You can now protect VMs and manage the protection status directly from the VMware Cloud Console, if you have the VMware Cloud DR subscription. For advanced configurations, you can use the VMware Cloud DR dashboard.

Prerequisites

Requirement Activate Protection Protect VM
Set up the authentication mechanism. See Set Up vSphere+ Authentication. Not applicable Yes
Ensure that you have either the Cloud Administrator or the DevOps User role in vSphere+. Yes Yes
Ensure that you have the necessary permissions on the vCenter to view, create, and manage VMs. See vCenter System Roles and Required Privileges for Common Tasks. Yes Yes
Ensure that you have access to VMware Cloud DR. If you do not have access to VMware Cloud DR, then Request Access. Verify whether you have one of these roles in VMware Cloud DR.
  • Orchestrator Administrator
  • DR Administrator
  • Protection Administrator
For more information, see VMware Cloud DR Service Roles.		 Yes Yes

Activate Protection

If VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery is added to your Organization, you can activate protection for your virtual machines. You can activate protection by registering your vCenter.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the VMware Cloud Console at https://vmc.vmware.com.
  2. On the left navigation panel, select Inventory.
    The Protection Status appears for each vCenter.
  3. To activate protection for your vCenter, click Activate Protection.
    You are directed to VMware Cloud DR to register the vCenter.
  4. Register the vCenter.
    For more information, see Set up a Protected Site, Deploy the DRaaS Connector, and Configure a Protection Group.

What to do next

You can protect your VMs using VMware Cloud DR.

Protect Virtual Machines

You can initiate VM protection from the VMware Cloud Console.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the VMware Cloud Console at https://vmc.vmware.com.
  2. Click Workloads > Protection.
  3. Select the VM and click Protect VM.
    Note: You can select multiple VMs from one vCenter at a time.
    The Protect VM dialog box appears. It displays a list of vCenter tags that are associated with VMware Cloud DR protection groups.
  4. In the Protect VM dialog box, choose the protection tag and its associated protection groups.
    If you do not see any tag-based protection groups or if the existing protection groups are not suitable for your use, you can define a protection group in VMware Cloud DR. To learn more about protection groups, see Configure Protection Groups.
    Note: The vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) agent or system VMs and Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) Connector are not protected by VMware Cloud DR. vSphere+ assigns tag to these VMs but they will not be protected by VMware Cloud DR.
  5. (Optional) Click Go To VMware Cloud DR to define a protection group in VMware Cloud DR.
  6. Click Assign Protection Tag to protect your VMs.

Results

Your VM is protected.