VMware Live Site Recovery uses VM readiness signals to control recovery sequencing between priority groups. Recovery Priority is used to start and validate higher-priority workloads before lower-priority workloads continue, which is important for application dependency chains such as identity services, databases, middleware, and application servers. A VM being registered or powered on does not prove that the guest operating system is usable. Similarly, final replication completion only confirms storage synchronization, not guest readiness. VMware Tools heartbeat provides a guest-level indication that the operating system has started and is responsive. This makes it the correct mechanism for determining that a recovery priority step has completed and that the recovery plan can continue to the next priority group. The “successfully recovered” state is the result of the recovery workflow, not the signal used to progress between priority groups. Reference topics: VMware Live Site Recovery, Recovery Plans, Recovery Priority, VMware Tools Heartbeat, Application Recovery Sequencing.