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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

RDM disks

The following table describes how the plug-in handles Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks.

 
Table 3. Considerations for RDM disks
RDM compatibility mode
VADP-based backups and restores

Physical compatibility mode

The disk is not backed up. Warning messages are written to the NetVault binary logs and job logs.

Virtual compatibility mode (Independent disks)

The disk is not backed up. Warning messages are written to the NetVault binary logs and job logs.

Virtual compatibility mode

The disk is backed up, but the data can only be restored to a flat file. Warning messages about the change in type are written to the NetVault binary logs and job logs.

Optionally, you can omit the RDM disks in virtual compatibility mode during a restore.

To omit the RDM disks in virtual compatibility mode:
1
Open the vmware.cfg file in a text editor.
You can find this file in <NetVault home>\config on Windows and <NetVault home>/config on Linux.
2
Edit the following entry and set the value to false.
[Custom:RestoreRDMDisks]
Value=False
3
Save the file.

Backup and recovery strategy

A well-designed backup strategy helps you to recover from the damages caused by failure and resume normal operations as quickly as possible. Before you start backing up your data, ensure that a good strategy is in place that safeguards your data against various failure modes, such as media failure, data corruption, user error, and complete loss of a data center.

Your backup plan should define what backup methods are used, when and at what intervals the backups are performed, how backups are stored, how long backups are retained, and how the backup media are reused.

The following are some example backup sequences to offer you guidelines:

•
Full Backups only: You can choose to perform only Full Backups if the backup size is small, backup window is not an issue, or storage media is not a constraint. In such scenarios, you can schedule Full Backups every night or every N hours depending on the frequency of updates.
If a failure occurs, the plug-in is only required to restore a single saveset.
•
Full and Incremental Backups: For quicker backups and minimum use of storage media, you can include Full and Incremental Backups in your strategy. For example, you can schedule Full Backups every Sunday and Incremental Backups every day or every N hours depending on the frequency of updates.
If a failure occurs, the plug-in is required to restore data from the recent Full Backup and each Incremental Backup in the backup sequence. The restore might take longer if several Incremental savesets have to be restored. For example, if the failure occurs on Saturday, the plug-in is required to restore the Full Backup taken on Sunday and Incremental Backups taken from Monday through Friday.
•
Full and Differential Backups: For quicker restores and reduced media usage, you can include Full and Differential Backups in your strategy. For example, you can schedule Full Backups every Sunday and Differential Backups every day or every N hours depending on the frequency of updates.
If a failure occurs, the plug-in is required to restore data from the recent Full Backup and the last Differential Backup.
•
Synthetic Full Backups and Instant Restore: As part of the continuous data protection (CDP) feature, you can schedule Synthetic Full Backups to occur every specific amount of time, such as daily, When you want to restore a backup, you can use the Instant Restore option to mount the backup to a temporary datastore on the QoreStor server within a few seconds. From here, you can view and confirm that it is the backup that you want to restore, and then migrate it to a permanent location. For more information, see Recovering a virtual machine using Instant Restore.

Using the image-level backup method

•
Adding patterns to use for inclusion and exclusion of virtual machines
•
Understanding the Distributed Jobs feature
•
Performing image-level backups
•
Continuous data protection backups
•
Performing continuous backups
•
Restarting a backup job
•
Resetting CBT on a virtual machine
•
Monitoring job progress

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.

 
* 
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.

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