When to choose AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery

Overview

Elastic Disaster Recovery is the recommended service for disaster recovery to AWS. It provides similar capabilities as CloudEndure Disaster Recovery, and is operated from the AWS Management Console. This facilitates seamless integration between AWS DRS and other AWS services, such as AWS CloudTrail, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), and Amazon CloudWatch.

With AWS DRS, you can recover your applications on AWS from physical infrastructure, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and cloud infrastructure. You can also use AWS DRS to recover Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances in a different AWS Region.

You can use AWS DRS to recover all of your applications and databases that run on supported Windows and Linux operating system versions.

Please refer to the AWS Regional Services List for the most up-to-date information on Region support.

Recommendations

We recommend using CloudEndure Disaster Recovery only if you require one or more of the following capabilities:

  • Replication to an AWS China Region
  • Replication and recovery into AWS Outposts

Following the successful launch of AWS DRS, we will begin limiting the availability of CloudEndure Disaster Recovery (CEDR) in all AWS Regions.
Note: AWS China Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions will continue to be supported, as well as customers using disaster recovery through Amazon Managed Services (AMS) and customers using CEDR with AWS Outposts.

Please take note that, currently, you are no longer be able to register new CEDR accounts or install new CEDR Agents in any AWS Region excluding AWS China Regions, AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, AMS customers, and Outposts. Note: upgrades of existing agents will be supported. Other steps will take place according to the following schedule:

March 31, 2024 – CEDR was discontinued in all AWS Regions excluding AWS China Regions and AWS GovCloud (US) Regions, AMS customers and Outposts.

Learn how to upgrade from CloudEndure Disaster Recovery to AWS DRS

Detailed comparison of CloudEndure Disaster Recovery and AWS DRS

Capability CloudEndure Disaster Recovery DRS
Console and APIs
  • Not part of AWS Management Console
  • AWS APIs, AWS SDK, and AWS Command Line Interface (CLI)
AWS resource management
  • Legacy projects
  • Legacy blueprints that are not necessarily up to date with Amazon EC2
  • Standard AWS mechanism (tags or accounts)
  • Launch settings and standard EC2 launch templates (instead of blueprints)
  • Manage launch settings at scale
User management and monitoring
  • Standalone user management
  • 3 available pre-set, non-configurable user profiles
  • Selected 52 events in legacy format
  • No access to metrics
  • Standard AWS user management mechanism (IAM). IAM provides granular, configurable authorization for specific APIs and AWS DRS resources
  • Standard AWS audit mechanism (AWS CloudTrail) with full coverage
  • Standard AWS metrics and events mechanism (Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon EventBridge)
No rescan on reboot

Supported for Windows only

Supported for Windows and Linux
Consumption model

Hourly metering via AWS Marketplace subscription that requires an additional EULA

Hourly metering via standard AWS billing and EULA
Pricing
  • Hourly rate for replication per source server is $0.028 
  • See pricing information for details  
Control plane
  • Control plane for all supported commercial Regions and GovCloud is hosted in US East (N. Virginia)
  • Control plane for China Region is hosted in China (Beijing) 
  • Control plane is hosted in recovery Region
  • Higher availability due to no cross-Region dependencies
Public internet access
  • Required for connection between agents, replication servers, and console
  • Data must go through public internet
  • Not required
  • Supports AWS PrivateLink and AWS Direct Connect for replication and failback
  • Provides option to replicate not through public internet, which is a significant security benefit
Temporary IAM credentials for agent installation

No 

Yes
Non-disruptive failback testing
  • No
  • To test failback, you need to stop replication of the source server
  • Yes
  • While failing back to a test machine (not the original source server), replication of the source server continues. This allows failback drills without impacting recovery point objective (RPO).
AWS Region to Region replication and recovery

Yes

Yes
AWS Region to Region failback

Yes

Yes
Large-scale failback automation

Yes

Yes
Separate accounts for staging and launching
(Required for deployments with more than 300 servers per AWS account per target Region)

Yes

Yes

Operating system (OS) support
  • Common operating systems are supported
  • Detailed list available in the documentation
  • Common operating systems are supported
  • Detailed list available in the documentation
Recovery Region support
In scope for the following compliance programs
  • GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO
  • For more details, see the AWS compliance page
  • No plans for additional programs
  • GDPR, HIPAA, ISO, PCI, and SOC, FedRAMP Medium (US East and West AWS Regions)
  • For more details, see the AWS compliance page
Pause/resume replication

Yes

Yes
Stop replication

Yes

Yes
Start replication

Yes

Yes
AWS Region to Region VPC stack creation

Yes

Yes
Auto-detection of added disks

Yes

Yes
Support for AWS Outposts

Yes

No
Recovery plans

Yes

See this blog post for instructions
Post-launch automation

Limited: using scripts placed on replicated disks.

Post-launch actions framework using AWS Services Manager (SSM) automation.

Blogs

  • Date

Visit the AWS Blog to learn more.

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