A technique efficiently configures a peered cluster storage environment. The configuration technique illustratively includes three phases: a discovery phase, a node setup phase and a cluster setup phase. The discovery phase may be employed to initiate discovery of nodes of a disaster recovery (DR) group through transmission of multicast advertisement packets by the nodes over interconnects, including a Fibre Channel (FC) fabric, to each other node of the group. In the node setup phase, each node of a cluster assigns its relationships to the nodes discovered and present in the FC fabric; illustratively, the assigned relationships include high availability (HA) partner, DR primary partner and DR auxiliary partner. In the cluster setup phase, the discovered nodes of the FC fabric are organized as the peered cluster storage environment (DR group) configured to service data in a highly reliable and available manner.