Hello!
A customer is asking us to backup one of his disks (F:). He wants the raw VMDK copy to be made and saved to LT07 tape.
Please, could you tell us how to do it?
Thank you very much!
Best regards
Answer
Backup to Tape from VMDK with Agent
+3- Novice
Best answer by Laurent
Hi
Do you mean backup directly from the VM to the Tape ?
Or do tou have a backup to disk and then an auxiliary copy to tape ?
Assuming you already have an existing Storage Policy that is able to perform a backup of this VM to tape, then you can create a subclient that targets this exact VM, then in the Filters tab/VM Disk Filters, you remove all the VMDKs that are not to be backup except the vmdk hosting the F: volume.
But, depending on your environment and configuration, doing this could remove protection of the rest of the VM. If this is what you want, then that’s no problem.
If you have a question or comment, please create a topic
- Novice
- Answer
Hi
Do you mean backup directly from the VM to the Tape ?
Or do tou have a backup to disk and then an auxiliary copy to tape ?
Assuming you already have an existing Storage Policy that is able to perform a backup of this VM to tape, then you can create a subclient that targets this exact VM, then in the Filters tab/VM Disk Filters, you remove all the VMDKs that are not to be backup except the vmdk hosting the F: volume.
But, depending on your environment and configuration, doing this could remove protection of the rest of the VM. If this is what you want, then that’s no problem.
+3- Novice
Hello, Laurent
Thank you very much for your reply.
Let me tell you:
I was performing a copy at "File System" level of the F: disk of the server in question.
But the customer has told me that this will take too long, that he prefers to make a copy of the entire VMDK (and then take this copy to a LT07 tape).
Is this possible?
Thanks
Best regards
- Novice
Hi back
Yes this looks possible, assuming that you already have a VSA proxy able to backup this VM.
The filesystem backup (through FS agent) could be too slow and inacurate for huge volumes with lots of files, and depending on the protection /recovery expected..
But doing it the way explained works. I already do it in my environment for a few VMs.
+3- Novice
Thank you, Laurent.
In that case, how is the procedure to backup the VDMK in question (F:)? Without it being from FS.
Thank you very much,
Best regards.
- Novice
Do you already have a Virtualization client / VSA client deployed and configured in your Commcell ?
If not, I recommend you to read this to deploy it
https://documentation.commvault.com/11.25/expert/32125_configuration_for_vmware.html
https://documentation.commvault.com/11.25/expert/32255_backups_for_vmware.html
Otherwise, you just need to create a subclient from your existing setup in your existing virtualization client, the way I explained earlier.
You need to ask the VMWare administrators / Windows administrators what is the VMDK that hosts the windows F: volume, and make sure you filter out everything except this volume/vmdk.
+3- Novice
Yes, we already have VSA.
But on the client, isn't it necessary to install another "Agent Type" to backup the VDMK?
Currently the client has:
Agent Type:
Active Directory
File System
Thank you,
Best regards.
- Novice
No need to deploy anything more in this target VM.
File system agent would be used to backup other things, or mostly used for granular restore from this vmdk backup.
You need to configure your VSA to backup this VM, and, well, it could highly depend on your environment, but if you’re asked to only backup the F: volume of this VM, and not backup anything else on this VM, whether using Filesystem agent or not, then you create this VM subclient as explained, you can select Crash Consistent backup type in the Backup Options :
The rest depends highly on your environment, so not knowing it is a complex and risky advice for me to provide you, in an accurate way. 🙂
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