An organization uses a Recovery Plan to protect a SQL Cluster that relies on Volume...

Volume Groups (VGs) are used in Nutanix to provide block storage to virtual machines, often for high-performance applications like SQL Server. VGs can be attached to VMs in two ways: " In-guest " (using iSCSI initiators) or " Hypervisor-attached " (where the hypervisor handles the connection).

In a disaster recovery scenario managed by Recovery Plans, there is a technical distinction in how these attachments are handled. While Nutanix Disaster Recovery can replicate the data in the Volume Groups and recover the VM itself, VGs that are " hypervisor-attached " do not currently support automatic reattachment as part of the orchestration workflow in all AOS versions. When the failover completes, the VM powers on at the recovery site, but the VGs are not connected to the VM at the hypervisor level. This causes the application (SQL) to find its data disks missing, resulting in the database staying offline. To resolve this, the administrator must manually reattach the Volume Groups to the VM at the recovery site using the Prism interface or a script. This limitation highlights the need to verify specific application storage configurations during DR testing. For automated recovery of VGs, using " In-guest " iSCSI attachments is often preferred because the iSCSI initiator within the guest OS can re-establish the connection to the new cluster ' s Data Services IP once the network is active.