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Question

Manual failover path for synchronous Protection Policy (AHV) when Prism Central is unreachable

  • September 25, 2026
  • 5 replies
  • 17 views

We're designing a Metro/synchronous replication setup between two AHV clusters (PRD and DR), using a single Prism Central instance deployed at a third site to manage both clusters, host the Witness Service, and run our Protection Policies / Recovery Plans.

Additional context: DR is also running some VMs directly (on a separate, non-replicated local container) due to a temporary memory capacity constraint on PRD. These VMs are not part of the synchronous Protection Policy — they're independent workloads currently living in DR.

Our question: If the third site with the PC becomes completely unreachable at the same time PRD goes down, what is the supported method to manually promote the DR-side replicas and bring the protected VMs online at DR?

5 replies

JeroenTielen
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  • Vanguard
  • September 25, 2026

When that happens you need to restore prism central from the pcbr on the dr cluster. When pc is up and running you can start your recovery plans. 


  • Author
  • Voyager
  • September 25, 2026

What about when the 3rd site is ESXi running PC?


JeroenTielen
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  • Vanguard
  • September 25, 2026

O wow and that pc is a single pc vm ???

 

that is why I always design a pc per failure domain and connect them via availability zones.  


  • Author
  • Voyager
  • September 25, 2026

So, run a PC in prod and DR and then use the witness service vm in the 3rd location would be the best option?


JeroenTielen
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  • Vanguard
  • September 25, 2026

That is the safest yes. And the use Nutanix Central for single management pane.