6.1

Nonprotected virtual machines can appear in storage policy protection groups for reasons other than the
non-association of virtual machines with the correct storage policy. For descriptions of other circumstances
in which nonprotected virtual machines can appear in storage policy protection groups, see “Limitations of
Storage Policy Protection Groups,” on page 50.
Similarly, because Site Recovery Manager does not periodically poll virtual machines in storage policy
protection groups, Site Recovery Manager might fail to protect virtual machines that change or that are
included in more than one storage policy protection group. For information about the limitations of storage
policy protection groups caused by the absence of polling, see “Storage Policy Protection Groups and
Periodic Polling,” on page 52.
If a storage policy protection group includes nonprotected virtual machines, these virtual machines appear
in the Related Objects > Virtual Machines view for the storage policy protection group. The protection
group appears in an error state.
How Site Recovery Manager handles nonprotected virtual machines depends on the type of recovery that
you run.
NOTE You can only attempt to protect nonprotected virtual machines in storage policy protection groups on
which you have never run recovery. If you have successfully or unsuccessfully run recovery on a storage
policy protection group that contains nonprotected virtual machines, you must remove those virtual
machines from the storage policy protection group.
n
If you run a test recovery on a storage policy protection group that contains nonprotected virtual
machines, the operation fails with errors. If a test recovery fails due to nonreplicated virtual machines,
run cleanup before you attempt to protect or remove the nonprotected virtual machines, then run the
test again. After you have run cleanup, if you have never run a recovery on this protection group,
attempt to fix the protection of the affected virtual machines, for example by associating them with the
correct storage policy, or by moving virtual machine files from a nonreplicated datastore to a replicated
datastore.
n
If you run planned migration on a storage policy protection group that contains nonprotected virtual
machines, the operation fails and the recovery plan shows the Incomplete Recovery state. During the
deactivation step of planned migration, nonprotected virtual machines on the protected site can prevent
Site Recovery Manager from making the storage read-only, or virtual machines might lose access to
their data. If a protection group is in the Incomplete Recovery state, you must remove the nonprotected
virtual machines out of the protected datastore and disassociate them from the storage policy.
n
If you run disaster recovery on a storage policy protection group that contains nonprotected virtual
machines, the operation succeeds but Site Recovery Manager does not recover the nonprotected virtual
machines. When the protected site comes back online and you attempt to run planned migration to
complete the recovery, the planned migration fails if nonprotected virtual machines are still present on
the protected site. If a protection group is in the Incomplete Recovery state, you must remove the
nonprotected virtual machines out of the protected datastore and disassociate them from the storage
policy.
Create Protection Groups
You create protection groups to enable Site Recovery Manager to protect virtual machines.
You can organize protection groups in folders. Different views in the vSphere Web Client display the names
of the protection groups, but they do not display the folder names. If you have two protection groups with
the same name in different folders, it might be difficult to tell them apart in some views in the
vSphere Web Client. Consequently, ensure that protection group names are unique across all folders. In
environments in which not all users have view privileges for all folders, to be sure of the uniqueness of
protection group names, do not place protection groups in folders.
Chapter 5 Creating and Managing Protection Groups
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