System information

Test a Recovery Plan
When you test a recovery plan, Site Recovery Manager runs the virtual machines of the recovery plan on a
test network and on a temporary snapshot of replicated data at the recovery site. Site Recovery Manager
does not disrupt operations at the protected site.
Testing a recovery plan runs all the steps in the plan, except for powering down virtual machines at the
protected site and forcing devices at the recovery site to assume mastership of replicated data. If the plan
requires the suspension of local virtual machines at the recovery site, Site Recovery Manager suspends those
virtual machines during the test. Running a test of a recovery plan makes no other changes to the
production environment at either site.
Testing a recovery plan creates a snapshot on the recovery site of all of the disk files of the virtual machines
in the recovery plan. The creation of the snapshots adds to the I/O latency on the storage. If you notice
slower response times when you test recovery plans and you are using VMware Virtual SAN storage,
monitor the I/O latency by using the monitoring tool in the Virtual SAN interface.
Procedure
1 In the vSphere Web Client, select Site Recovery > Recovery Plans, and select a recovery plan.
2 Right-click the plan and select Test. You can also run the test from the Recovery Steps tab.
3 (Optional) Select Replicate recent changes to recovery site.
Selecting this option ensures that the recovery site has the latest copy of protected virtual machines, but
the synchronization might take more time.
4 Click Next.
5 Review the test information and click Finish.
6 Click the Recovery Steps tab to monitor the progress of the test and respond to messages.
The Recovery Steps tab displays the progress of individual steps. The Test task in Recent Tasks tracks
overall progress.
NOTE Site Recovery Manager runs recovery steps in the prescribed order, except that it does not wait
for the Prepare Storage step to finish for all protection groups before continuing to the next steps.
What to do next
Run a cleanup operation after the recovery plan test finishes to restore the recovery plan to its original state
from before the test.
Clean Up After Testing a Recovery Plan
After you test a recovery plan, you can return the recovery plan to the Ready state by running a cleanup
operation. You must complete the cleanup operation before you can run a failover or another test.
Site Recovery Manager performs several cleanup operations after a test.
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Powers off the recovered virtual machines.
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Replaces recovered virtual machines with placeholders, preserving their identity and configuration
information.
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Cleans up replicated storage snapshots that the recovered virtual machines used during the test.
Prerequisites
Verify that you tested a recovery plan.
Site Recovery Manager Administration
48 VMware, Inc.