4.1

Reconfigure SRM to Enable Failback to the Protected Site
Before you can run a failback, you must create the protection groups and recovery plans required to migrate
protected inventory from the recovery site back to the protected site.
After you have prepared both sites for failback, reconfigured array replication, and replicated the source
devices at the recovery site to their targets at the protected site, you can create the environment needed for
failback. You follow
the same steps that you took when you configured SRM for failover, but with the roles of
the two sites reversed. For the duration of the failback, the original recovery site becomes the protected site,
and the original protected site becomes the recovery site. Because of this temporary role reversal, when the
failback procedures refer to the protected or recovery site by name, instead access the sites that are currently
playing those roles, not the sites that originally played them.
Procedure
1 Configure the array managers (see “Configure Array Managers,” on page 31).
2 Configure inventory mappings at the recovery site (see “Configure Inventory Mappings,” on page 33).
3 Create a protection group that includes all the virtual machines that you want to include in the failback (see
“Create Protection Groups,” on page 35).
4 Create a recovery plan that includes the protection group that you created (see “Create a Recovery Plan,”
on page 37).
5 Test the recovery plan (see “Test a Recovery Plan,” on page 41).
6 After you have verified that the test recovery completed as planned, run the recovery plan (see “Run a
Recovery Plan,” on page 42).
Running the recovery plan completes the failback. It powers off the virtual machines at the original
recovery site. It then restores the failed-over virtual machines to the original protected site.
What to do next
After the failback completes, replication has again been turned off. The original protected site, while restored
to its original role, is no longer protected by a recovery plan. To reinstate its protection, you must reconfigure
array replication to use the protected site devices as the source and the recovery site devices as the targets. You
then configure the array managers, inventory mappings, protection groups, and recovery plans, as you did
when you first configured SRM.
Restore the Original Configuration
After a failback is complete, you can restore the original configuration so that the protected and recovery sites
resume the roles they had before the failover.
Procedure
1 At the original recovery site (now restored to that role), clean up any artifacts that remain from the original
failover and the subsequent failback.
n
Remove the recovered virtual machines from vCenter inventory and delete them from storage at the
recovery site.
n
Remove the protection group and recovery plan that you created in “Reconfigure SRM to Enable
Failback to the Protected Site,” on page 45.
n
Remove the placeholder virtual machines created at the protected site by the failback.
2 Reconfigure array replication to use the protected site devices as the source and the recovery site devices
as the targets.
See “Reconfigure Replication,” on page 44.
Chapter 4 Test Recovery, Recovery, and Failback
VMware, Inc. 45