5.5

Message Prompt Recovery Steps
Present a message in the SRM user interface during the recovery. You can use this message to pause the
recovery and provide information to the user running the recovery plan. For example, the message can
instruct users to perform a manual recovery task or to verify steps. The only action users can take in direct
response to a prompt is to click OK, which dismisses the message and allows the recovery to continue.
How SRM Handles Custom Recovery Steps
SRM handles custom recovery steps differently based on the type of recovery step.
SRM attempts to complete all custom recovery steps, but some command recovery steps might fail to finish.
Command Recovery Steps
By default, SRM waits for 5 minutes for command recovery steps to finish. You can configure the timeout
for each command. If a command finishes within this timeout period, the next recovery step in the recovery
plan runs. How SRM handles failures of custom commands depends on the type of command.
Type of Command Description
Top-level
commands
If a recovery step fails, SRM logs the failure and shows a warning on the Recovery Steps tab.
Subsequent custom recovery steps continue to run.
Per-virtual machine
commands
Run in batches either before or after a virtual machine powers on. If a command fails, the
remaining per-virtual machine commands in the batch do not run. For example, if you run five
commands for before power on and five commands for after power on, and the third command in
the batch before power on fails, the remaining two commands for before power on do not run.
SRM does not power on the virtual machine and does run commands for after power on.
Message Prompt Recovery Steps
Custom recovery steps that issue a message prompt cannot fail. The recovery plan pauses until the user
dismisses the prompt by clicking OK.
Create Top-Level Command Steps
You can add top-level commands anywhere in the recovery plan.
Prerequisites
You have a recovery plan to which to add custom steps.
Procedure
1 Click Recovery Plans in the SRM interface, and select a recovery plan.
2 Click the Recovery Steps tab.
3 Right-click a step before or after which to add a custom step, and select Add Step.
4 Select Command on SRM Server.
5 In the Name text box, type a name for the step.
6 In the Content text box, type the commands for the step to run.
7 (Optional) Modify the Timeout setting.
8 Select where in the sequence of steps to insert the new step.
n
Before selected step
n
After selected step
Site Recovery Manager Administration
60 VMware, Inc.