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vRealize Appliance Automation 8.0 Backup

  • 1 February 2021
  • 4 replies
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Wanting to get a confirmation. I see that Vmware has a very specific requirement to backup

vRealize Automation 8.0 described below;

https://docs.vmware.com/en/vRealize-Suite/2019/vrealize-suite-2019-backup-and-restore-avamar/GUID-49FA9AB6-2A69-4F41-80E1-495447F4D6FC.html

Does Commvault has the ability to perform those tasks? I looked at the docs and could not find the details or info related to this.

Thanks

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Best answer by Christian Kubik 2 February 2021, 09:10

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Userlevel 2
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Hi there

 

Workflow has the ability to run scripts on client, but it requires the filesystem base agent which isn’t really something that you can deliver on a photonOS vRA software appliance.

It does however have vmware tools in it so it should be possible to write a workflow to utilise the ‘ExecuteScriptInGuestOS’ activity in workflow to trigger those scripts (you’d still have to create them as per the instructions you linked on the relevant node in the cluster). 

2 separate workflows

You’d then save the execution of each workflow via Workflow > Execute / Save as script.

  • then execute the script that fires the stop script workflow as a pre-snapshot task
  • then execute the script that fires the start script workflow as a post-snapshot task

You would probably also put the vm in its own vmgroup (Command Center Term), or subclient (CommCell console term) so that the vRA instance is only in the state required by the stop script for the minimum length of time possible (the length of the time it takes to snapshot that one vm). Versus the period of time if you had may vm’s in a larger vmgroup/subclient.

 

Userlevel 3
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Hi @dude ,

Workflow definitely is always a good solution if you want to automate a complex set of tasks and integrate this way of backing up vRA into a more comprehensive backup flow across multiple machines and applications.

I would try to use pre-freeze and post-thaw snapshot scripts here - similar to what they describe for Avamar - here’s some documentation on this: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.22/expert/36323_pre_freeze_and_post_thaw_processing_using_vmware_tools.html

So the described “stop-vra” function should be called pre-freeze to stop vRA before the VM gets backed up - with start-vra being called post-thaw to continue operations.

Haven’t tried it myself but as long as VMWare Tools are running in the vRA which I believe they do, you should be fine :)

 

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Appreciate your time, will evaluate the workflow and go from there.

Userlevel 2
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@Christian Kubik ‘s answer is better than mine here, as its simpler and localised to the VM without any need for seperating it into another subclient. I can confirm that vmware-tools is on the vRA appliance so it’s almost certainly the best way forward.

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