vRanger 7.7 - User Guide

Setting the recurrence schedule

Setting the recurrence schedule

The Recurrence Schedule Selection page lets you indicate whether the job should be done on demand — at this moment — or at a future time. To schedule a future occurrence, you must define the start time, recurrence pattern, and range of recurrence.

 

NOTE: When using the Full Backup Days option, ensure that the selected recurrence schedule causes backup tasks to run on the configured Full Backup Days.

To set the recurrence schedule:

1	On the Recurrence Schedule Selection page, select from the options described in the following table.

 

This will be an on demand job …	There is no need to define a schedule. The job runs on demand.
Start Time	The time of day at which to run the job.
Recurrence Pattern	In this section, you establish how often the report should be generated. There are five options within this section: • Daily: The daily option can be scheduled to run the report every weekday or every x number of days. • Weekly: vRanger can be configured to run on weekly intervals, from every week to every 99 weeks. The day of the week on which to run reports can be configured. • Monthly: The monthly option offers the following configurations: ▪ Day [x] of every [y] month: x can be any value from 1 to 31. This value determines the day of the month on which the job occurs. y can be any value from 1 to 99. This value determines the monthly interval — for example, every two months sets the job to run every other month. ▪ The [f] [d] of every [y] month(s): f can be either: first, second, third, fourth or last. d can be: weekday, weekend day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. y can be any value from 1 to 99. This value determines the monthly interval — for example, every two months sets the report to run every other month. • Yearly: The yearly option offers the following configurations: ▪ Every [m] [x]: m is any month of the year. This value determines the month of the year in which the report occurs. x can be any value from 1 to 31. This value determines the day of the month on which the report occurs. ▪ The [f] [d] of [m]: f can be either: first, second, third, fourth, or last. d can be: day, weekday, weekend day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. m is any month of the year. This value determines the month of the year in which the report occurs. • Interval: The interval option lets you select the number of days, hours, and minutes that should pass between backup jobs. NOTE: The interval selected must be greater than or equal to five minutes.
Range of Recurrence	Select the starting date and ending date: • No end date: The job recurs until it is stopped. • End after: Select the number of occurrences. • End by: Select the date by which to end the recurrence.

2	Click Next.

Configuring email notifications

Configuring email notifications

The Email Notification Selection page lets you select the email addresses to which notifications should be sent for this job. You can also request that a report be sent to the recipients identified after the job is complete.

To add or edit email addresses, see Setting up the SMTP server.

To configure email notifications:

1	On the Email Notification Selection page, in the Selected column, select the address to which notifications should be sent.

 

TIP: To select all email addresses, select the check box in the Selected column header.

2	Click Next.

Starting the backup job

Starting the backup job

The final page in the Backup Wizard displays a summary of the selections you made for the job.

To start the backup job:

1	On the Summary page, review the data displayed in the tree view.

2	If you want to automatically begin the job immediately after completing the wizard, select Run the Job after Finish is clicked.

 

NOTE: If this option is not selected, the job is saved and begins at the time determined during the Setting the Recurrence Schedule procedure.

3	Click Finish.

4	If you did not opt to begin the job automatically after clicking Finish, and this job is an on-demand job, do the following:

 

NOTE: If this job is not an on-demand job, the job begins at the scheduled time.

a	In the main vRanger UI, in the My Inventory view, select the server or host for the server you want to restore, and then select the job from the Working Inventory pane.

b	On the View toolbar, click Run.

c	In the Confirm Run Job dialog box, click Yes.

5	To check progress or confirm completion, click My Jobs, and then click Recent Jobs.

 

Restore

The vRanger restore process

vRanger offers three main options for restoring from backup: restoring the full server from a repository, restoring a file or files from a repository, or restoring the server or file from a manifest. For more information, see the following topics:

•	Full restore

•	Restoring a file

•	Restoring from a manifest file

If you are restoring a VMware® VM, be aware of the following regarding the destination that you target for a restore:

•

You can change the storage-destination settings. Although vRanger uses the defaults from the original configuration, you change the host and storage targets. For example, you can restore a backup from a non-VVol datastore to a VVol datastore. In another example, you can restore a backup from a datastore that is governed by one storage policy to a datastore that is governed by a different policy, or no policy.

•	You can select different storage for the target of the primary VM file versus the disks.

•	If the target uses DRS, you must select the DRS, which governs which datastore in the cluster is used at restore time; you cannot select a specific datastore.

•	If your environment uses storage policies, datastores are listed under the applicable policy. Any datastores not associated with a storage policy are listed separately.

Full restore

Using vRanger, recovery of an entire virtual machine (VM) — or resource pool, VMware vSphere® vApp(s)™, and so on — is a simple process. A full restore returns the protected objects to the state as of the point in time at which the backup was performed. If the savepoint is for a differential backup, the restore process first restores the matched full backup, and then merges the data from the selected differential archive. For incremental savepoints, the full backup is restored along with each incremental archive taken between the full and the selected savepoint.

When restoring a parent object, such as a vApp, vRanger restores the VM data and the parent object’s metadata, allowing you to restore the entire object state and settings and the actual VM data.

During the normal restore process, information is pulled from the vRanger database to complete the restore job. If the vRanger server is lost, and the database cannot be recovered or is otherwise unavailable, you can reinstall a fresh version of vRanger and import the repository to regain access to your backups.