How to Create & Restore a Backup with VMware vSphere Data Recovery
In my previous article on vSphere Data Recovery, you learned how to deploy the DR plug-in for the vSphere4 client and how to add the appliance to your virtual infrastructure. You also learned that one of its key features is an intuitive, wizard driven management interface that is integrated with the vSphere client to allow for simple configuration of your backup jobs. Assuming you followed the steps described in that article you should now be ready to learn how to use that management interface; in this article we will cover creating a backup schedule for a virtual machine, running a backup job and then how to restore that VM from the backup.
Data Recovery Basic Principles
The vSphere Client Data Recovery plug-in is used to configure the Data Recovery virtual machine, which then takes care of backup and restore jobs. In theory the DR VM can backup up to eight VMs concurrently, although its CPU utilization must be under 90% for it to start a backup job, otherwise it will wait until it drops. It works by using ESX’s snapshot feature to freeze a point-in-time copy of the target VM’s disks, which then give it a locked image to backup whilst the VM can continue to operate as any disk changes are instead written to an interim snapshot file. Once the backup has completed the DR VM then releases the snapshot so that the intervening disk changes are replayed from the interim snapshot file into the frozen disk image, bringing it back to a live state.
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