SRM has the ability to test a recovery plan without actually running a recovery plan (failover). Note that in the context of the PowerFlex SRA, this leverages the Test Failover technology in PowerFlex replication. A read/write snapshot of the target volume is created and mounted to the ESXi host as if it were the actual volume. Because this is only a snapshot, changes made on the target site during testing are discarded when the SRM test is completed and cleaned up. Virtual machines can be brought online in an isolated environment at the recovery site. Because the test environment is isolated, recovered virtual machines can have the same name or IP address as production virtual machines. The production environment is not impacted by the test. While the test plan is running, production VMs and replication continue to run without interruption.

• Select the recovery plan and click Test to test a disaster recovery plan. The following image shows the RCG state while testing the recovery plan.

• Select the recovery plan, and click Cleanup to clean up after the test is completed.