Rapid Recovery 6.3 - User Guide

VM export

This section describes how to export a recovery point to create a virtual machine.

Topics include:

Exporting to virtual machines using Rapid Recovery

From the Rapid Recovery Core, you can export a recovery point of a Windows or Linux machine from a repository to a virtual machine (VM). If the original machine protected on the Core 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. This virtual export process results in a VM with all of the backup information from a recovery point, as well as the operating system and settings for the protected machine. The VM becomes a bootable clone of the protected machine.

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:

• You can perform a one-time virtual export, which creates a bootable VM representing a single snapshot in time from the information in the selected recovery point. The export job is queued immediately, and when it completes, the cloned VM exports to the location you specified. The configuration information used for a one-time export is not saved.
• You can set up continual export. This process creates a bootable VM for the protected machine you specify, saving the VM in a location you designate. The configuration information for performing that virtual export is saved in the Virtual Standby page in the Core Console. Subsequently, each time a new snapshot of the protected machine is captured, the Core queues a new virtual export job, and the bootable VM is refreshed with the updated information. Because this creates a high-availability resource for data recovery, this feature is also called virtual standby.

In between the time a virtual export job queues and is completed, the job is listed on the Export Queue pane of the Virtual Standby page in the Core Console.

The following diagram shows a typical deployment for exporting data to a virtual machine.

Compatible VM hypervisors include vCenter/ESXi, VMware Workstation, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and Azure. For information about supported versions of these hypervisors, see the topic " Hypervisor requirements" in the Rapid Recovery 6.3 System Requirements Guide .

For ESXi, VMware Workstation, or Hyper-V, the virtual machine version must be a licensed version of these virtual machines, not the trial or free versions. Exporting to Azure requires you to have an account on Azure, with other prerequisites.

Related Topics

• Exporting data to an ESXi virtual machine
• Exporting data to a VMware Workstation virtual machine
• Exporting data to a Hyper-V virtual machine
• Exporting data to a VirtualBox virtual machine
• Exporting data to an Azure virtual machine
• Managing exports

Exporting data to an ESXi virtual machine

In Rapid Recovery, you can export data to ESXi by performing a one-time export, or by establishing a continual export (for virtual standby). Complete the steps in the following procedures for the appropriate type of export.

Topics include:

Performing a one-time ESXi export

1. From the Rapid Recovery Core Console button bar, click the Restore drop-down menu, and then select VM Export.

   The Virtual Machine Export Wizard appears.

2. In the wizard, select One-time Export, and then click Next.
3. On the Machines page, select the protected machine that you want to export, and then click Next.
4. On the Recovery Points page, select the recovery point that you want to use for the export, and then click Next.
5. On the Destination page, in the Export a virtual machine to drop-down menu, select vCenter/ESXi, and then enter the parameters for accessing the virtual machine as described in the following table.

   Table 109: Virtual machine parameters

   Options	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 user name for logging on to 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. For more information, see Credentials Vault.
   Password	Enter the password for logging on to the host machine.

6. Click Next.
7. On the Virtual Machine Options page, enter the information described in the following table, and then Click Next.

   Table 110: Virtual machine options

   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.
   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: Use the same amount of RAM as source machine Use a specific amount of RAM, and then specify the amount in MB The minimum amount is 1024 MB and the maximum allowed by the application is 1,035,264MB. 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.
   Disk provisioning	Select the type of disk provisioning from the following options: Thin. Thin provisioning creates a virtual disk the size of the used space on the original volumes, rather than the entire volume size. For example, if the original volume is 1 TB, but contains only 2 GB of used space, Rapid Recovery creates a virtual disk of 2 GB. Thick. Thick provisioning creates a new disk or volume that is the same size as the original volume from the protected server, even if only a portion of the original volume is being used. For example, if the volume is 1 TB large but contains 2 GB of used space, Rapid Recovery creates a virtual disk of 1 TB.
   Disk mapping	Specify the type of disk mapping as appropriate. You can choose from: Automatic. Using this option, the VM is exported to any available datastore with sufficient space. Manual. Select this option to manually specify the datastore onto which to export the VM. With VM. Select this option to export all virtual disks to the same datastore as the VM configuration.
   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: Same as source machine. If you select this option, the VM include the same amount of network adapters as on the source, and they are assigned to the default network on the host. Specific. Select this option to see the Network Adapters page of the Virtual Machine Export wizard. Here you can add one or more network adapters to the VM and assign a specific network to each adapter.
   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, see VMware VM configuration backup and restore.

8. 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.
9. 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.
10. Click Next.
11. On the Volumes page, select the volumes from the source recovery point that you want to export to the VM, and then click Finish to complete 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.

12. On the Summary page, click Finish to complete 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.