vRanger 7.8 - User Guide

Performing optional configurations

Before you set up a backup job, you may want to make the following optional vRanger configurations:

•	Enabling VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT)

•	Adding a custom backup group

•	Configuring VSS tools for VMware VMs

Enabling VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT)

VMware® CBT reduces the time needed for incremental and differential backups by only backing up the portions of a disk that have changed since the last backup. By determining which blocks changed within the VMDK file, vRanger only backs up the portions of a disk that have changed since the last backup. This often results in shorter backup operations, and reduced resource consumption on network and storage elements.

VMware vSphere® supports CBT, and most VMs running in this environment can use it. The VMs must be Hardware Version 7 or later, and have been created and hosted in VMware® ESXi™ 5.0 or later hosts. VMs that are created in VMware® ESX® 4 or earlier must be migrated to Hardware Version 7 or later for CBT to be supported. CBT must be enabled for each VM with which CBT is to be used.

 

NOTE: VMs that have not yet been powered on cannot have CBT enabled. You must have powered on the VM for the CBT option to be available.

Change Block Tracking is enabled or disabled on a per-VM basis. There are two methods to enable CBT:

•	In the Options Selection page of the vRanger Backup Wizard, select Enable Change Block Tracking.

NOTE: This option is enabled by default. If you are upgrading a previous version of vRanger, existing jobs will use their current settings.

•	In the My Inventory view, right-click the VM for which want to change the CBT setting, and then select Enable Change Tracking. The Changed Block Tracking Icon appears next to any VM on which CBT is enabled.

Adding a custom backup group

This feature lets you organize physical servers, Hyper-V® servers, or VMware® vCenter™ objects — VMs, hosts, and folders — into groups, which lets you create a backup job for only the selected nodes. This feature provides additional flexibility for creating backup jobs.

 

IMPORTANT: A backup group must contain only physical objects, only Hyper-V objects, or only VMware® objects. You cannot combine VMware, Hyper-V, and physical objects into a single backup group.

To add a custom backup group:

1	In the My Inventory view, select the VMware, Hyper-V, or Physical tab.

2	Do one of the following:

▪	Click the Add Icon, and select Backup Group.

▪	Expand the Backup Group panel in the Inventory pane. Right-click an empty spot, select Add, and then click Backup Group.

3	Enter a name for the Backup Group, and click to select the nodes to include in the group.

4	Click Add.

Your new backup group is listed in the Backup Groups pane.

You can edit or remove a group by right-clicking it and selecting Edit or Remove.

Configuring VSS tools for VMware VMs

VSS Tools are only available for VMware® VMs and do not apply to Hyper-V® VMs or physical machines.

There are two ways to configure VSS Tools: automatically and manually. The following topics describe the procedures for the two available methods of configuring VSS Tools with vRanger.

•	Configuring VSS tools using the automated method

•	Configuring a backup job

Configuring VSS tools using the automated method

In addition to the standard quiescing implementation using VMware® Tools, vRanger provides an optional method for application quiescing on VMware VMs. This optional method uses a small executable tool — vzShadow.exe — deployed to the source VM and is enabled by VMware Tools during quiescing. The vRanger VSS Tools must be deployed to each VM for which you need application-consistent backups. For more information, see Application consistency for virtual backups.

 

NOTE: This method is available only for powered-on VMs running Windows Server® 2008 or later.

To configure VSS tools using the automated method:

1	When viewing the My Inventory View, right-click the preferred VM, and select Configure VSS Tools.

2	When the Configure VSS Tools dialog box appears, enter the name and password for an account with administrative privileges on the VM, and click Next.

If the selected VM has more than one disk, the available disks are shown in the Disk for VSS snapshot section.

3	Select the disks to quiesce.

4	If preferred, select Perform application log truncation.

5	Click Configure, and click Next.

vRanger performs the following actions:

▪	Creates the C:\Program Files\Quest\vRanger\VSS directory, and populate the directory with the vzShadow executable and supporting files.

▪	Creates the C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\backupscripts.d directory, and creates a freeze.bat file in that directory that contains the appropriate contents based on your selections.

Removing VSS tools

To remove the vRanger VSS Tools and batch file from the source VM, complete the steps in the following procedure.

To remove VSS tools:

1	When viewing the My Inventory View, right-click the preferred VM, and select Configure VSS Tools.

2	When the Configure VSS Tools dialog box appears, enter the name and password for an account with administrative privileges on the VM, and click Next.

3	Click Remove.

The files are removed from the VM, but the directories remain.