You create protection groups to enable Site Recovery Manager to protect your virtual machines.

You can organize protection groups in folders. The Protection Groups tab displays the names of the protection groups, but does not display in which folder they are placed. If you have two protection groups with the same name in different folders, it might be difficult to tell them apart. Therefore, ensure that protection group names are unique across all folders. In environments in which not all users have view privileges for all folders, to be sure of the uniqueness of protection group names, do not place protection groups in folders.

When you create protection groups, wait to ensure that the operations finish as expected. Make sure that Site Recovery Manager creates the protection group and that the protection of the virtual machines in the group is successful.

Prerequisites

Verify that you performed one of the following tasks:

  • Included virtual machines in datastores for which you configured array-based replication.
  • Satisfied the requirements in Prerequisites for Storage Policy Protection Groups and reviewed the Limitations of Storage Policy Protection Groups in the Site Recovery Manager Administration guide.
  • Configured vSphere Replication on your virtual machines.
  • Performed a combination of some or all the above.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client or vSphere Web Client, click Site Recovery > Open Site Recovery.
  2. On the Site Recovery home tab, select a site pair and click View Details.
  3. Select the Protection Groups tab, and click New to create a protection group.
  4. On the Name and direction page, enter a name and description for the protection group, select a direction, and click Next.
  5. On the Protection group type page, select the protection group type, and click Next.
    Option Action
    Create an array-based replication protection group Select Datastore groups (array-based replication) and select an array pair.
    Create a vSphere Replication protection group Select Individual VMs (vSphere Replication).
    Create a storage policy protection group Select Storage Policies (array-based replication).
  6. Select datastore groups, virtual machines, or storage policies to add to the protection group.
    Option Action
    Array-based replication protection groups Select datastore groups and click Next.

    When you select a datastore group, the virtual machines that the group contains appear in the Virtual machines table.
    vSphere Replication protection groups Select virtual machines from the list, and click Next.

    Only virtual machines that you configured for vSphere Replication and that are not already in a protection group appear in the list.

    Storage policy protection groups Select storage policies from the list, and click Next.
  7. On the Recovery plan page, you can optionally add the protection group to a recovery plan.
    Option Action
    Add to existing recovery plan Adds the protection group to an existing recovery plan.
    Add to new recovery plan Adds the protection group to a new recovery plan. If you select this option, you must enter a recovery plan name.
    Do not add to recovery plan now. .Select this option if you do not want to add the protection group to a recovery plan.
  8. Review your settings and click Finish.
    You can monitor the progress of the creation of the protection group on the Protection Group tab.
    • For array-based replication and vSphere Replication protection groups, if Site Recovery Manager successfully applied inventory mappings to the protected virtual machines, the protection status of the protection group is OK.
    • For storage policy protection groups, if Site Recovery Manager successfully protected all the virtual machines associated with the storage policy, the protection status of the protection group is OK.
    • For array-based replication and vSphere Replication protection groups, if you did not configure inventory mappings, or if the Site Recovery Manager was unable to apply them, the protection status of the protection group is Not Configured.
    • For storage policy protection groups, if Site Recovery Manager cannot protect all the virtual machines associated with the storage policy, the protection status of the protection group is Not Configured.

What to do next

For array-based replication and vSphere Replication protection groups, if the protection status of the protection groups is Not Configured, apply inventory mappings to the virtual machines:
  • To apply site-wide inventory mappings, or to check that inventory mappings that you have already set are valid, see Configure Inventory Mappings in the Site Recovery Manager Administration guide. To apply these mappings to all the virtual machines, see Apply Inventory Mappings to All Members of a Protection Group in the Site Recovery Manager Administration guide.
  • To apply inventory mappings to each virtual machine in the protection group individually, see Configure Inventory Mappings for an Individual Virtual Machine in a Protection Group in the Site Recovery Manager Administration guide.

For storage policy protection groups, if the protection status of the protection group is Not Configured, verify that you have satisfied the requirements in Prerequisites for Storage Policy Protection Groups and reviewed the Limitations of Storage Policy Protection Groups in the Site Recovery Manager Administration guide.