vSphere Data Protection Administration Guide
16 VMware, Inc.
Image Level Backup and Restore
vSphere Data Protection creates image level backups, which are integrated with the vStorage API for Data
Protection, a feature set within vSphere to offload the backup processing overhead from the virtual machine
to the VDP appliance. The VDP appliance communicates with the vCenter server to make a snapshot of a
virtual machine’s .vmdk files. Deduplication takes place within the appliance by using a patented
variable-length deduplication technology.
To support the large scale and continually expanding size of many VMware environments, each VDP
appliance can simultaneously back up to 8 virtual machines if the internal proxy is used, or back up to 24
virtual machines if the maximum number of 8 external proxies are deployed with the VDP appliance.
To increase the efficiency of image level backups, VDP utilizes the Changed Block Tracking (CBT) feature,
which greatly reduces the backup time of a given virtual machine image and provides the ability to process a
large number of virtual machines within a particular backup window.
By leveraging CBT during restores, VDP offers fast and efficient recoveries of virtual machines to their original
location. During a restore process, VDP uses CBT to determine which blocks have changed since the last
backup. The use of CBT reduces data transfer within the vSphere environment during a recovery operation
and more importantly reduces the recovery time.
Additionally, VDP automatically evaluates the workload between both restore methods (full image restore or
a recovery leveraging CBT) and performs the method resulting in the fastest restore time. This is useful in
scenarios where the change rate since the last backup in a virtual machine being restored is very high and the
overhead of a CBT analysis operation would be more costly than a direct full-image recovery. VDP determines
which method results in the fastest image recovery times for virtual machines in the environment.
VDP supports backups of a vCenter server appliance (VCSA) by using an embedded Platform Service
Controller.
To perform the backups of a vCenter server and a VCSA by using an external Platform Services Controller,
perform the steps that http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2110294 describes.
Single VMDK Backup and Restore
A full image backup job includes all disks in the entire virtual machine (VM) in a single image backup.
Individual disk backup jobs allow you to select only the disks you need. An image level backup of a VM with
unsupported disk types does not include the unsupported disk types because of snapshot limitations.
When you restore a VM, the VDP appliance restores the VM configuration file (.vmx), which results in the
creation of all VMDKs from the original VM. If any of the original VMDKs were not backed up, the restore
process creates them as provisional VMDKs. The VM may not be fully functional in this case. The protected
VMDKs, however, can be accessed from the restore.
See “Creating a Backup Job on Individual Disks” on page 115 for instructions on backing up individual disks.
Guest-level Backup and Restore
VDP supports guest-level backups for Microsoft SQL Servers, Exchange Servers, and Share Point Servers. With
guest-level backups, client agents (VMware VDP for SQL Server Client, VMware VDP for Exchange Server
Client, or VMware VDP for SharePoint Server Client) are installed on the SQL Server, Exchange Server, or
SharePoint Server in the same manner that backup agents are typically installed on physical servers.
The advantages of VMware guest-level backups are:
Provides additional application support for Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, or
SharePoint Server inside the virtual machines
Support for backing up and restoring entire Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, or
SharePoint Servers or selected databases
Identical backup methods for physical and virtual machines