Azure VMware Solution: Deploy Disaster Recovery with VMware SRM — Lesson 3: Recovery Plans, Testing, Failover, Reprotect, and Failback

Learning Objectives

• Interpret the roles, prerequisites, dependencies, and decision points that shape recovery plans, testing, failover, reprotect, and failback.
• Evaluate the workflow and produce recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace that another practitioner can review and repeat.
• Demonstrate “an application starting before its database recovery step has reached an accepted state” without introducing an unverified production change.

Detailed Topics

• recovery-plan construction
• priority groups
• dependencies and scripts
• IP customization
• isolated test networks
• test recovery and cleanup
• planned migration
• disaster failover
• reprotect
• failback acceptance
• Decision ownership and acceptance evidence for recovery plans, testing, failover, reprotect, and failback
• Relevant security, performance, resilience, rollback, and support considerations

Instructor Demonstration

The instructor demonstrates recovery-plan construction, priority groups, dependencies and scripts, IP customization, isolated test networks, test recovery and cleanup, planned migration, disaster failover, reprotect, failback acceptance in a representative environment. Each material checkpoint is captured in recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace, and the walkthrough contrasts the intended state with a condition where an application starting before its database recovery step has reached an accepted state.

Hands-On Exercise

Complete a controlled implementation or analysis for Recovery Plans, Testing, Failover, Reprotect, and Failback. Establish a known baseline, introduce or reproduce “an application starting before its database recovery step has reached an accepted state,” isolate the proven cause, apply a reversible correction, and record the accepted result in recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace.

1. Confirm scope, identities, infrastructure, dependencies, and expected result.
2. Execute the planned configuration or operational sequence while preserving checkpoints.
3. Test one expected path, one boundary condition, and the identified failure path.
4. Retest after correction and document rollback, ownership, and preventive action.

Scenario Analysis

• Decide which requirement or dependency has the greatest influence on recovery plans, testing, failover, reprotect, and failback.
• Compare two valid implementation or recovery choices and identify the evidence that would distinguish them.
• Explain how recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace should be reviewed, retained, and handed to the next owner.

Troubleshooting Guidance

Begin with effective configuration, recent changes, connectivity, health, logs, and timing. Use recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace to find the earliest divergence between expected and observed behavior. Treat “an application starting before its database recovery step has reached an accepted state” as a hypothesis until the corrected path passes both the original test and a boundary condition.

Validation Checklist

• The implemented state for recovery plans, testing, failover, reprotect, and failback is traceable to approved inputs.
• Recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace contains baseline, test, correction, and accepted-result evidence.
• Security, capacity, performance, resilience, downstream impact, and rollback were considered where relevant.
• Monitoring, escalation, recovery, and support ownership are clear enough for operational use.

Lesson Outcome

Learners can apply Recovery Plans, Testing, Failover, Reprotect, and Failback, explain the decisions made, and defend the result with recovery-plan test report and timed failover trace.