vRanger 7.8 - Installation/Upgrade Guide

Installing the vRanger server

vRanger can be installed either on a physical server or in a VM. As long as the vRanger machine meets the specifications detailed in System requirements and compatibility, application performance should be similar regardless of which option is chosen.

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Virtual machine (VM): When installing vRanger in a VM, you eliminate the need for dedicated hardware while maintaining high performance. Due to the lower cost and increased flexibility, this approach is recommended. For information on installing in a VM, see Installing vRanger in a virtual machine (VM).

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Physical machine: The primary benefit of installing vRanger on a physical server is that the resource consumption of backup activity is off-loaded from the virtual environment to the physical proxy. For more information on installing on a physical server, see Installing vRanger on a physical server.

Regardless of which approach you chose, vRanger can leverage the vRanger VAs to perform backup, restore, and replication tasks. This option provides greater scalability while distributing the resource consumption of data protection activities across multiple hosts. For more information, see Installing the vRanger virtual appliance (VA).

Available backup transports

vRanger supports multiple data transport options for backup and restore tasks. The vRanger backup and restore wizards automatically selects the best transport option available based on your configuration. The available transports are:

•	VA-based HotAdd: Mounts the source VM’s disk to the vRanger VA deployed on the source host or cluster. This method allows vRanger to have direct access to the VM data through the VMware® I/O stack rather than the network.

This method is the preferred transport method, and is available regardless of where vRanger is installed. The vRanger VA must be deployed to the source host or cluster for this transport to be available.

 

NOTE: If the host is not properly licensed, or the VA cannot access the storage for the source VM, HotAdd is not available. If a VA is configured and HotAdd is not available, a network backup is performed from the VA.

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Machine-based HotAdd: If vRanger is installed in a VM, this method mounts the source VM’s disk to the vRanger VM. This method allows vRanger to have direct access to the VM data through the VMware I/O stack rather than the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server.

•	VA-based LAN: Transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VA over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger VA.

•	Machine-based LAN: If there is no vRanger VA deployed, vRanger transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger machine over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server.

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Machine-based SAN: If there is no VA configured, vRanger determines whether the vRanger server is configured for SAN backups. This method is a high performance configuration that requires vRanger to be connected to your fibre or iSCSI network. In addition, the VMFS volumes containing the VMs to be protected must also be properly zoned and mapped to the vRanger server.

 

NOTE: For machine-based transports, the “machine” referenced is the vRanger machine — physical or virtual. The transport method describes only how data is read from the source server, not how the data is sent to the repository.

Installing vRanger in a virtual machine (VM)

When vRanger is installed in a VM, you can perform backups and restores either over the network or in a LAN-free mode which uses the SCSI HotAdd functionality on VMware® ESXi™. The following topics provide a summary of each method. Replication and physical backup tasks are always performed over the network.

 

NOTE: The backup transport method describes only how data is read from the source server, not how the data is sent to the repository.

Available transports

The transports available when vRanger is installed in a VM include the following:

•	With vRanger VA:

▪	VA-based HotAdd

▪	VA-based LAN

▪	Machine-based HotAdd

▪	Machine-based LAN

•	Without the vRanger VA:

▪	Machine-based HotAdd

▪	Machine-based LAN

HotAdd backups (VMs only)

When vRanger is installed in a VM, LAN-free backups are made possible by the VMware® HotAdd disk transport.

During backups with HotAdd, the source VM’s disks are mounted to the vRanger VM, allowing vRanger direct access to the VM’s data through the VMware I/O stack. Backup processing occurs on the vRanger VM, with the data then being sent to the configured repository.

Requirements for a HotAdd configuration

To use vRanger with HotAdd, vRanger must meet the following requirements:

•	vRanger must be installed in a VM, and that VM must be able to access the target VM’s datastores.

•	All hosts that the vRanger VM could be vMotioned to must be able to see the storage for all VMs that vRanger is configured to back up.

•	You must use a version of VMware vSphere® that supports VMware vSphere Storage APIs - Data Protection (formerly known as vStorage APIs for Data Protection or VADP).

•	When using vRanger with machine based HotAdd to backup encrypted VMs, the vRanger VM must also be encrypted.

•	When using vRanger with VA-based HotAdd to backup and replicate encrypted VMs, the VA must also be encrypted.

Configuring vRanger for HotAdd

When using HotAdd, make sure to disable automount on the vRanger machine. This step prevents Windows® on the vRanger VM from assigning a drive letter to the target VMDK.

To configure vRanger for HotAdd:

1	Click Start > Run, and then enter diskpart.

2	To disable automatic drive letter assignment, run the automount disable command.

3	If you are using a SAN, verify that the SAN policy is set to Online All by typing san and pressing Enter.

If it is not, set it to online all by typing san policy=onlineAll.

4	To clean any registry entries pertaining to volumes that were previously mounted, run the automount scrub command.

LAN backups

vRanger can perform LAN backups one of two ways — either through the vRanger machine, or by using the vRanger VA.

•	VA-based LAN: This option transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VA over the network using the VMware® VDDK LAN transport. The backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger VA, and then the data is sent to the repository directly.

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Machine-based LAN: If there is no vRanger VA deployed, vRanger transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VM over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server. The backup data flows “direct to target” from the source server to the target repository, which means that the vRanger server does not process the backup traffic.

 

NOTE: Generally, this configuration yields the slowest performance, and should be avoided if possible. A better option is to deploy a VA to any VMware® ESXi™ servers, and use that VA for backup and restore tasks.

Considerations for installing vRanger in a VM

Read the following notes regarding limitations and considerations about installing vRanger in a VM:

•	When installing vRanger in a VM, it is not supported to perform a machine-based backup of the vRanger VM. In other words, the vRanger VM cannot back itself up. You may, however, perform a VA-based backup of the vRanger VM.

•	When using vRanger with machine based HotAdd to backup encrypted VMs, the vRanger VM must also be encrypted.

When using vRanger with VA-based HotAdd to backup and replicate encrypted VMs, the VA must also be encrypted.

•	When creating the VM for vRanger, Quest recommends that you create a fresh VM rather than cloning an existing VM or template.

In recent versions of Windows®, volumes are recognized by a serial number assigned by Windows. When VMs are cloned, the serial number for each VM volume is cloned as well. During normal operations, this cloning is not an issue; however, when vRanger is cloned from the same source or template as a VM being backed up, the vRanger volume has the same serial number as the source volume.

For backup operations using HotAdd, source disk volumes are mounted to the vRanger VM. If the source VM volumes have the same disk serial number as the vRanger volume, which is the case with cloned VMs, the source VM’s serial number is changed by Windows when mounted to the vRanger VM. When restoring from these backups, the boot manger does not have the expected serial number, causing the restored VM not to boot until the boot information is corrected.

Installing vRanger on a physical server

Installing vRanger on a physical server provides a method to off-load backup resource consumption from the VMware® ESXi™ host and network. While you can perform Machine-based LAN in this configuration, LAN-free backups are the primary driver for using vRanger in a physical server. For more information, see LAN-free backups (VM backups only) and LAN backups.

 

NOTE: With vRanger installed on a physical server, you can still take advantage of the vRanger VAs for backup, restore, and replication activity. For more information, see Installing the vRanger virtual appliance (VA).

Available transports

The transports available when vRanger is installed in a physical machine include the following:

•	With vRanger VA:

▪	VA-based HotAdd

▪	VA-based LAN

▪	Machine-based SAN

▪	Machine-based LAN

•	Without the vRanger VA:

▪	Machine-based SAN

▪	Machine-based LAN

LAN-free backups (VM backups only)

With vRanger installed on a physical machine, you may perform LAN-free backups with either the VA-Based HotAdd or Machine-based SAN transports.

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VA-based HotAdd: This transport mounts the source VM’s disk to the vRanger VA deployed on the source host or cluster. This method allows vRanger — through the VA — to have direct access to the VM data through the VMware® I/O stack rather than the network. In this configuration, data is sent directly from the VA to the repository.

This method is the recommended transport option due to the simplicity and flexibility of the configuration. To use this option, you must have a vRanger VA deployed on every host or cluster for which you want to configure backups. For more information on HotAdd, see Requirements for a HotAdd configuration.

•	Machine-based SAN: This transport option uses your fibre-channel infrastructure or iSCSI network to transport backup data to the vRanger machine.

To perform machine-based SAN backups, vRanger must be installed on a physical system attached to your SAN environment. This setup is a high performance configuration that requires vRanger to be connected to your fibre or iSCSI network. In addition, the VMFS volumes containing the VMs to be protected must also be properly zoned and mapped to the vRanger server.

Configuring vRanger for machine-based SAN backups

With vRanger installed on a physical server, the following configurations must be made:

•	Disable automount on the vRanger machine:

Click Start > All Programs, and enter diskpart.

Run the automount disable command to disable automatic drive letter assignment.

•	Run the automount scrub command to clean any registry entries pertaining to previously mounted volumes.

•	On your storage device, zone your LUNs so that the vRanger HBA or iSCSI initiator can see and read them.

•	Only one vRanger server should see a set of VMFS LUNs at one time. For backups only, The vRanger server should have only read-only access to the LUNs. To perform LAN-free restores, ensure that the vRanger server has Read + Write access to any zoned VMFS LUNs to which you want to restore.

LAN backups

vRanger can perform LAN backups one of two ways — either through the vRanger machine, or by using the vRanger VA.

•	VA-based LAN: This option transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger VA over the network using the VMware® VDDK LAN transport. The backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger VA, and then the data is sent to the repository directly.

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Machine-based LAN: If there is no vRanger VA deployed, vRanger transfers the source VM’s data from the source disk to the vRanger machine over the network. With this method, the backup processing activity occurs on the vRanger server. The backup data flows “direct to target” from the source server to the target repository, which means that the vRanger server does not process the backup traffic.

 

NOTE: Generally, this configuration yields the slowest performance, and should be avoided if possible. A better option is to deploy a VA to any VMware® ESXi™ servers, and use that VA for backup and restore tasks.

Installing with other applications

Customers often want to install vRanger on the same server as another application. Due to the wide variety of factors that may affect performance, it is impossible to make blanket recommendations. Some key concerns to keep in mind:

•	Many customers, to maximize their hardware investment, want to install vRanger on the same server as VMware® vCenter™. This practice is not recommended.

•	During testing, many customers install vRanger with other Quest products. In this case, Quest does not recommend installing vRanger on the same machine as Quest Foglight.

•	Only one version of vRanger may be installed on a machine at one time. For example, you may not install vRanger SE and vReplicator on the same machine.