After configuring the replication of the virtual machines in SRM we can now create Protection Group(s). So what exactly is a protection group? Well, it’s quite self-explanatory

“A protection group is a group of virtual machines that fail over together to the recovery site during a test or a recovery procedure.”

The protection group can be used in one or multiple recovery plans which we will create later. Protection groups can be Array-based or VR-based. In this case we will create a protection group based on vSphere Replication since it was configured in the previous part.

Create Protection Group

1. On the Protected Site, open the Site Recovery Manager and select Protection Groups in the left pane. Click on Create Protection Group to start the wizard.
2. In the Create Protection Group wizard, select the Protected Site and vSphere Replication as the protection group type. Click Next.
3. In the Select Virtual Machines window, select the VMs you want to add to this Protection Group and click Next.
4. Provide a suggestive name and alternatively a description for this Protection Group and click Next.
5. Review the settings and click on Finish when ready.
6. Wait until the Protection Group is configured. You can monitor the progress in the task pane.

Now that the VMs are protected we can start building a recovery plan. Continue to part 9 where we will configure a recovery plan for our VMs.

• SRM 5 Part 1: Preparation
• SRM 5 Part 2: Installation
• SRM 5 Part 3: Site Pairing
• SRM 5 Part 4: vSphere Replication
• SRM 5 Part 5: VRM Pairing and VR Deployment
• SRM 5 Part 6: Inventory Mappings
• SRM 5 Part 7: VM Replication

Cheers!

- Marek.Z