From the Rapid Recovery Core, you can export a recovery point from a repository to a virtual machine. This process—often referred to as virtual export—is a physical-to-virtual (P2V) operation that creates a virtual machine from a recovery point. The resulting VM is a bootable clone of the protected machine.
In addition, Rapid Recovery also supports continuous export for virtual machines, not only physical-to-virtual conversions.
You can perform a virtual export from the Virtual Standby page in the Core Console, or by selecting VM Export from the Restore drop-down menu on the button bar.
When you perform a virtual export from Rapid Recovery Core, you have two choices. This article will discuss the second option, continuous virtual standby.
When you export to a virtual machine, the following information is exported:
You can perform virtual export of recovery points for your protected Windows or Linux machines to VMware, ESXi, Hyper-V, and VirtualBox. If you have replication set up between two Cores (source and target), you can only export data from the target Core after the initial replication is complete.
With virtual standby, the VM snapshot that you create from the selected recovery point is continually updated by the Core after every scheduled or forced snapshot captured from the source machine. This creates a high-availability resource for data recovery. If the protected machine fails, you can boot up the virtual machine to quickly replace it temporarily, allowing you time to recover the original protected machine without substantial downtime.
NOTES:
Complete the steps in this procedure to set up continual export to an ESXi virtual machine (VM) using Rapid
Recovery. This process is also known as setting up virtual standby.
1. In the Rapid Recovery Core Console, do one of the following:
- From the Core Console, in the button bar, click the Restore drop-down menu, and then select VM Export.
a. In the Virtual Machine Export Wizard, select Continual export (virtual standby).
b. Click Next.
- From the Core Console, in the icon bar, click (Virtual Standby).
- On the Virtual Standby page, click Add to launch the Virtual Machine Export Wizard.
2. On the Machines page of the Virtual Machine Export Wizard, select the protected machine that you want to export, and then click Next.
3. On the Destination page of the Export Wizard, in the Export a machine to drop-down menu, select vCenter/ESXi.
4. Enter the information for accessing the virtual machine as described in the following table, and then click Next.
Table: ESXi credentials
| Option | Description |
| Host name | Enter a name for the host machine. |
| Port | Enter the port for the host machine. The default is 443. |
| User name | Enter the credentials for the host machine. |
| NOTE: Optionally, you can select credentials for a user in the Credentials Vault, or you can save credentials you add here to the vault. | |
| Password | Enter the credentials for the host machine. |
5. On the Virtual Machine Options page, enter the information described in the following table.
| Option | Description |
| Resource pool | Select a resource pool from the drop-down list. |
| VM configuration location | Select a data store from the drop-down list. Each selected data store displays the free space available in it. |
| VM name | Enter a name for the virtual machine you want to export. The VM name that automatically appears by default is the name of the machine from which the recovery point originated. |
| Amount of RAM |
Specify the memory usage for the virtual machine by clicking one of the following:
|
| Number of processors. | Enter the number of virtual CPUs you want for the exported virtual machine. The minimum is 1. |
| Cores per processor | Enter the number of cores to use for each processor. The minimum is 1. |
| Disk provisioning |
Select the type of disk provisioning from the following options:
|
| Disk mapping |
Specify the type of disk mapping as appropriate. You can choose from:
|
| Version | Select the version of the virtual machine |
| Network adapters | Optionally, specify network adapter options for the VM to be exported |
|
NOTE: This option appears when exporting to a hypervisor of the same type (in this case, when exporting to ESXi). You can choose from:
| |
| Secure boot |
Optionally, choose the secure boot option for the exported VM. NOTE: This option appears only when secure boot is configured for the source protected machine. |
| Restore all configuration data | If you want to recover all VM configurations for volumes being recovered, select this option. If you want to restore data only and not the VM configurations, clear this option. This option appears only when performing virtual export of an agentless VM and after a resource pool is selected. For more information on the VM configuration backup and restore feature of Rapid Recovery. |
| Perform initial onetime export | Select this option to queue the export job immediately. Clear this option if you want the Core to wait until the next forced or scheduled backup snapshot. |
6. Click Next.
7. Optionally, on the Network Adapters page of the wizard, if you want to add a virtual network adapter to the VM to be exported, click + Add, and then from the Available Networks drop-down menu, select the name of a network available on the hypervisor host.
8. Optionally, to add additional network adapters, click + Add, and then from the Available Networks drop-down menu, select the name of another network available on the hypervisor host.
9. Click Next.
10. On the Volumes page, select the volumes to export (for example, C:\ and D:\), and then click Finish to close the wizard and start the export.
NOTE: You can monitor the status and progress of the export by viewing the Virtual Standby or Events pages
Complete the steps in this procedure to set up continual export to a Hyper-V virtual machine (VM) using Rapid Recovery. This process is also known as setting up virtual standby.
1. In the Rapid Recovery Core Console, do one of the following:
- From the Core Console, in the button bar, click the Restore drop-down menu, and then select VM Export.
a. In the Virtual Machine Export Wizard, select Continual export (virtual standby).
b. Click Next.
- From the Core Console, in the icon bar, click Virtual Standby.
-- On the Virtual Standby page, click Add to launch the Virtual Machine Export Wizard.
2. On the Machines page of the Virtual Machine Export Wizard, select the protected machine that you want to export, and then click Next.
3. On the Destination page, in the Export a virtual machine to drop-down menu, select Hyper-V.
4. To export to a local machine with the Hyper-V role assigned, click Use local machine. Proceed to step 8.
5. To export a virtual machine to a remote Hyper-V server, click Remote host, and then enter the information for the remote host as described in the following table.
Table: Remote host information
| Text Box | Description |
| Hyper-V hostname | Enter an IP address or host name for the Hyper-V server. |
| Port | Enter a port number for the machine. It represents the port through which the Core communicates with this machine. |
| User name |
Enter the user name of a user with administrative privileges on the protected machine you are exporting. This is also the user name you must use when logging into the exported VM. NOTE: Optionally, you can select credentials for a user in the Credentials Vault, or you can save credentials you add here to the vault. For more information, see Credentials Vault. |
| Password | Enter the password associated with the user name above. |
6. Click Next
7. On the Virtual Machine Options page, enter the settings for the new virtual machine, as described in the following table.
Table: Virtual machine parameters
| Option | Description |
| VM location | Specify the path of the local folder in which to create the exported virtual machine. For example, enter E:\VirtualExports. You can specify a directory name that does not yet exist; this process will create the directory. CAUTION: Do not attempt to manually create a directory. NOTE: Export to shared folders (for example, to \\data\share) is not permitted. |
| VM name | Enter a name for the virtual machine you want to export; for example, VM-0A1B2C3D4. The VM name that automatically appears by default is the name of the machine from which the recovery point originated. The name entered in this text box appears after export in the list of virtual machines in the Hyper-V Manager console. |
| Amount of RAM |
Specify the amount of RAM for the exported virtual machine to use by selecting one of the following:
The minimum amount is 1024 MB and the maximum allowed by the application is 65536 MB. The maximum amount of memory usage is limited by the amount of RAM available to the host machine. |
| Number of processors | Enter the number of virtual CPUs you want for the exported virtual machine. The minimum is 1. |
| Cores per processor | Enter the number of cores to use for each processor. The minimum is 1. |
| Generation | Specify the Hyper-V generation type. |
| Disk format |
You can select from:
NOTE: Hyper-V Export supports VHDX disk formats if the target machine is running Windows 8 (Windows Server 2012) or later. If the VHDX is not supported for your environment, the option is disabled. |
| Network adapters |
Optionally, specify network adapter options for the VM to be exported. You can choose from:
|
| Secure boot |
Optionally, choose the secure boot option for the exported VM. |
| Perform initial one-time export |
Select this option to queue the export job immediately. Clear this option if you want the |
8. Click Next.
9. Optionally, on the Network Adapters page of the wizard, if you want to add a virtual network adapter to the VM to be exported, then from the Available Networks drop-down menu, select the name of a network available on the hypervisor host.
10. Optionally, to add additional network adapters, click + Add, and then from the Available Networks dropdown menu, select the name of a network available on the hypervisor host.
11. Click Next.
12. On the Volumes page, select the volume(s) to export; for example, C:\.
NOTE: If the selected volumes are larger than the appropriate maximum allocations supported by the application as indicated below, or exceed the amount of space available, you will receive an error.
13. Select Perform initial one-time export to perform the virtual export immediately instead of after the next scheduled snapshot.
14. On the Volumes page, select the volumes to export (for example, C:\ and D:\.
NOTE: If the selected volumes are larger than the appropriate maximum allocations supported by the application as indicated below, or exceed the amount of space available, you will receive an error.
15. On the Volumes page, click Finish to complete the wizard and to start the export.
On the Virtual Standby page, the continual export requirements you just confirmed appear in the Virtual Standby pane.
NOTE: You can monitor the status and progress of the export by viewing the Virtual Standby or Events pages.
Please refer to the User Guide for detailed instructions on setting up Continuous Export (Virtual Standby) for VMware Workstation and VirtualBox.
