vmware presentation - vmware communities

© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Update on VMware vSphere Backup APIs &

Backup Approaches

Pete Marfatia - Systems Engineer, VMware.

VMUG 2010 June 03

Agenda

2

Introduction

• RPO and RTO – a quick explanation

• Where various VMware technologies fit

• Remind me, why are we backing up again?

Backup Methods in a VMware Environment

• Quick recap of VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) framework

• vStorage API‘s for Data Protection (vSphere 4 )

• vADP & VCB side by side comparison

• vADP ready partner solutions

• Types of Data Deduplication

VMware Data Recovery Appliance Overview

VMware Data Recovery Install, Config and FAQ’s (for reference later)

Introduction

3




Disaster Recovery Concepts

SecsMinsHrsDaysWks Secs Mins Hrs Days Wks

Recovery Point Recovery Time

Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Point in time to which data must be recovered (i.e. how old can the data be?)

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Time required to complete recovery of the application and it’s data

Disaster Strikes

Tape

Backup



Recovery Point Objective (RPO)

Synchronous

Replication

Periodic

Replication

Asynchronous

Replication

Disaster Strikes

Tape Restore



Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Recovery Time includes:

Fault detection

Recovering data

Bringing apps back online

Automated

Migration Manual

Migration

Disaster Strikes

vCenter Site

Recovery

Manager

Introduction

7




Technology to help maintain availability and reduce downtime

Business Continuity

Maintain High Availability and Reduce Downtime

Planned Outage

Maintenance Tasks

• Hardware

• MM, vMotion & DRS

• Storage vMotion

• Software

• Update Manager

Recovery Tasks

• vCenter Server

• vCenter Heartbeat

• Backup Tape / Image

• VCB vADP

• vCenter DR

Site Level (FB/DC relocation)

• Site Recovery Manager

Unplanned Outage

Site Level (DR)

• Backup Tape / Image

• VCB vADP

• vCenter DR

• Array Replication

• Site Recovery Mgr

Equipment Level

• vCenter Server

• vCenter Heartbeat

• Host Level

• HA, FT

• VM, O/S hang

• HA

• HA,

RPO/RTO = 0 with VMware Technology

What we are going to discuss today

Backup and Restore in a virtual environment

9

Using in-guest agents—why might you be using this?

Existing backup solution does not support VCB / vADP (Really?)

Carry over from P2V—transitioning to solution leveraging VCB / vADP

Support for specific NOS eg: File level back up of Linux (VCB limitation)

Specific application level integration required eg: Domino, SAP

For fine grain restore eg: Individual Exchange mailbox restores

Source based de-duplication ie minimize data transferred over WAN

Potential to restore to other systems (physical) for DR

As with

physical, watch

out for I/O

bottlenecks

Backup and Restore in a virtual environment

10

Why might you increase the percentage of VM backup to a solution

leveraging VCB / vADP vs in guest?

Agent less => reduced operational touch / generic approach to VM backup—80:20

rule. Use in-guest only where specifically required

VM snapshot technology to shrink effective backup window

Offload backup from the LAN to optimized SAN => faster and more efficient

File system-level consistent backup via Sync Driver or MS VSS

Application-level consistent backup via MS VSS

Ability to easily do image level backup for reduced RTO ie DR or change control

Introduction

11




Remember why we do backups in the first place…

12

Restore requirements dictate backup methods

RTO is impacted by the speed and ease with which you can recover the

system successfully AND consistently

Will the application be ready to run once restored or do you need to check

consistency/replay transaction logs first? How long?

Backup to/restore from disk vs tape maybe required

Restore over SAN vs over LAN vs over WAN

Remote offices may use a Virtual Storage Appliance locally, which can dedupe

then replicate back to H/O more efficiently across the WAN to meet

requirements of both offsite backup AND RTO

And so on…

What about the ESX host config?

COS based agent install—supported but less than ideal

COS goes in 2011—ESXi is like an appliance, just reload, restore config & go

Other VMware features such as Host Profiles for config remediation &

consistency

http://blogs.vmware.com/esxi/

http://www.vmworld.com/docs/DOC-4008

Backup Methods in a VMware

Environment

13






14

VCB Framework Topography – The old way of backing up VMs

First available in 2007 with VI3

Required a physical Proxy server with FC or iSCSI HBA‘s (virtual proxy in 1.5)

Support for backup on FC, iSCSI, NFS, LAN mode

Windows file and image level backup

Image level for Linux

VMware Snapshot quiescing options

Nothing (not a good idea) Pre- & Post-quiescing scripts

File system-level consistent via Sync driver VSS* for file system- & application-level

Early partner integration was varied but has improved significantly in

experience, features and the number of participating partners:

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Symantec NetBackup & Backup Exec

CA BrightStor ARCserve HP Data Protector VizionCore vRanger Pro

EMC NetWorker & Avamar CommVault Galaxy

Some security and retry mechanism improvements

* ESX(i) 3.5 U2 or later required

VCB Components – Old way of backup software integration

15

SAN-based

VMFS datastore

mydata

VCB (since v1.1)

can now reside on

the same host as

Virtual Center

VCB File-Level Backup: How it works

16

VCB VM Image Backup: How it works

17

The future for VCB

18

It’s going away with vSphere 4.next (2010 timeframe) per the email

many of you received earlier this year…

This allows us to focus resources on further enhancing vADP--OK?

Still can’t see a way out?

Speak with your VMware Partner or VMware Rep for a Professional Services

engagement to help square this away


Environment

19






vStorage APIs for Data Protection

Next evolution of VMware Data Protection

Part of vSphere 4—no extra install

Enables native integration between vSphere 4 and backup application

Backup server is now proxy equivalent

Supports Windows and Linux file-level backup

Supports MS VSS

Supports FC, iSCSI, NAS or local storage

Improved Functionality

Supports full, differential, and incremental image backup and restore of virtual

machines

Efficient backups

Easy restores

Goal is to make virtual backup better than physical

VADP

VADP

vADP works with Change Block Tracking

21

VMware has introduced ―Changed Block Tracking‖ with vSphere 4.0 where

the ESX(i) host stores the last changed time for each block in a VMDK

Applications (like VMware Data Recovery & Storage VMotion) can access this

information and find out know which blocks have changed and which have not

been touched

vADP APIs may now access this last changed time data and determine if the

block needs to be backed up or not—faster backup, less to transfer

Storage I/O is reduced with this algorithm as we only touch changed blocks for

backup

Included in the API to access storage on VMFS volumes

Changed block tracking is only available with VM‘s running with hardware

version 7

Change Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1020128

Cannot enable FT on backed up virtual machine http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015300

Reverting to a pre-existing snapshot can cause incremental backups based on

Changed Block Tracking to become inconsistent http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021607

vADP & VCB side by side comparison

22

vADP VCB

Requires additional

download & install

No, built into the data

protection software

Yes

Full VM image backup Yes, single step copy – source

to target

Yes, with two step copy –

source to VCB proxy and VCB

proxy to the target

Incremental VM image

backup

Yes – using change block

tracking

No

File level backup Yes, both Windows and Linux Yes, Windows only

Full VM image restore Yes Yes, by using VMware

Converter

Incremental VM image

restore

Yes No

File level restore Yes, using restore agents Yes, using restore agents

CLI for image backup No Yes

CLI for file backup Yes Yes

Introduction to vStorage APIs for Data Protectionhttp://blogs.vmware.com/storage/2010/02/introduction-to-vstorage-apis-for-data-protection---vstorage-

apis-for-data-protection-were-introduced-in-vsphere-40-to-facil.html

http://blogs.vmware.com/storage/2010/02/introduction-to-vstorage-apis-for-data-protection---vstorage-apis-for-data-protection-were-introduced-in-vsphere-40-to-facil.html




vADP ready Partner Solutions

23

Tivoli TSM v 6.2

EMC Avamar 5.0

CA ArcServe 12.5

Commvault Simpana 8 with

post SP4 update

VEEAM 4.0

Vizioncore vRanger Pro 4.2

vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) FAQ http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1021175

Data Recovery 1.x

Symantec Backup Exec 2010

& Net Backup 7.0


Environment

24






Data Deduplication - Concepts

Deduplication is where only one unique instance of the data is actually

retained on the storage media, such as disk or tape. Redundant data is

replaced with a pointer to the unique data copy. Similar concept to ESX(i)

transparent page sharing!

Deduplication helps reduce the amount of space consumed by full backups

Initially during the first full backup all the blocks on the VM are backed up

(deduplicated accordingly), and subsequent full backups only need to store the

blocks which have changed since the previous backup

25

Types Data Deduplication (source based & target based)

In this example, we are backing up multiple hosts which are all running the

same OS and similar applications

26

Source (agent) based

data deduplication

Reduces data to be

transferred to backup

server / target

Target (backup server) based

data deduplication

Data common across multiple

guests/hosts can be

deduplicated, further reducing

storage required

VMware Data Recovery Appliance

Overview

27

Overview of VMware Data Recovery Functionality

28

• Backups:

Disk based backup, not file level (fast backup and quick restore)

Any Guest OS can be backed up.

A VM can be backed up even if it is suspended or powered off.

Leverages VM snapshot technology and uses the SYNC driver or Microsoft VSS to

quiesce the Guest OS on a running VM. VMware Tools must be installed and running.

Leverages VM Change Block Tracking (very efficient storage of backup)

• Restores:

Can overwrite the current VM.

Restore the VM if it no longer exists.

Restore a ‗test‘ VM which is identical to the original VM, but does not have networking

enabled – this is called a Restore Rehearsal.

File level restore Technical Note http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdrFileRestore_Usage.pdf

29

VirtualCenter

Agent-less, disk-based backup

and recovery of VMs on ESX(i)

4.0 hosts

VM or file level restore

Incremental backups plus data

de-dupe and compressed to save

disk space

Quick, simple and complete data

protection for your VMs

Ease of deployment

Centralized Management through

vCenter Server

Cost Effective Storage

Management

1. Backup

2. Restore

1. VM goes down

2. Select VM images/files to recover

3. Fast restore of VM…downtime minimized

1. Schedule backups via VC

2. Snapshots taken

3. Data de-duped and stored

vCenter 4.0

vCenter 4.0

X

De-duplicated

Storage

X

VMware Data Recovery

30

vCenter integration

- vSphere Client Plug-in

- Wizard driven backup and restore job creation

- Automatically import virtual machine inventory

- Awareness of HA/VMotion/DRS

VMware Infrastructure

- VSS support via VMware Tools

- Changed block tracking functionality allows backups to

be more efficient

Destination Storage

- Any VMFS storage: DAS, NFS, iSCSI or Fibre Channel

storage plus CIFS shares as target

- All backed up virtual machines are stored in a

deduplicated datastore

Backup and Recovery Appliance

- Linux appliance in OVF format - leverages vStorage API

for Data Protection to discover, manage backup and

restore

- First backup is full VM, then incremental forever

- VM or file level restore

VMware

vCenter

VMware Data Recovery Key Components

VDR Appliance Hot-Add Mechanism

31

VDR

Appliance

Virtual Infrastructure

VMDK Snapshot

Shared Storage

Changed

Blocks

Snapshot

VDR Appliance Hot-Add Mechanism

32

• Effectively the VDR appliance attaches to a linked-clone disk of the original VM

during a hot-add backup operation to access the read-only base disk for

backup purposes

Base Disk

Delta DiskDelta Disk

VM being

backed up

Appliance

VM

Overview of Data Recovery Components (continued)

33

VMware Data Recovery uses a variation of the new vStorage API called

vcbAPI.

Only works with vSphere vCenter 4.0 & ESX(i) 4.0.

Data Recovery VM must have a store for dedupe purposes. This can be:

Additional local VMDK assigned to the appliance (Recommended for performance

reasons—can leverage SCSI Hot-Add feature vs using the LAN)

RDM (iSCSI or FC) mapped to the appliance

SMB/CIFS shared storage configured via the VDR GUI

NFS storage supportability:

VMDK on an NFS share presented to the ESX(i) is supported.

An NFS share mapped to the appliances is not supported.

VDR does a full backup, only the used blocks on the disk are obtained. If the

disk is lazy zeroed or a thin disk, then not all of the disk needs to be read.

Storage guidelines http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-11532

VMware Data Recovery - Licensing

34

Data Recovery is included in the following editions:

vSphere Essentials Plus vSphere Advanced

vSphere Enterprise vSphere Enterprise plus

Existing Enterprise customers are entitled to Data Recovery as part of SnS. VI3

Foundation and VI3/vS4 Standard Edition customers can purchase as an Add-

on. See vSphere Pricing, Packaging and Licensing - VMware vSphere™ 4

The VMs being protected must exist on ESX(i) hosts that have valid licenses.

VDR can protected up to a maximum of 100 Virtual Machines – SMB market.

A host that is licensed can run multiple Data Recovery appliances.

Currently only tested to one VDR appliance per vCenter Server instance.

Does not support vCenter Linked Mode.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf



















VMware Data Recovery - Limitations

35

There is currently no integration with tape. See appendix slides on

Archiving the Backups to backup dedupe destinations to tape or replicate.

VDR cannot backup Fault Tolerant VMs as there is no way to snapshot FT

VM‘s.

VDR appliance cannot reside in a vApp.

8 concurrent jobs running on the appliance at any time (backup & restore).

Maximum of 100 Virtual Machines can be backed up using the appliance

(maximum of 100 backup jobs). This is a hard limit.

An appliance can have at the most two store destinations (up to 1TB max

each) due to the overhead involved in deduping. However this is a soft

limit and is not strictly enforced, and is unsupported if the limit of two is

exceeded.

Multiple backup appliances can be deployed but they do not interact with

each other. Hence it is up to the user to make sure that the same VM is not

used as a source in both the appliances.

There is no support to backup up VM‘s on ESX(i) 3.x hosts.

VMware Data Recovery Install, Config

and FAQ’s

36

(for reference)

Installing

• ALWAYS use latest code! Download (see resources section)

• Install vSphere Client plug-in

• Then File \ Deploy OVF Template to deploy VDR appliance

• Add your storage destination VMDK

• Now turn on the appliance, and get ready to do configuration

Installing – Distribution Binaries

Install VDR Plug-in and Appliance

Installing – File / Deploy OVF Template

Deploy From Downloaded OVF

Configuration Outline

• Open vSphere console to the appliance

Turn on the appliance

IP / TZ

Change root account password from vmw@re

• Use plug-in

Credentials

Destinations – may need to use IP

Create a backup job!

Configuration

Configure Network Settings of VDR

Appliance

Your First Backup – Start

Create a Backup Job

Your First Backup – Step 1

Select Virtual Machine to Backup


Select Destination Dedupe Store


Select Backup Window


Select Retention Policy


Review Backup Job

Your First Backup - Configured

Backup Job Configured

Your First Backup

Bring To Compliance

Your First Restore

Restore From Restore Points

Your First Restore – Step 1

Select Restore Point


Select Restore Destination


Review Restore Operation

Your First Restore – In Operation

Restore In Progress

VDR Technology Preview

File Level Restore Client GUI

File Level Restore Client – Step 1

Mount Restore Point

File Level Restore Client – Step 2

VM VMDK Mounted on E:

Can Mount Multiple VMDKs

Technical Details

• Know your retention needs, and what you chose!

• Test carefully!

• Actually do a restore! Restore rehearsal is with new datastore and no network!

• File level restore available with experimental utility (command line tool with a

GUI version ‗soon‘)

• VDR is NOT backward compatible – NO ESX 3.5 or VC 2.5!

Technical Details

• Virtual Hardware 7 is needed for best performance! It provides changed block tracking to

shorten backup for VDR,

• First image backup is full, all the rest are incremental, but restores are always from full.

• The de-duplication is block level, not file and it happens within the VMDK even though it

is a file. The de-duplication can happen across VM‘s in the destination de-dupe store so

it is VERY efficient

• Each job runs once per 24 hour period

• If your job is at folder / host / resource pool new VM‘s back up without a configuration

change!

Technical Details - Retention

Decide How Many Backups to Retain

Technical Details – Virtual Hardware

Virtual Hardware v.4 vs. v.7


Tip: use vCenter Upgrade Manager achieve this across all your VM‘s,

easily.

Upgrading to Virtual Hardware v.7


Upgraded to v.7

Things To Know

• You need to make a copy of your back up destination offsite for the best protection; you

can easily do this with VDR

• You first select your destination and than press Unmount

• No need to backup appliance (jobs, catalog for restores, and back ups all

in appliance)

• Copy it to tape, to another location, or whatever works for you

• You can mount it to another appliance as necessary. Suggest you save the .OVF of the

appliance with the destination in case of version issues in

the future

Archiving the Backups

Things To Know

Unmount Destination Before Archiving

Things To Know

• In the VS Client, Grow the VMDK file in the VM hardware settings

• Restart the appliance

• Now back in the Data Recovery client, unmount the destination, and

use the Extend option

• You may be prompted for an Integrity Check so let it start.

If not, select it on the menu bar – it is right beside Extend

• When it is ready you can mount it and it will be ready for use!

Extending Your Destination

Things To Know

Changing Virtual Disk Size to 60 GB

Things To Know

Extending Destination Dedupe Store after

Size Change

Best Practices and Guidelines

• Use the ovf to install – is smoother and avoids human error

• Use a static IP that is added to DNS

• At most – two destinations per appliance

• At most 100 VMs backed up per appliance – hard limit

• Suggest Thick destination disk to start, not Thin. Thin works but Thick

provides a small improvement in performance

• Destination can be VMDK or CIFS, but strongly recommend VMDK for

performance

• VM‘s with RDM‘s in virtual compatibility mode are supported. VM snapshots

not possible on RDM physical compatibility, so not supported.

Best Practices and Guidelines

• Must have 5 – 8 GB in destination to start for system use, so start with at least 20 GB

• Most space efficient to have less destinations with more VM‘s rather than opposite

• And group like VMs together – to maximize dedupe!

Resources

• Community - http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/community.html

• Resources - http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/resources.html

• Storage guidelines - http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-11532

• File Level Restore Usage - http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10670

• Eval guide – http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10055

• Docs – http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vdr_pubs.html

• Release notes – http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdr_10_releasenotes.html

• Admin guide - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdr_10_admin.pdf

• Email alerts - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/252977?tstart=0

• Bits - http://www.vmware.com/download/vsphere/

Technical Resources

• http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/

• http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/virtual-storage/resources.html

• http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/high-availability/best-practices.html

• http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/high-availability/virtualization-backup.html

• http://www.vmware.com/a/webcasts/details/257/

http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/community.html



http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/resources.html



http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-11532



http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10670



http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10055

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vdr_pubs.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdr_10_releasenotes.html

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdr_10_admin.pdf

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/252977?tstart=0

http://www.vmware.com/download/vsphere/

http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/



http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/virtual-storage/resources.html





http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/high-availability/best-practices.html







http://www.vmware.com/technical-resources/high-availability/virtualization-backup.html







http://www.vmware.com/a/webcasts/details/257/

Summary

• Know your retention needs, and what you chose!

• Test carefully!

• Move dedupe store destination off site!

• Keep an eye on the last backup date of the VMs!

• Lots of resources available

• Make sure your VMs are VH7!

Q and A

Questions Please!

• You cannot change the URL port from 5480!

• Change network settings via console instead of web

• VDR will backup a VM that has been VMotioned

• VDR will backup a VM that has been Storage VMotioned

• Version number can be found on the Configuration tab in the client.

• If you appliance doesn‘t keep its name, make sure you have a forward, and reverse DNS

entry for it.

• You do not need to upgrade the VMware Tools in the appliance

• The backups will not run if the host CPU utilization is 90% or higher, or if free space in

destination is less than 5 GB per VM in job

• Only 8 backup or restore jobs can run at the same time

• How do I see the other logs? Use <shift _ logs> when in the Log view.

• You do not have to change the hardware version for the appliance!

Background Material

• Error ―The operation is not allowed on non-connected sockets‖ means IP is good but the

engine in the appliance is not listening on the socket that the UI is using. Install again –

but don‘t delete!

• Yes, you can point a new appliance at old destination – all will be seen

• To be able to use DNS for destinations

/etc/hostname with FQDN

/etc/hosts with IP and FQDN

/etc/sysconfig/network (HOSTNAME=, DOMAIN=)

/etc/resolve.conf with DNS server

/etc/sysconfig/network-scritps/ifcfg-eth0 with IP info

Hostname –F /etc/hostname

Service network restart

• Reset an appliance to defaults

Service datarecovery stop

Rm /var/vmware/datarecovery/Config10.*

Service datarecovery start

Background Material #2

• Are you suspicious of your appliance and want to confirm something? You can turn off

your appliance, and install a new one. It should use a different datastore destination and

you can do a backup. In this way you eliminate your appliance and destinations as

potential issues! Most important, don‘t let a single VM be backed up by both of these

appliances!

• Did you know that when VDR starts, it polls all VMs that are part of its backup jobs, and

removes any stale SCSI Hot-Add associations to the appliance and will delete any VDR

snapshots (_datarecovery_) in any of these VMs. This is in case a crash occurred in the

middle of a backup operation.

• Did you know when VDR starts a backup of a VM it will look for and delete any snapshot

that VDR created. This is in case a crash occurred in the middle of a backup operation.

• How often does the retention policy apply? It is applied once per day if the dedupe store

is 80% full and has less than 250 GB free space, otherwise it is applied once per week.

Background Material #3 – datarecovery.ini

• You can make adjustments to VMware Data Recovery through the use of an ini file.

These require 1.0.1 of VDR.

• You will generally need to create the file and populate it.

• Log into the appliance, and stop Data Recovery (service datarecovery stop)

• Create a file called datarecovery.ini in \var\vmware\datarecovery, and create an [Options]

section in it

• Some of the more useful options include:

• IntegrityCheckInterval=x – is default every day with a once per week ―deep‖ check. If

x=2, then the deep check would be every two days.

• BackupRetryInterval=x – the default is 30 minutes – if possible, and the x value is in

minutes and has no max value.

• RetentionPolicyInterval=x – if there is more than 20% of storage available, or more

than 256 GB available, there will be no retention policy grooming. So if your dedupe

store is 81% full and with less than 256 GB free, and this is set to =3, then every three

days it will perform a groom.

Background Material - Screens

VDR Task Progress


View Logs


Destination Dedupe Store Configuration

Background Material – Screens

Unmount Destination Dedupe

Store Before Archiving

Thank You

81

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