The first step in the process of creating a multisite vCloud Director service is for the Service Provider to create associations between sites. Association establishes a trust relationship so that one site can execute API calls at another site with pre-approved authorization. After an association is established between a pair of sites, a heartbeat process monitors the connection between the two member sites. Until each site is associated with the other, Site “A” to Site “B” and Site “B” to Site “A”, the heartbeat process will show the association as incomplete. Establishing an association between two sites requires System Administrator permissions at both sites, because authorized API calls must be made to each site during the process.