A technique provides network efficient data failover by explicitly protecting one or more common snapshot references at sites of a multi-site data replication environment to improve granularity of control of recovery point objectives (RPO) for data across the sites. A common snapshot reference or recovery point (RP) ensures that, in the event of failure to a site, data designated for failover may be quickly protected by replicating only small incremental changes to the RP so as to maintain RPO requirements across the sites. Illustratively, the technique enhances and extends a disaster recovery (DR) application programming interface (API) protocol through an extension that defines and applies a tag to the RP, wherein the tag enables protection and/or preservation of the RP by ensuring that the sites honor the tag applied to the RP. The tag essentially functions as an advisory lock for the RP that is shared among the sites to prevent deletion of the RP at the sites throughout the duration of the lock.