Introduction
Installing the plug-in
About plug-in editions
Deployment overview
Prerequisites
Installing the plug-in
Removing the plug-in
Configuring the plug-in
Adding a server
Reconfiguring a server
Removing a server
Supported transport modes
Configuring default settings
Enabling or disabling CBT on virtual machines
Defining a backup strategy
About CBT
Enabling CBT on individual virtual machines
Disabling CBT on a virtual machine
Manually disabling CBT on a virtual machine
Enabling or disabling quiescing of virtual machines
About quiescing virtual machines
Enabling quiescing of virtual machines
Disabling quiescing of virtual machines
Removing backup preferences for a virtual machine
Unlocking a virtual machine
About backup methods and types
Data backed up and restored for different disk types
Backup and recovery strategy
Using the image-level backup method
Performing image-level backups
Restarting a backup job
Resetting CBT on a virtual machine
Monitoring job progress
Using the file-level backup method
Restoring image-level backups
About restoring image-level backups
Restoring a full virtual machine or individual virtual disks
Relocating a virtual machine to an alternate ESXi Server
Renaming a virtual machine during restore
Performing file-level restores from image-level backups
Restoring virtual machine disk and configuration files
Searching for files in savesets
Viewing media list
Restoring file-level backups
About restoring file-level backups
Restoring file-level backups using shared network drives
Restoring file-level backups using the native Plug-in for FileSystem
Searching for files in savesets
Viewing media list
Troubleshooting
Common errors
NetVault Backup Service fails to start on Windows
NetVault Backup Service fails to start after the machine is restarted
NetVault Backup Service starts, but stops immediately on Linux
Linux Hybrid version of the plug-in does not run on 64-bit OS
Crash occurs during a backup
CBT-based image-level backup fails
SAN transport reports errors when multiple backups access the same datastore
Default SCSI controller type on RHEL 7 and RHEL 6
File-level backups do not back up data for a reparse point
Restore job fails when using SAN transport
Restore job fails to add a virtual machine to the server inventory
Backup jobs of virtual machines protected by vSphere FT fail intermittently
Diagnosing virtual machine issues
SOAP messages
Generating VDDK logs
Unlocking a virtual machine
You can use the following procedure to unlock a virtual machine from the WebUI.
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Defining a backup strategy
About backup methods and types
The Plug‑in for VMware supports image-level and file-level backup methods:
Image-level backups are supported on Linux®- and Windows®-based virtual machines. These backups can be performed with or without CBT.
When CBT is enabled on a virtual machine, the following backup types are supported:
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Full Backup: A Full Backup provides a backup of all allocated sectors on a virtual disk. Full Backups take longer to complete and consume more backup media. These backups serve as the base backup for future Incremental and Differential image-level backups. |
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Differential Backup: A Differential Backup provides a backup of disk sectors that have changed since the last Full Backup. Differential Backups speed up recovery since the plug-in is only required to restore two savesets. |
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Incremental Backup: An Incremental Backup provides a backup of disk sectors that have changed since the last Full, Differential, or Incremental Backup. Incremental Backups consume minimum storage space and are quicker to perform. However, data recovery can take more time depending on the number of savesets that the plug-in is required to restore. |
Only Full image-level backups are supported on virtual machines that do not use CBT.
The file-level backup method is only available to Windows®-based virtual machines. File-level backups allow you to restore a single file or a set of files. You can use these backups to recover from data loss due to user errors, data corruption, or accidental deletion of files.
The Plug‑in for VMware supports the following types of file-level backups:
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Full Backup: A Full Backup provides a backup of all selected files and folders. Full Backups take longer to complete and consume more backup media. However, restores are faster since the plug-in is only required to restore a single saveset. Full Backups serve as the base backups for subsequent Incremental and Differential Backups |
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Differential Backup: A Differential Backup provides a backup of files that are new or have changed since the last Full Backup. Differential Backups speed up recovery since the plug-in is only required to restore two savesets. However, these backups consume more storage space and take more time to complete than the Incremental Backups. Differential Backups duplicate the data backed up by previous backups of the same type. |
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Incremental Backup: An Incremental Backup provides a backup of files that are new or have changed since the last Full or Incremental Backup. Incremental Backups consume minimum storage space and are quicker to perform. However, data recovery can take more time depending on the number of savesets that the plug-in is required to restore. |
Data backed up and restored for different disk types
The Plug‑in for VMware includes the following data in CBT-enabled backups and restores.