4.1

Adding and Removing Members of a Protection Group
When you create
a protection group, it includes all the virtual machines on the selected datastore. You can add
or remove protection group members by adding or moving virtual machines to the datastore, or by removing
them from the datastore.
All virtual machines and templates that reside on a protected datastore are part of the protection group that
applies to that datastore. There is no explicit add or remove operation to change group membership. The
contents of the datastore implicitly specify the membership of the protection group.
n
To add a new virtual machine or template to a protection group, create it on the protected datastore and
then configure protection for it.
n
To add an existing virtual machine to a protection group, use Storage VMotion to move it to the protected
datastore and then configure protection for it.
n
To remove a virtual machine or template from a protection group, remove it from the protected datastore.
NOTE When you add a virtual machine or template to a protected datastore, it has an initial status of Not
Configured in the protection group. You must configure protection for the new group member by applying
inventory mappings if they exist, or by configuring resource mappings for it individually.
Limitations on Recovery of Snapshots and Linked Clones
Array-based replication supports recovering VMware Virtual Consolidated Backup (VCB) snapshots, but it
does not support recovering other types of snapshots or virtual machines configured as linked clones.
SRM cannot reliably recover virtual machine snapshots that are not created by VCB. A protection group can
include virtual machines that have snapshots, but those virtual machines are not usable when recovered.
Virtual machines configured
as linked clones are also not protected. You can include such virtual machines in
protection groups, but only the parent is completely protected. The linked clones are not usable after recovery.
NOTE If you need to support the use of certain types of VCB snapshots at the recovery site (snapshots taken
when the virtual machine is powered on or suspended), the ESX hosts at both sites must have compatible
CPUs, as defined in the VMware knowledge base articles VMotion CPU Compatibility Requirements for Intel
Processors (article 1991) and VMotion CPU Compatibility Requirements for AMD Processors (article 1992). The hosts
must also have the same BIOS features enabled. If the servers’ BIOS configurations do not match, they still
show a compatibility error message even if they are otherwise identical. The two most common features to
check are Non-Execute Memory Protection (NX / XD) and Virtualization Technology (VT / AMD-V).
Create a Recovery Plan
A recovery plan controls how virtual machines in a protection group are recovered. A basic recovery plan
includes a number of prescribed steps that use default values to control how protection group members are
migrated to the protected site. You can customize the plan to meet your needs. The plan is stored in the SRM
database at the recovery site and executed by the SRM server at that site.
A
simple
recovery
plan assigns all virtual machines in a protection group to two networks on the recovery site:
a recovery network and a test network. The recovery network is used in an actual recovery. The test network
is used only for testing the recovery plan and does not typically allow the recovered virtual machines to
communicate on your corporate network or the Internet. SRM can create a test network for you, or you can
create one yourself.
Chapter 3 Configuring the Protected and Recovery Sites
VMware, Inc. 37