Test Recovery

To initiate a test recovery, the following prerequisites must be met:

1. The source pod is promoted and the target pod is demoted
2. There is no "undo" pod still in existence for the target pod. A test failover start will complete successfully but the test failover stop (a.k.a cleanup) will fail as a pod cannot be demoted if an undo pod for it already exists
3. The pod is entirely populated by volumes owned and managed by the VMware environment controlled by an SRM pair. If SRM manages one device in a pod, that same pair must manage all devices in the pod
4. The appropriate host or host groups are created on the target FlashArray

   If encounter errors, please see the Troubleshooting ActiveDR Test Recovery Errors in Site Recovery Manager.

   To execute a test recovery, find the SRM recovery plan and on the Recovery Steps tab, click Test.

   

   A basic wizard appears with one option: to synchronize or not before the test begins.

   

   The default behavior is to replicate any changes at the start of the test, to skip this step, deselect Replicate recent changes to recovery site. Unless your ActiveDR lag is significantly high (in the minutes range, which would be abnormal), there is not a significant difference to selecting this option or not.

   

   The SRA will then promote the target pod.

   

   Once the pod is promoted, the GUI will reflect the current state.

   

   The SRA will tag each volume in the pod with the key of puresra-testFailover_<timestamp> with a value of the source pod ID.

   

   The SRA will then remove any existing connections of the target volumes and then connect them to the hosts or host groups identified by SRM.

   

   SRM will then rescan the host HBAs, and resignature the datastores and continue on with the test (registering VMs, powering them on, etc.).

   

   The datastores can now be seen in vCenter.

   

   Note that the resignature process for VMFS includes a mandatory step that adds a name prefix in the form of snap-XXXXXXX. SRM has an advanced setting that can automatically remove this prefix if preferred, which is SRM User Guide: Site Recovery Manager Advanced Options.

   

   When the test has been verified, click Cleanup to reset the environment.

   

   Confirm the cleanup in the wizard and click Finish.

   

   A cleanup will remove all VMs and resources created by the test. The SRA will disconnect all volumes in the pod and remove the tags on the volumes. The pod will then be demoted-resetting the environment for another test or recovery.

   

   The undo pod created by the demotion will also be removed by the SRA (unless safe mode is enabled, in that case it will be skipped).