Snapshot-based disaster recovery (DR) orchestration systems and methods for virtual machine (VM) failover and failback do not require that VMs or their corresponding datastores be actively operating at the DR site before a DR orchestration job is initiated, i.e., before failover. An illustrative data storage management system deploys proprietary components at source data center(s) and at DR site(s). The proprietary components (e.g., storage manager, data agents, media agents, backup nodes, etc.) interoperate with each other and with the source and DR components to ensure that VMs will successfully failover and/or failback. DR orchestration jobs are suitable for testing VM failover scenarios (“clone testing”), for conducting planned VM failovers, and for unplanned VM failovers. DR orchestration jobs also handle failback and integration of DR-generated data into the failback site, including restoring VMs that never failed over to fully re-populate the source/failback site.