To create a failback recovery plan, you can duplicate a committed failover plan.

A failback recovery plan is created in one of two ways:
  • When you duplicate a failover recovery plan.
  • When you commit a failover recovery plan.

When you create a failback plan using one of these two methods, a new plan is created with its steps in reverse order, and the word [failback] is added to the name of the new plan.

Create a Failback Plan by Duplicating a Failover Plan
  1. From the recovery plan list, select a plan you want to duplicate to create a new failback plan and click the Duplicate button.
  2. In the Duplicate plan dialog box, click the 'Create a failback plan (reverse protected and recovery site)' option, which reverses all steps from the original plan into the new failback plan. When you select this option, the word [failback] is added to the name of the plan. It is a good idea to use this word in the plan name so others know what type of plan it is.
  3. Under Default datastore, select a datastore on protected site to use for failback.

    Typically, VMs fail back to their original datastores. For example, if at the time of failback the original VM still exists on the failover target, VMware Live Cyber Recovery preserves the datastores and folders of all its VMDKs, and the VM itself. However, if the VM no longer exists on the failover site, VMware Live Cyber Recovery recovers VM to the default datastore specified here.

  4. Next, choose the 'During failback, wait for user confirmation before powering off VMs' if you want the failback operation to pause before powering off VMs.

    This option allows you to control the time at which VMs in the plan will be shut down on the recovery SDDC. During failback, VMs must be powered off in the recovery SDDC, the last changes are replicated back and the VMs are powered back on, which can take considerable time.

    You can also add an additional prompt for the user who will be confirming the power off operation.

  5. Click OK.

Create a Failback Plan When Commiting a Failover Plan

You can create a failback plan after a failover plan finishes and you are committing the plan:
  1. From the left navigation, click Recovery plans.
  2. In the list of plans, select the recovery plan that was run as a failover.
  3. In the Commit dialog box, enter notes about the failover.
  4. Under Failback plan, select the Create a failback plan' option, which creates a duplicate failback plan that reverses the order of steps in the plan. You can use the duplicate plan for failback.
  5. You can also select the 'During failback, wait for user confirmation before powering off VMs' (on the recovery SDDC), if you want failback to wait for user confirmation before powering off all VMs in the plan. You can also add an optional prompt to display when the plan pauses.

    Pausing the plan before VMs are powered off on the recovery SDDC enables you to control the time at which VMs in the plan will be shut down, which can take considerable time, depending on the size and number of VMs.

    Before you run the failback plan, make sure you set the plan datastore.

  6. Enter a name for the failback plan.

    As a best practice, leave the [failback] text in front of the plan name, so it is easy to distinguish between failback and failover plans.

  7. In the confirmation section, enter COMMIT FAILOVER in all capital letters, and then click the Commit button.

Once you create a failback plan, you can edit it like any other recovery plan. For example, if the original protected site cannot be recovered following a disaster event, you can adjust a failback plan adjusted to use another on-premises site as its target.

To adjust the plan, add a protected site following a normal process and then select the newly added site as a failover target for the failback plan.