Protection Plans

Create and activate nxtDR protection plans that define which workloads are replicated, the replication mode, and your RPO and RTO targets.

Overview

A protection plan defines which workloads are protected, how they are replicated to the DR site, and in what order they recover during a failover. Creating a well-structured plan is the foundation of an effective DR strategy.

Prerequisites

• An active NxtSight account with project access
• At least one DR site registered and connected (contact your administrator if no DR site is configured). Your administrator can configure this through nxtDeploy.
• Instances and volumes you want to protect must exist in the project

Key Concepts

Term	Definition
RPO	Recovery Point Objective — maximum acceptable data loss measured in time
RTO	Recovery Time Objective — maximum acceptable recovery time
Replication Mode	Asynchronous (lower overhead) or Synchronous (zero data loss, higher latency)
Consistency Group	Resources that must recover together atomically

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Creating a Protection Plan

Dashboard

1. Navigate to Protection Plans

   Log in to the NxtSight Dashboard (https://connect.<your-domain>) and navigate to Project → Disaster Recovery → Protection Plans. Click Create Plan.

2. Define plan settings

   Field	Description
   Plan Name	Descriptive label (e.g., prod-web-tier-dr)
   RPO Target	Maximum data loss tolerance (e.g., 15 minutes)
   RTO Target	Maximum acceptable recovery time (e.g., 1 hour)
   Replication Mode	Asynchronous or Synchronous
   DR Site	Target site where workloads recover

   Synchronous replication guarantees zero data loss (RPO = 0) but adds write latency proportional to the round-trip time between sites. Use asynchronous mode for sites separated by more than 10ms RTT.

3. Add protected resources

   Click Add Resource and select the instances, volumes, or application groups to include. For each resource, configure:

   • Recovery Priority — order in which this resource starts during failover
   • Consistency Group — group resources that must recover together atomically
   • Pre/Post Scripts — optional automation hooks for application quiesce and validation
4. Review and activate

   Review the plan summary and click Activate. nxtDR begins replicating all protected resources to the DR site immediately. Initial sync time depends on data volume.

   Plan status shows Active and initial replication sync begins.

CLI

nxtDR disaster recovery operations are managed exclusively through the nxtDR Dashboard. CLI access is not available for DR operations. Use the Dashboard tab above to create and activate protection plans.

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Managing Existing Plans

Dashboard

Navigate to Project → Disaster Recovery → Protection Plans to see all plans with their current status and replication lag.

Available actions per plan:

• Edit — update RPO/RTO targets or add resources
• Deactivate — pause replication without deleting the plan
• Delete — permanently remove the plan (stops replication)
• Failover — initiate failover (see Failover)
• Test Failover — run a DR test (see DR Testing)

CLI

nxtDR disaster recovery operations are managed exclusively through the nxtDR Dashboard. CLI access is not available for DR operations. Use the Dashboard tab above to manage existing protection plans.

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Replication Health

Monitor replication health to ensure your RPO targets are achievable before an actual disaster event:

Metric	Healthy	Warning	Action
Replication lag	< RPO target	Approaching RPO target	Investigate network bandwidth
Plan status	ACTIVE	DEGRADED	Review event log for errors
Last recovery point	< RPO ago	> RPO ago	Check connectivity to DR site

Monitor replication lag for all plans from the Disaster Recovery → Protection Plans list view, which displays current lag alongside each plan.

If replication lag consistently exceeds your RPO target, actual data loss on failover will exceed the configured target. Escalate to your storage administrator immediately.

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Next Steps

Failover

Execute failover when a primary site failure is confirmed

DR Testing

Validate your protection plan without impacting production

nxtDR Admin — Recovery Plans

Define ordered resource groups and automation hooks (administrator)

Troubleshooting

Diagnose replication lag and plan activation issues