Data Protection

Module 8

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 You Are Here

Course Introduction Data Protection

Introduction to Virtualization Access & Authentication Control

Virtual Machines Resource Management and Monitoring

VMware vCenter Server High Availability

Configure and Manage Virtual Networks Scalability

Configure and Manage Virtual Storage Patch Management

Managing Virtual Machines Installing vSphere Components

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-2

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Importance

Typical backup operations are performed nightly. The

backup process can be cumbersome because a large
amount of data is being copied from the system being
backed up to the server performing the backup.
Over time, your VMware vSphere® environment might
undergo changes to its hardware or software
configuration. In addition, application data goes through
constant change. From a manageability perspective, it is
important to make regular backups of your vSphere
environment.
Backing up virtual machines requires strategies that
leverage virtualization architecture to perform highly
efficient backups with minimal impact on other virtual
machines.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-3

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Learner Objectives

After this lesson, you should be able to do the following:

Describe the problems when using traditional backup in virtual
infrastructure

Introduce solutions for backing up and restoring virtual
machines that leverage virtual infrastructure

Discuss technologies that make virtual machine backup and
restore operations faster and easier

Introduce VMware® Data Recovery to back up and restore a
virtual machine

Describe how to backup and restore VMware vCenter
Server™

Discuss a strategy for backing up and restoring a VMware
ESXi™ host’s configuration data

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-4

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Traditional Backup Method

physical server physical server

backup agent
backup server (uses nearly 100% of server
resources during backup)

operating system operating system

x86 architecture x86 architecture

network
connection
backup to tape or disk data to back up

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-5

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Backup Challenges in Virtualized Environments

traditional backup method

backup
server
VMware vSphere

Excessive physical resource use generated by each virtual machine.

Backup agents installed in virtual machines monopolize host CPU resources
during backups, which results in less CPU resource for other virtual
machines running on that ESXi host.
I/O resources such as network and storage are also saturated with read and
write operations during backup.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-6

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Virtualization Architecture Advantages

No backup agent installation required

Enables use of virtual machine snapshot functions

Offloads backup processing from ESXi hosts to a backup server

Virtual machines see the same virtual hardware

Ability to thin provision virtual disks

Enables faster backup and recovery times through the use of changed
block tracking (CBT) and data deduplication

Provides a single backup image

Provides both image-level and file-level restoration

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-7

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 VMware vSphere vStorage APIs for Data Protection

Allows backup and recovery of entire virtual machine images across

SAN storage or local area networks

Is an API that is directly integrated with backup tools from third-party
vendors

Enables you to remove load from the host and consolidate backup load
onto a central backup server

Protects virtual machines that use any type of storage supported by
ESXi (Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NAS, or local storage)

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-8

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Offloaded Backup Processing

backup
server

VMware vSphere
mount virtual
disks to backup
server

tape disk

Configure the storage environment so that the backup server can

access the storage volumes that are managed by the ESXi servers.
Backup processing is offloaded from ESXi host to backup server,
which prevents local ESXi resources from becoming overloaded.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-9

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Changed Block Tracking

virtual machine H/W virtual machine H/W version 8

version 7 ctkEnabled=true
ctkEnabled=true scsi0:0.ctkEnabled=true
scsi0:0.ctkEnabled=true scsi1:0.ctkEnabled=true

-ctk.vmdk -ctk.vmdk -ctk.vmdk

Copy only file blocks that have changed since the last backup.
Enables faster incremental backups and near-continuous data
protection.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-10

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Data Deduplication

storage array
1st backup

2nd backup

3rd backup

4th backup
unique file blocks

Does not store twice blocks with the same information as a previous
backup

Reduces 18 file blocks down to 4 unique file blocks

Saves storage capacity

Provides faster backup performance

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-11

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Data Recovery Appliance

Backup-and-recovery appliance:

Agentless, disk-based backup-and-
SCHEDULE recovery virtual appliance:
BACKUPS VIA VMware ESXi • Linux-based
VMWARE vCENTER
SERVER
Based on the vSphere vStorage APIs
for Data Protection
Integrated with vCenter Server:

VMware vSphere Client™ plug-in
Supports up to ten appliances per
vCenter Server instance:

CREATE

Supports up to 100 virtual machines
SNAPSHOT per appliance
DATA
DEDUPLICATED Intended for small- to medium-sized
AND STORED
environments

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-12

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Virtual Machine Snapshot Consistency

2
backup
server

transactions
pending
1
3
-delta.vmdk .vmdk

4
backup to tape or disk
snapshot delta original disk
(read/write) (read only)
1. Snapshot delta disk captures continued write operations.
2. Pending transactions are committed to original disk.
3. Original disk is placed in read-only mode and backed up.
4. Writes conducted during backup are copied to original disk after backup
completes and -delta.vmdk file is deleted

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-13

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Data Recovery Components

vSphere Client with

Data Recovery
vCenter client plug-in
Server

Data
Recovery
appliance virtual machines to back up
deduplicated
storage

host host

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-14

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Deduplication Store

A deduplication store: Data

Recovery

Is the appliance’s backup deduplication
storage: store
• A virtual disk on a VMware vSphere (backup
VMFS or NFS datastore storage)
• A raw device mapping (RDM)
• A Common Internet File System (CIFS) share

Checks to see whether identical backup data has already been
saved
Virtual machine disks (VMDKs) or RDMs are recommended over
CIFS shares.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-15

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Data Recovery Requirements

Deduplication store requirements:

Limit of two deduplicated stores per appliance

Per store: up to 1TB for VMDK or RDM. Up to 500GB for CIFS.
Provide storage space equal to the amount of used disk space
on all virtual machines being protected.
Networking requirements:

Ensure that ports 80, 443, 22024, and 902 are open.

Ensure that DNS names can be resolved.
Ensure that virtual machines backed up by Data Recovery are
appropriately licensed.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-16

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Backing up vCenter Server

Choose a complementary backup solution that matches your vCenter

Server deployment.
Obtain a full backup of your vCenter Server with each backup.
Prior to starting backups, stop these services:

VMware VirtualCenter Server

VMware VCMSDS (the ADAM database)

Database service (SQL, Oracle, DB2)
Backup the vCenter Server database using recommended practices
provided by the database vendor.
Backup the SSL certificates.
Backup the vpxd.cfg file.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-17

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Backing Up ESXi Host Configuration Data

Always back up your host configuration after installation, after

changing the configuration, and after upgrading the host.
VMware ESXi configuration:

Use the vicfg-cfgbackup command.
• This command backs up and restores the host’s configuration.
• Run from vSphere Command-Line Interface.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-18

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Review of Learner Objectives

You should be able to do the following:

Describe the problems when using traditional backup in virtual
infrastructure

Introduce solutions for backing up and restoring virtual machines
that leverage virtual infrastructure

Discuss technologies that make virtual machine backup and restore
operations faster and easier

Introduce Data Recovery to back up and restore a virtual machine

Describe how to backup and restore vCenter Server

Discuss a strategy for backing up and restoring a ESXi host’s
configuration data

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-19

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

 Key Points

When you plan your backup strategy for virtual machines, you
need to be aware of the various techniques that compliment virtual
infrastructures.

Data Recovery is an agentless, Linux-based virtual appliance used
for backing up and recovering virtual machines.

Data Recovery uses deduplication store technology to make
efficient use of the backup storage.

Data can be restored per virtual machine, per virtual disk, or per
file.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage – Revision A 8-20

© 2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved