VMware Backup Plugin

Download

VMware backup/restore scenario

The important and required functionality — VMware backup plugin — that gives an ability to backup/restore the content of your virtual drives is now available. To start using it the following prerequisites should be set:

• BackupVMware feature should be included into Backup Plugins in a product in that is assigned to user’s contract, wishing to use it.

• VMware VDDK binaries should be available on the machine where IASO Client is installed and their location should be included into the %PATH% system variable (from the desktop, right-click My Computer and click Properties, in the System Properties window, click on the Advanced tab, in the Advanced section, click the Environment Variables button, finally, in the Environment Variables window highlight the Path variable in the Systems Variable section and click the Edit button) or they should be located in the same folder with BackupFP;
• Please pay attention to the one important fact that VMware plugin is available only for Windows clients.
• Please note that VDDK library is necessary for the proper work of VMware plugin. To install the library please follow the steps:
  • Download VDDK library;
  • After the installation add the path where libraries were installed (e.g. C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin) to the environment variable %PATH%.
  • If you use Windows x64 then unpack an archive vddk64.zip and add path where 64-bit libraries are put to the environment variable %PATH% (e.g. C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit\bin\vddk64\bin\).

VMware backup

Unit of backup for VMware plugin is a content of virtual machine disk. It’s recommended to select whole virtual machine in the corresponding Backup Manager tab, not the single virtual disk.

• To start working with it go to VMware servers tab and set VMware server and its credentials.
  • If you use ESX, port has to be set to 902 ;
  • If you use vCenter, port has to be set to 443.

• Now VMware plugin is available and appeared on backup tab. You are able to make necessary selection for backup.

• Backup process can be started.

VMware restore

There are two options for restore of VM:

• First one is a restore to the original location. For this option original VM and its disks must exist in vCenter/ESX inventory. Delta restore is not available there.

• Second option is “restore to”. To implement this option it is important to know that restore target should be a disk of virtual machine. Restore will fail if the target is not a virtual disk.

Typical example of “restore to” procedure is as follows:

1. Create new empty VM with the same hardware configuration as source one (network, disks), power it on;
2. Select on the Restore tab one of the disks of the VM that was previously backed up;
3. Select one disk of the newly created VM as a restore target. Pay attention to the fact that target disk must be the same size as source one;
4. Perform restore;
5. Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 for each disk of VM that was backed up;
6. Check the restored VM (power it on, boot the guest OS).

Download