Techniques disclosed herein enable efficient creation of models that represent connection topology of virtual machine (VM) management servers and site recovery manager (SRM) servers configured to provide VM recovery services across multiple locations. In operation, an SRM topology unit initializes a model to represent a VM management server. The SRM topology unit expands the model to represent a first SRM server that is logically connected to the VM management server and supports VM recovery at a first location. The SRM topology unit further expands the model to reflect a pairing relationship between the first SRM server and a second VM management server that supports VMs at a second location. Creating an easily-comprehended model in this hierarchical and automated fashion improves on conventional techniques where holistically evaluating the connection topology is predominantly a tedious and error-prone manual process.
