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NetVault Plug-in for VMware 13.1 - 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

Prerequisite

Performing continuous data protection (CDP) requires that your system uses QoreStor version 7.1.2 or later as a primary storage location.

Performing continuous backups

NOTE: Due to a limitation in the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) 7.0, Plug‑in for VMware may not support browsing Resilient File System (ReFS) volumes on guest operating systems when the VMware proxy server uses Windows 2019.
1
In the Navigation pane, click Create Continuous Backup Job to start the configuration wizard.
2
In Job Name, specify a name for the job.
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 .
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.
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.
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.
e
Click Save, and in the Create New Set dialog box, type a unique name for the set.
4
In the Plugin Options list, select an existing Backup Options Set, or complete the following steps to create a set:
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 Virtual machine disk selection options, select one of the following options.

Back up all disks

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

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.

c
Under Other Options, configure the following settings:

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.

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:

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:

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.

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.

d
Click Save, and in the Create New Set dialog box, type a name for the set.
5
To select Schedule options, click and complete the following steps:
a
In the Schedule window, set the number of hours you want to have between each incremental snapshot. The minimum value is 1 hour.
c
Click Save.
6
To select Target Storage options, click and complete the following steps:
b
Click Save.
7
To select the Advanced Options, click and complete the following steps:
b
Optionally, select Make Backup immutable.
c
Click Save.
For more information about Advanced Options sets, see the Quest NetVault Administrator’s Guide.
8
On the Create Backup Job page, 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.
CAUTION: Do not use the Run Now option on the CDP backup job. Doing so would result in inconsistencies in the synthetic full schedule and the instance number count.
For more information about Job Status, View Logs, and Manage Job Definitions, see the Quest NetVault Administrator’s Guide.

Continuous data protection and Plug-in for Data Copy

The ability to make a copy of a continuous data protection (CDP) backup is available with the built-in Plug-in for Data Copy.

On QoreStor 7.1.2 and above, while Data Copying CDP backups, replication for data is supported only for the first instance of replication. Subsequent Data Copy will not replicate and create a full copy, which may slow the Data Copy job.

Ensure that the schedule for Data Copy between Synthetic Full backups does not overlap. Allow enough time for the next Synthetic Full backup to compete before the Data Copy job begins.

Backup Set

Between two synthetic full backups with no overlap

QoreStor 7.1.2 or later

 

Replication of differences

Time to copy only the changes in the backup

Other target storage

Full copy of backup

Time to copy all of the data in the backup

Backup

Once on demand for synthetic full and incremental backups

QoreStor 7.1.2 or later

 

Replication of differences

Time to copy only the changes in the backup

Once on demand for synthetic full backups

Other target storage

Full copy of backup

Time to copy all of the data in the backup

Including incremental backups for full backup (not recommended)

Additional notes

Virtual machine ‘<VM_name>’ with secondary role
in its fault tolerance group will not be backed up.
Because VMware does not support CBT for virtual machines with FT enabled, all sectors on the disks are always backed up for such a virtual machine even if Enable Change Block Tracking for virtual machine is selected. This behavior is true for both Full and Incremental Backup jobs.
Creates a non-CBT Full Backup, unless CBT is already enabled for the virtual machine or you have selected the Enable Change Block Tracking for virtual machine check box for the Incremental or Differential Backup.
When you select Differential Backup, the plug-in creates a Full Backup of MyVM2 in Step 4 and Step 5 because these backups are based on the last Full Backup created in Step 2.
Log message: Failed to write index of backup to the database.
Log context: The index for this backup may be retrieved and added to the database by scanning the backup media.
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