decision.
Category momentum — estimated market growth
Illustrative CAGR synthesis**TechBag’s illustrative estimate, not a quoted analyst figure. The takeaway: recovery now means proving a clean restore after ransomware, not only failing over — which is why VMware added an isolated clean room.
Leaving VMware, or staying
Gartner expects about 35% of VMware workloads to move to other platforms by 2028, as reported by the press in September 2025.
What it means for you
Pick a DR tool that fits where your VMs will run next.
DR folded into the platform
In 9.1 Live Recovery became VCF Protection and Recovery, with one appliance in place of standalone SRM and vSphere Replication.
What it means for you
Budget DR as part of the platform renewal, not apart from it.
Clean rooms on premises
VCF 9.1 adds CrowdStrike Falcon support in the isolated recovery environment, bring-your-own-licence, alongside built-in validation.
What it means for you
Know which copy is clean before anything goes back into production.
Storage vendors own the adapters
Broadcom stopped certifying SRAs in August 2025, and 9.1 is the last release to support vVols.
What it means for you
Check your array vendor still ships an adapter for your release.
Questions buyers ask about VMware
Ready to shortlist VMware?
Open either intel page for the deep dive, or let a TechBag advisor build the case with you — the licence path, the protected VM count, quotes, trials, GST invoicing and lifecycle support included.
Stats, positions and figures are illustrative syntheses of public materials; verify before purchase.