6.1

Specify the Recovery Priority of a Virtual Machine
By default, Site Recovery Manager sets all virtual machines in a new recovery plan to recovery priority level
3. You can increase or decrease the recovery priority of a virtual machine. The recovery priority specifies the
shutdown and power on order of virtual machines.
If you change the priority of a virtual machine, Site Recovery Manager applies the new priority to all
recovery plans that contain this virtual machine.
Site Recovery Manager starts virtual machines on the recovery site according to the priority that you set.
Site Recovery Manager starts priority 1 virtual machines first, then priority 2 virtual machines second, and
so on. Site Recovery Manager uses VMware Tools heartbeat to discover when a virtual machine is running
on the recovery site. In this way, Site Recovery Manager can ensure that all virtual machines of a given
priority are running before it starts the virtual machines of the next priority. For this reason, you must install
VMware Tools on protected virtual machines.
NOTE If a virtual machine that is eligible for stretched storage migration has a lower priority than a virtual
machine that is not eligible for stretched storage migration, the eligible virtual machine will not be migrated.
Procedure
1 In the vSphere Web Client, select Site Recovery > Recovery Plans, and select a recovery plan.
2 On the Related Objects tab, click Virtual Machines.
3 Right-click a virtual machine and select All Priority Actions.
4 Select a new priority for the virtual machine.
The highest priority is 1. The lowest priority is 5.
5 Click Yes to confirm the change of priority.
Configure Virtual Machine Dependencies
If a virtual machine depends on services that run on another virtual machine in the same protection group,
you can configure a dependency between the virtual machines. By configuring a dependency, you can
ensure that the virtual machines start on the recovery site in the correct order. Dependencies are only valid
if the virtual machines have the same priority.
NOTE Virtual machines eligible for stretched storage migration cannot be dependent on virtual machines
that are not eligible for stretched storage migration or they will not be migrated.
When a recovery plan runs, Site Recovery Manager starts the virtual machines that other virtual machines
depend on before it starts the virtual machines with the dependencies. If Site Recovery Manager cannot start
a virtual machine that another virtual machine depends on, the recovery plan continues with a warning.
You can only configure dependencies between virtual machines that are in the same recovery priority
group. If you configure a virtual machine to be dependent on a virtual machine that is in a lower priority
group, Site Recovery Manager overrides the dependency and first starts the virtual machine that is in the
higher priority group.
If you remove a protection group that contains the dependent virtual machine from the recovery plan the
status of the protection group is set to Not in this Plan in the dependencies for the virtual machine with
the dependency. If the configured virtual machine has a different priority than the virtual machine that it
depends on, the status of the dependent virtual machine is set to Lower Priority or Higher Priority.
Prerequisites
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Verify that the virtual machine with the dependency and the virtual machine that it depends on are in
the same recovery plan.
Site Recovery Manager Administration
88 VMware, Inc.