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NetVault Plug-in for VMware 13.3 - User Guide

Introducing NetVault Plug-in for VMware Installing the plug-in Configuring the plug-in Defining a backup strategy Using the image-level backup method Using the file-level backup method Restoring image-level backups Restoring file-level backups Troubleshooting

Adding patterns to use for inclusion and exclusion of virtual machines

In addition to selecting virtual machines from the backup selection tree, you can create and store patterns of virtual machines for inclusion in and exclusion from backup jobs. Supported patterns include virtual machine name patterns and VMware tags.

 
* 
NOTE: Support for inclusion or exclusion of virtual machines by tag name begins with vSphere version 6.5.

When you specify virtual machine name patterns to include or exclude, or both, the plug-in stores them with a Backup Selection Set. When you submit a backup job, you can select the set with the stored patterns. The plug-in then populates the backup list with virtual machines that match the specified pattern or patterns.

 
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IMPORTANT: The plug-in applies the inclusion and exclusion patterns to the virtual machines that you select. During a backup job, the plug-in accesses the virtual machines that you selected, applies the inclusion pattern to the selected machines, and then applies the exclusion pattern to the remaining selected machines.
To add patterns:
1
In the Navigation pane, click Create Backup Job.
2
Next to the Selections list, click .
3
In the list of plug-ins on the NetVault Selections page, open VMware Plugin.
Below the My Virtual Environment node, the plug-in displays two additional nodes, Inclusion List and Exclusion List. These nodes provide three options:
•
Open
•
Add VM pattern
•
Add vSphere TAG
As you add patterns, the plug-in displays an informational node for each saved pattern.
4
To add a pattern that you want to include in a backup, right-click Inclusion List, and select Add VM pattern or Add vSphere TAG.
5
Do one of the following:
•
For a naming pattern, in the Enter Pattern dialog box, type the pattern that you want the plug-in to search for. NetVault uses the Portable Operating System Interface for Unix (POSIX) regular expression API for the inclusion and exclusion settings. Be aware that the inclusion and exclusion features do not support the use of spaces at the beginning or end of a virtual machine name pattern.
As part of POSIX, you can use the asterisk (*) wildcard character as part of the pattern to search for. For example, if you want the plug-in to locate all virtual machines that include SQL in their name, type *SQL*. If you want to locate the virtual machines whose names start with SQL, type ^SQL*. In the latter expression, the caret (^) stands for “starting with” and the asterisk at the end indicates any other characters, which includes no characters.
Example: You have three virtual machines named SQTMP01, SQLMP01, and PSQLMP01. With these three machines, SQ is common to all three names. If you want to locate only the machines whose names start with SQL, the pattern to use for inclusion or exclusion is ^SQL*.
•
For a vSphere tag, in the Enter TAG dialog box, type a tag that exactly matches the vSphere tag that you want to include or exclude.
 
* 
NOTE: If you do not specify an inclusion pattern but you do specify an exclusion pattern, the plug-in applies the exclusion pattern to the selected list of virtual machines.

If a virtual machine meets both the inclusion and exclusion patterns, it is excluded from the backup job.

If you select more than one pattern for inclusion or exclusion, the plug-in applies the command to virtual machines that meet either pattern, not only machines that meet both patterns.
6
To save the pattern, click OK.
7
Repeat Step 4 through Step 6 for each pattern that you want to add for inclusion.
8
To add a pattern that you want to exclude from a backup, right-click Exclusion List, and select Add VM pattern or Add vSphere TAG.
9
Do one of the following:
•
For a naming pattern, in the Enter Pattern dialog box, type the pattern that you want the plug-in to search for using the same guidelines described previously for include patterns, and then click OK.
Continuing with the previous example, if you want the plug-in to locate all virtual machines that start with SQL but exclude specific versions of the SQL Server virtual machines, type the complete name of the virtual machine that you want to exclude, such as SQLQATest1.
•
For a vSphere TAG, in the Enter TAG dialog box, type the tag that exactly matches the vSphere tag that you want to exclude, and then click OK.
10
Repeat Step 8 and Step 9 for each pattern that you want to add for exclusion.
11
Select the My Virtual Environment node or the node under the My Virtual Environment node, and then select the applicable inclusion and exclusion patterns.
12
Click Save, enter a name in the Create New Set dialog box, and click Save.

The name can contain alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non-Latin characters. On Windows, there is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.

Understanding the Distributed Jobs feature

Plug‑in for VMware includes a Distributed Jobs feature that supports the load balancing of image-level backup and restore jobs. Using this feature, you can run jobs across multiple NetVault Clients that are acting as backup proxies. All Plug‑in for VMware backup and restore jobs are eligible for distribution, however, you can disable the feature for specific jobs.

 
* 
NOTE: The jobs of the VMware proxy from Plug‑in for VMware version 12.0 do not distribute to VMware proxies from Plug‑in for VMware 12.1 or later when they do not have vCenter credentials. Likewise, jobs of the VMware proxy from Plug‑in for VMware 12.0 do not distribute to other VMware proxies from Plug‑in for VMware 12.0 if the server is running NetVault 12.1 or later, regardless of vCenter credentials.

The following list describes some of the ways in which the plug-in behaves when this feature is used:

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If a VMware proxy is unavailable for any reason, such as the NetVault Services are stopped, NetVault searches for another available VMware proxy to run the Plug‑in for VMware jobs.
•
If the VMware proxy is overloaded, the next job is transferred to another VMware proxy that has a smaller load and more available system resources to run the job.
•
When all available proxies are equally loaded, the next job runs on the same VMware proxy.
•
Windows VMware proxy jobs are transferred to another Windows VMware proxy, and Linux VMware proxy jobs are transferred to another Linux VMware proxy.
•
Restricting the file-level backup to distribution as a file-level backup is supported only on Windows. Distribution requires mounting the virtual machine, a process that is Windows-specific.

To use the Distributed Jobs feature, the NetVault Server and Clients must be using NetVault 12.0 or later, and the Plug‑in for VMware version must be 12.0 or later.

To enable the Distributed Jobs feature on NetVault Server
1
In the Navigation pane, click Change Settings.
2
Click Server Settings, and then click Job Manager.
3
On the Job Manager dialog box, select the Allow VMware plugin jobs to be distributed on other VMware backup proxy option.
This option is disabled by default.
4
If you want to change the default threshold from 2, enter the applicable number for the Jobs threshold for VMware Backup Proxy setting.
This value indicates the number of jobs that can run on the same VMware proxy before the next job is distributed to the same proxy or a different one, depending on the load balancing. You can enter a value up to 100.

Performing image-level backups

To perform image-level backups
1
In the Navigation pane, click Create Backup Job to start the configuration wizard.
— or —
In the Navigation pane, click Guided Configuration, and then on the NetVault Configuration Wizard page, click Create Backup Jobs.
2
In Job Name, specify a name for the job.
Assign a descriptive name that lets you easily identify the job for monitoring its progress or restoring data. A job name can contain alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non-Latin characters. There is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.
3
In the Selections list, select an existing Backup Selection Set, or complete the following steps to create a set:
a
To open the NetVault Selections page, click .
b
Open the NetVault Client on which the plug-in is installed, and then open VMware Plugin.
c
Open the applicable VMware ESXi or VMware vCenter Server.
Depending on your VMware setup and inventory view type, open the applicable container nodes.
 
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NOTE: To switch between the two views (Hosts and Clusters and VMs and Templates), click the ESXi or vCenter Server, and select Toggle Inventory View from the context menu. This option is only available when server node is open.
d
Select the data that you want to back up:
•
Back up all virtual machines within a container: Select the container node. Data selection is possible at all levels, starting from the Datacenter node. For example, to back up all virtual machines hosted on an ESXi server, select the host node; in the VMs and Templates view, select the corresponding folder node.
•
Back up individual virtual machines: Open the applicable container nodes, for example, Datacenter, Cluster, and Resource Pool, and select the virtual machines that you want to back up. In the VMs and Templates view, open the folder node, and select the virtual machines that you want to back up.
You can also select the container node, and then clear the check marks for the virtual machines that you do not want to back up.
•
Back up individual virtual drives: Open the virtual machine node, and select the disks that you want to back up. The virtual drives are named “Hard Disk 1,” “Hard Disk 2,” … “Hard Disk n.” The plug-in only lists those disks for which it can generate a snapshot.
You can also select the container node — for example, Datacenter, Resource Pool, ESXi Server, or folder — or the individual virtual machines, and specify the disk type — system or data — in the Backup Options Set. For more information about this setting, see Virtual machine disk selection options.
The virtual machine configuration files, “.nvram”, and log files are always backed up whether you select the entire virtual machine or its individual disks.
e
Click Save, and in the Create New Set dialog box, type a name for the set.
A set name can contain alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non-Latin characters. On Linux OS, the names can have a maximum of 200 characters. On Windows OS, there is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.
f
To close the dialog box, click Save.
4
In the Plugin Options list, select an existing Backup Options Set, or complete the following steps to create a set:
 
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IMPORTANT: On Windows, when you create a Backup Options Set for image‑level backups, you must use the default set “Default Backup Options — VMware Plugin — Windows” as the template. If you use any other set as the template, the backup may fail.
a
To open the VMware Plugin Backup Options page, click .
b
Under Backup Type on the Plugin Options tab, select one of the following options.
 
Option
Description

Full

To back up all allocated sectors on a virtual drive, select this option.

Incremental

To back up disk sectors that have changed since the last Full, Differential, or Incremental Backup, select this option.

Differential

To back up disk sectors that have changed since the last Full Backup, select this option.

For more information about image-level backup types, see Image-level backups.
 
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IMPORTANT: After reverting to a snapshot that is older than its last Incremental Backup, you must perform a Full Backup of that virtual machine before performing Incremental Backups again. If you perform an Incremental Backup, the job reports a filefault error and fails. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021607.
c
Under Virtual machine disk selection options, select one of the following options.
The disk selection option is applied to all virtual machines that you have selected explicitly by selecting the corresponding nodes or implicitly by selecting the container node — for example, ESXi Server, Resource Pool, Datacenter, or folder. This option is not applied to virtual machines for which you have explicitly selected one or more virtual drives in the selections tree.
 
Table 4. Virtual machine disk selection options
Option
Description

Back up all disks

To back up all available virtual drives for the selected virtual machines, use this option.

NOTE: The plug-in only backs up those disks for which it can generate a snapshot.

Exclude boot disk

To back up only the data disks and exclude the boot disks for the selected virtual machines, use this option.

Exclude data disks

To back up only the boot disk and exclude the data disks for the selected virtual machines, use this option.

NOTE: To identify the boot disks, the plug-in only considers the active partitions on the MBR disk. Moreover, the plug-in only considers the first disk that meets the active boot partition criteria as the boot disk. The plug-in does not handle machines with multiple operating systems.
d
Under Other Options, configure the following settings:
 
Option
Description

Enable Change Block Tracking for virtual machine

By default, CBT is disabled for a virtual machine. If you want to perform Incremental or Differential Backups of virtual machines, you must enable CBT for the Full Backup that serves as the base backup for subsequent Incremental and Differential Backups.

To enable CBT on all virtual machines included in the backup job, select this check box. (You can also enable CBT on specific virtual machines by using the Enable Change Block Tracking method. For more information, see Enabling CBT on individual virtual machines.)

If you select this check box and the plug-in fails to change this setting on a virtual machine, a warning message is logged.

If you do not select this check box, the plug-in does not change the CBT setting on the virtual machines during backups. Depending on whether CBT is enabled or disabled, the plug-in uses the appropriate backup method (CBT-based Full, Incremental, or Differential or non-CBT Full Backup) to back up the virtual machines.

Note the following:

•
To create the first Full Backup of a virtual machine with Changed Block Tracking enabled, the target virtual machine must be turned off to enable CBT. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1031873.
The virtual machine can be restarted when the backup job starts transferring data. During subsequent Full, Incremental, or Differential Backups, the virtual machine can remain turned on.
•
At the time of enabling CBT, no snapshots should exist on the target virtual machine. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1033816.
•
After you enable CBT for a virtual machine, all subsequent Full, Incremental, and Differential Backups are performed as CBT-based backups for that virtual machine. You do not have to select this option for each job.
To stop using CBT, you must disable this feature. For more information, see Disabling CBT on a virtual machine or Manually disabling CBT on a virtual machine.

Perform File Level Indexing

To generate file-level indexes for all supported volumes that are included in the backup snapshot, select this option. File-level indexing lets you restore individual files and directories from Full, Incremental, and Differential image-level backups of virtual machines. For more information on how file-level indexing affects backups, see Enhancing the CDP scheduling with jobs having many VMs in the selection.

File-level indexing is available to volumes that use the following file systems:

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Windows: NTFS
•
Linux and UNIX: EXT2, EXT3, and EXT4, XFS v2, XFS v3

The plug-in also supports volumes managed by Logical Volume Manager (LVM) on Linux-based systems and Logical Disk Manager (LDM) on Windows-based systems as single or spanned disks.

NOTE: The current version of the plug-in does not support Windows ReFS (Resilient File System) and Striped Disks.

File-level indexing does not affect the backup size. However, it increases the backup index size and the total backup time, which is why the option is cleared by default. The amount of time taken to perform file-level indexing depends on several factors, including the number of files, fragmentation of files on the volumes, network traffic, and load on the ESXi or vCenter Server.

If you selected an existing Backup Selection Set that was created using a version of the plug-in before 11.4.5, this option reflects the setting that you chose when you created the set. Before 11.4.5, this option was selected by default. If you want to use the new default setting, which clears this selection, you must browse the plug-in once on the NetVault Selections window.

To do so, complete the following steps:

1
Click Create Backup Job.
2
Next to the Selections list, click .
3
Open the NetVault Client on which the plug-in is installed.
4
Click VMware Plugin, and select Open from the context menu.
This process automatically updates the setting to the default setting, which clears the selection.
5
Click Cancel.

Enable Active Block Mapping

ABM technology provides filters to remove unused blocks during backups. Removing the unused blocks reduces the backup size and the amount of data transferred over the network. You can use ABM with CBT to back up only active and changed blocks during Incremental and Differential Backups.

ABM is supported on the NTFS file system on basic disks and EXT file systems. ABM is not supported with XFS.

ABM is disabled by default. Selecting this check box enables ABM, which allows the plug-in to back up only those sections of the virtual drives that are active. ABM scans the disk and detects inactive blocks; these blocks are then omitted during backups.

NOTE: ABM also removes deleted data. When you restore a virtual machine that was backed up using ABM, you cannot perform undelete operations for that virtual machine. Without Active Block Mapping, CBT includes the deleted blocks.

If a backup job includes any unsupported disk types, this option is ignored for those disks.

Remove snapshots from previous backups

When you run a backup job, the plug-in creates a snapshot named “BKB_SNAP” on the virtual machine to back up the selected data. Regardless of whether the backup completes successfully or fails, the plug‑in removes the snapshot on job completion. The plug-in also removes the snapshot if the job is stopped or the parent or child processes are terminated for any reason. However, if a job exits abnormally, the cleanup process may fail to remove the snapshot. To address such cases, the plug‑in provides an option to delete the snapshot when you run the job next time.

You can select the Remove snapshots from previous backups check box to remove any existing snapshots when you run the current job. Only the snapshots named “BKB_SNAP” are removed from the virtual machines. This option does not remove any other snapshots that exist on the virtual machine.

Maximum Number of Parallel Streams

By default, the plug-in generates a single data stream for a backup job, and backs up the selected virtual machines in a sequential manner. To increase throughput and reduce overall backup time for image-level backups, you can configure the plug-in to perform parallel backups of multiple virtual machines.

This setting determines the maximum number of parallel data streams that can be generated for an image-level backup job. For example, if 10 virtual machines are included in a job, and you set this parameter to four, the plug-in tries to back up four virtual machines in parallel.

The actual number of parallel streams for a job depends on the following factors:

•
The number of backup devices or streams available to the backup job. For example, if you set this parameter to 4 and only two tape drives are available or a NetVault SmartDisk can only support two concurrent streams, the plug-in only processes two virtual machines concurrently.
•
The number of virtual machines included in the job. For example, if you set this parameter to 4, and the number of virtual machines selected for backup is 3, the plug-in creates only three data streams.

For parallel backups, the plug-in generates a parent process that coordinates the overall backup and individual child processes that perform the actual task of backing up the virtual machines. The maximum child processes that can be generated for a backup job is equal to the Maximum Number of Parallel Streams configured for the job. The parent and the child processes are all created on the NetVault Client on which the plug-in is running.

When a child process acquires a backup device and creates a backup stream, it is assigned a task to back up a virtual machine. After the task completes, the process is assigned the next task if there are any more virtual machines to be backed up. Each task is assigned a Task ID. A snapshot is generated only when a virtual machine is assigned to a child process.

When configuring Maximum Number of Parallel Streams, consider the following:

•
Verify that the value configured for this option does not exceed the number of backup devices or streams accessible to a job.
If the available devices are insufficient, more than one child process may try to access and write to the same device, causing significant increase in the overall backup time.
•
The load of running multiple processes on a NetVault Client can have a negative impact on performance.
•
The load of backing up multiple virtual machines from the same datastore can increase the I/O activity on the datastore.
•
The load of backing up multiple virtual machines that are managed by the same ESXi Server can increase the load on the host if you are using the LAN Transport mode (NBD/NBDSSL) for data transfer.
NOTE: Only a single child process is used to back up the multiple disks of a virtual machine even if more data streams are available. The child process creates a snapshot of the whole virtual machine and retains the snapshot until the job completes regardless of whether the whole virtual machine or its individual disks are backed up.

Automatic diagnose virtual machine on backup failure

To run predefined tests that can identify the cause of a virtual machine backup failure, select this check box.

For more information about the Diagnose method, see Diagnosing virtual machine issues.

You can access the Diagnostic Results dialog box from the View Logs page. The details are stored as log context objects.

Enable Restartable backups

This option allows you to restart a job that completes with some failed virtual machines. The restarted instance backs up only those virtual machines that failed previously; virtual machines that are backed up successfully are not included in the restarted instance.

When a restartable backup completes with some failed virtual machines, the plug-in generates a backup index for the completed virtual machines and sets the job status to Job Stopped. The log messages and log context show which virtual machines have failed for the job. When you restart the job later, the plug-in runs an Incremental Backup job to back up the failed virtual machines.

You can restart a job from the Job Status page. For more information about this method, see Restarting a backup job. A restarted instance does not back up virtual machines that are added to the host after the initial job is run.

NOTE: If all virtual machines fail for a job, the job status is set to Backup Failed. You cannot restart a failed backup job.

Disable distribution of backup job to other VMware Backup Proxy

If you configured your environment to use the Distributed Jobs feature, select this check box to turn off the feature for a specific job. This option is disabled by default.

Enable Job Level Transport Mode

If you are using the Distributed Jobs feature and you want to set the transport mode manually at the job level, select this option, and then select the applicable Primary Transport Mode and Fallback Transport Mode.

e
Click Save, and in the Create New Set dialog box, type a name for the set.
A set name can contain alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric characters, but it cannot contain non-Latin characters. On Linux OS, the names can have a maximum of 200 characters. On Windows OS, there is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.
f
To close the dialog box, click Save.
5
Select or create the Schedule Set, Target Set, and Advanced Options Set.
For more information about these sets, see the Quest NetVault Administrator’s Guide.
 
* 
NOTE: When performing multistream backups, do not select the Ensure backup is the first on the target media check box. If you select this check box for multistream backups, each data stream targets a separate piece of media to exist as the first backup on the media item. Thus, if a backup generates five streams, the job tries to obtain five blank or new media items.

This option does not apply to disk-based storage devices.

6
To submit the job for scheduling, click Save & Submit.
To save the job definition without scheduling it, click Save. You can view, edit, or run this job from the Manage Job Definitions page. This job is not displayed on the Job Status page until you submit it.
You can monitor the job progress from the Job Status page and view the logs from the View Logs page.
For more information about Job Status, View Logs, and Manage Job Definitions, see the Quest NetVault Administrator’s Guide.

Continuous data protection backups

A continuous backup job supports continuous data protection of data by taking an incremental backup of your data every specified amount of time. Synthetic full backups include all of the changes that have been made since the previous backup. The amount of time between backups can occur as often as every four hours (the default) or as often as every one hour. When combined with an initial full backup, they form a complete and current image of your data.

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