Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Amazon EVS - DR Site Construction and Burst Handling
This article explains hybrid cloud operations using Amazon EVS. It introduces DR site construction, on-demand capacity bursting, and integration patterns with AWS services.
Hybrid Cloud Design Patterns Using EVS
Amazon EVS can be used for hybrid cloud configurations as an extension of an on-premises VMware environment. There are three representative design patterns. (1) DR site pattern: on-premises is the primary and EVS is the secondary, with automatic failover configured using VMware SRM. When an on-premises failure occurs, VMs are started on EVS, and after recovery they are failed back. (2) Burst pattern: workloads run on-premises during normal times and expand to EVS during busy periods or capacity shortages. VMs are live-migrated with HCX vMotion and returned to on-premises after the peak. (3) Dev/test pattern: the production environment stays on-premises, dev/test environments are deployed on demand on EVS, and entire clusters are deleted when not needed to keep costs down.
Building a DR Site and Designing RTO/RPO
When you use EVS as a DR site, you combine VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager) with vSphere Replication. vSphere Replication asynchronously replicates on-premises VMs to EVS, and the RPO (recovery point objective) can be set from as short as 5 minutes. SRM defines recovery plans and automates the VM startup order, IP address remapping, and DNS updates during failover. The RTO (recovery time objective) varies with the number of VMs and the startup order. Compared with an on-premises DR site, the distinctive features of EVS are that no advance hardware procurement is needed and that you can prepare the environment for DR tests (failover drills) on the cloud side. If the DR site does not need to run at all times, a pilot light configuration (standing by with a minimal configuration and scaling out during a failure) lets you keep costs down.
Strengthening Operations through Integration with AWS Services
Because EVS runs inside a VPC, it can integrate directly with AWS managed services. For backup, AWS Backup supports backup and restore of VMs managed by VMware vCenter and can automate them on a policy basis. The retention period management and low-cost storage tiers of AWS Backup let you keep long-term storage costs down. For monitoring, you can send EVS host metrics (CPU, memory, and storage utilization) to CloudWatch and monitor them centrally together with vCenter alerts. For security, GuardDuty analyzes VPC flow logs to detect suspicious access to the EVS environment, and Security Hub lets you manage your security posture centrally. By combining these, you can build operations that use VMware operational tools and AWS managed services together.
Costs of EVS Hybrid Operations
In the EVS DR site pattern, you stand by with a minimum three-host configuration (about $23,544 per month) during normal times and add hosts during a disaster to take on workloads (as of August 2026). In the burst pattern, you can turn costs into variable costs by adding EVS hosts only at peak times and deleting them after the peak. HCX live migration (vMotion) lets you move VMs between on-premises and EVS, so you can adjust workload placement flexibly. You compare the annual operating costs of the on-premises VMware environment (hardware refreshes, data center expenses, and personnel costs) with the costs of EVS to evaluate the economic rationale of a hybrid configuration.
Handling Bursts at Peak Times
An on-premises VMware environment has an upper limit on physical capacity, so it has the challenge that responding to sudden increases in load is difficult. In a hybrid configuration with EVS, bursting becomes possible, in which processing runs on-premises during normal times and cloud resources are added only when demand peaks. For busy periods and unpredictable load spikes, you can supplement with the cloud only when needed, without expanding on-premises equipment. Being able to meet fluctuating demand while keeping capital investment down is a characteristic of hybrid operations. After the peak passes, you scale down the cloud side and avoid waste.
Optimizing Cost and Capacity
In hybrid operations, how you divide work between on-premises and the cloud determines costs. If you cover the baseline processing that is always needed with existing on-premises equipment and supplement only temporary increases with the cloud, you can take advantage of the strengths of both. By securing cloud resources when needed and releasing them when they are no longer needed, you can keep charges to only what you use. Resources kept on standby for disaster recovery are designed to be small normally and to expand when the time comes. You combine the fixed costs of on-premises with the usage-based costs of the cloud and design the overall balance.
Summary - Guidelines for EVS Hybrid Operations
Amazon EVS can be used for hybrid cloud patterns such as DR sites, capacity bursting, and on-demand deployment of dev/test environments. The pillars of operations are coordination with AWS services through VPC integration, automatic failover with SRM, and VM-level protection with AWS Backup. One example of how to get started is an approach that begins with building a DR site and, once you are used to operating it, expands to bursting and deploying development environments.
References (Official AWS Resources)
The primary sources for this page are the official AWS website and documentation. Check the official pages below for the latest specifications and pricing.
- Amazon EVS official page
- AWS Direct Connect official page
- AWS Backup official page
- AWS Documentation (official)
If this page and the official documentation disagree, treat the official documentation as authoritative.