User Guide
Copyright Statement Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore”, “Acronis Instant Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis Backup for VMware.................................................................................7 2 Acronis Backup for VMware Overview....................................................................................8 2.1 3 Acronis Backup for VMware Features .......................................................................................8 How Acronis Backup for VMware Works ..............................................................................
8.5.4 8.5.5 8.5.6 8.5.7 8.6 9 Error Handling................................................................................................................................................ 46 Disaster Recovery Plan.................................................................................................................................. 46 Notifications...................................................................................................................................................
14 Managing Tasks ................................................................................................................... 86 14.1 Running a task..........................................................................................................................86 14.2 Cancelling a task ......................................................................................................................87 14.3 Editing a task .................................................................
16.6.4 17 Export/Import Configuration...................................................................................................................... 111 Best Practices .................................................................................................................... 114 17.1 Backing up virtual machines to a network share...................................................................114 17.2 Restoring a backup of a virtual machine to a new location ...........................
1 Introducing Acronis Backup for VMware Acronis believes that virtualization and transition to the cloud are not only a better way of doing computing, but also allow for achieving less downtimes and faster recoveries while reducing costs. Unfortunately, most of backup and recovery solutions are designed for physical systems and are either not good enough for virtual environments or do not allow for all of the benefits and savings that virtualization could potentially give.
2 Acronis Backup for VMware Overview Acronis Backup for VMware (former vmProtect 9) is a comprehensive backup and recovery solution designed for VMware vSphere™ environments. It enables organizations to perform an agent-less backup of entire ESX(i) virtual machines with the ability to recover entire machines or individual files and folders. 2.
3 How Acronis Backup for VMware Works 3.1 Virtual machines backup and restore As with a physical machine, your virtual machine (or several VMs as a whole virtual infrastructure) should also be protected. Once you have installed Acronis Backup for VMware agent, you can: Back up a virtual machine or multiple virtual machines residing on the server without having to install additional software on each virtual machine.
3.2.2 Single file backup scheme (Always Incremental mode) Usually, backups are kept only for a certain time period (retention time) or there is a policy to keep only the last X backups in the backup chain. Backup archives are managed on a daily, weekly, etc. basis. The main limitation of the Legacy mode backup archive is that you cannot delete a random backup from the backup chain since it may have dependencies on it from subsequent backups. This is where Always Incremental backup archive can help.
4 Installation of Acronis Backup for VMware 4.1 4.1.1 Requirements Supported operating systems Acronis Backup for VMware supports the following operating systems: Windows XP Professional SP2 (x64), SP3 (x86). Windows Vista - all editions (x86, x64). Windows Server 2003, 2003 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server editions (x86, x64). Windows 7 - all editions (x86, x64). Windows 8, 8.1. Windows Server 2008 - the Standard, Enterprise, Foundation editions (x86, x64).
VMware vSphere Enterprise. VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus. VMware vSphere Essentials (Hot-add backup mode is supported on vSphere 5.0+ only). VMware vSphere Essentials Plus (Hot-add backup mode is supported on vSphere 5.0+ only). VMware vSphere Hypervisor (Free ESXi) is NOT supported. (*) ESX(i) version 4.0 environment is supported with exceptions, for example, Exchange Server Backup Extraction (p. 68) and ESXi configuration backup (p. 80) features are not supported.
4.1.3 How to install VMware Tools Acronis Backup for VMware requires the installation of VMware Tools inside the virtual machines that you plan to back up. This is necessary to support proper quiescence of the file system (utilize VSS support) and to enable files/folders exclusions capability. To install the VMware Tools: Run the VMware Infrastructure/vSphere Client. Connect to the ESX(i) server. Select the virtual machine and run the guest operating system.
Low level file operations Extension + + Remove datastore + Remove files + Rename datastore + Update VM files + + + + + Register Extension Unregister Extension Update Extension Global Licenses + Host -> Configuration + Storage partition configuration + VM autostart configuration Host -> Local operations + Create VM Delete VM + + + + + + Reconfigure VM Network Assign network + + + + + + + + Configure Move network Resource Apply recommendation s Assign vApp to resou
Create resource pool Modify resource pool Move resource pool Remove resource pool Rename resource pool Task Create task Update task vApp Add virtual machine + Assign resource pool + Assign vApp + Create + Import + Power off Power on Rename vApp application configuration vApp instance configuration vApp managedBy configuration vApp resource configuration View OVF Environment Virtual machine -> Configuration Add existing disk Add new disk 15 + + + + + + + + Copyright © Acronis Internati
Add or remove device + Advanced + + + + + + Change CPU count Change resource + Disk change tracking + Disk lease + + + Display connection settings Extend virtual disk Memory Modify device settings Query Fault Tolerance compatibility Query unowned files Remove disk + + + Rename Reset Guest Information Set annotation Settings + + + Unlock VM Virtual machine -> Guest operations Guest operations modifications Guest operation program execution Guest operation queries Virtual machine ->
Configure CD media Configure floppy media Console interaction Device connection Power off + + + + Power on + + + + Reset Suspend Virtual machine -> Inventory Create from existing + Create new + + + Move Register + Remove + Unregister Virtual machine -> Provisioning + + Allow disk access Allow read-only disk access Allow virtual machine download + + + + + + + + + Allow virtual machine files upload Create template from virtual machine Customize Modify customization specifica
Read customization specifications Virtual machine -> State Create snapshot Remove snapshot 18 + + + + + + + + Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2013
The roles privileges can be configured via the vSphere Client connected to a ESX(i) host/vCenter from Administration -> Roles. After that you can assign the specific user for connection to vCenter with particular role from Permissions tab, as shown in the pictures below.
4.2 Installation options The very first thing you have to do is to install Acronis Backup for VMware software, configure your ESX(i) host connection settings and set up your access credentials to Acronis Backup for VMware web console. When you run your Acronis Backup for VMware installation package, the installation menu appears. Acronis Backup for VMware has three main installation options: Install Acronis Backup for VMware as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) host.
4.2.1 Installing Acronis Backup for VMware as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) host Acronis Backup for VMware software could be installed directly on an ESX(i) host. The process of remote installation of Acronis Backup for VMware Virtual Appliance to an ESX(i) host is called deployment. The software for running all necessary Acronis services will be installed on a separate small virtual machine under a specially customized OS (small Linux distribution). 1.
default Internet browser) to connect to your newly deployed Acronis Backup for VMware Virtual Appliance. Then click Close. The default login:password for the Acronis Backup for VMware Web Console is admin:root. NOTE: it is highly recommended to change the password after first login at Configure -> Agent Password page (for more information refer to Managing Agent Password section (p. 111)). With default credentials the login is performed automatically.
The diagram below illustrates a LAN-based and a LAN-free backup. LAN-free access to virtual machines is available if you have a fibre channel (FC) or iSCSI Storage Area Network. To completely eliminate transferring the backed up data via LAN, store the backups on a local disk of the agent's machine or on a SAN attached storage. Acronis Backup for VMware Windows Agent can be installed on any machine that runs Windows and meets the system requirements.
3. Select the way you want your components to be installed, i.e. specify the location where to install the software. The default destination for installing Acronis Backup for VMware is the C:\Program Files\Acronis or C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis folder. You can change the destination by typing in a new folder name or selecting it by browsing. If the folder does not exist, it will be automatically created in the process of installation.
Specify the location you want to extract your files to, and then click Extract. The Disk usage button shows the available space for the different volumes on your PC and helps you to choose the destination disk for the files extraction. Close the dialog when the extraction process is completed. 4.2.4 Configuring ESX(i) host connection settings For detailed information on setting and configuring your ESX(i) host connection credentials, please refer to Managing ESX(i) hosts (p. 105) section. 4.2.
5 Getting started Once you installed the Acronis Backup for VMware or deployed your Acronis Backup for VMware Virtual Appliance, you can run the Acronis Backup for VMware Web Console. The Web Console will be opened in the default Internet browser. Note that the Acronis Backup for VMware web server (installed on the Agent side) which provides the user interface uses self-signed certificates.
After logging in the Acronis Backup for VMware you will see a welcome screen with the Dashbord's Quick Start. The three buttons of this section will give you a hint of what to start with: First of all, to be able to perform the first backup task of a Virtual Machines, you have to go to the ESX(i) Host section (p. 105) and specify the IP address / hostname and credentials for the vCenter or individual ESX(i) host where these machines are running.
Virtual Machines The Virtual Machines section shows the hosts and clusters (vCenter) names and gives the total number of VMs running on the managed ESX(i) host(s) as well as the number of mounted virtual machines (see the Mounted VMs (p. 97) section). Locations The Locations section shows the total statistics for your backup locations status. It shows the Total backups number, information about the Occupied space, space Occupied by others, and Free space (both in megabytes/gigabytes and percentages).
d. Run VM from backup task This is the Run VM from backup button which activates the run VM from backup task wizard. The wizard settings are described in the “Running VM from backup” section (p. 75). e. Validation task This is the Validate button which starts the new validation task. The task is described in the “Validating backup” section (p. 96). f. ESXi Configuration Backup task This is the ESXi Configuration Backup button which runs the New ESXi Backup Task wizard.
b. Licenses This is the link to the Licenses management page. Managing licenses is described in the “Managing licenses” section (p. 102). c. Settings The Agent Settings page contains Acronis Cloud backup subscription settings, Acronis Cloud backup proxy settings, Agent Password settings and Export/Import configuration settings. Also there are two buttons with the default Backup settings and Restore settings on the Configure tab.
6 vCenter Integration The main tool for managing the vSphere virtual infrastructure is the VMware vSphere client. Although the VMware vSphere client does not provide native backup/restore functionality, it's not always convenient to run another tool to manage these important operations. Acronis Backup for VMware introduces vCenter integration which allows for basic backup and restore functionality directly from the VMware vSphere client without having to run Acronis Backup for VMware Web interface.
Acronis Backup for VMware Backup and Acronis Backup for VMware Restore options. Choosing one of these options results in opening the Acronis pop-up and activating the backup/restore wizard which will help you create the backup/restore task and implement it right away. The appearance of the backup/restore wizards (including backup/restore settings) in VMware vSphere interface is exactly the same as in the Acronis Backup for VMware.
vCenter Integration, New Restore Task, step 1 Note that it's not possible to operate with folders in the VMs and Templates view of vSphere client. In this case you will get Acronis context menu items only for Virtual Machines. Note that vCenter integration is managed by a particular Backup for VMware Agent. Therefore if the Agent is inaccessible from vCenter side, the functionality available from context menus will not work properly.
7 Centralized Dashboard Acronis Backup for VMware Centralized Dashboard presents the effective virtual infrastructure monitoring tool. It allows to get current statuses of the installed single or multiple Acronis Backup for VMware agents and to connect to the respective agents to manage them right away. The centralized dashboard is designed to help you collect the information from several Agents to the single web console.
Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2013
8 Backup Click Create Backup Task in the dashboard’s Quick start or Backup in the Actions tab of the main menu to create a new backup task. The New Backup Task wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and make all necessary settings for the new create backup task. The wizard consists of the four consecutive steps which appear in the same area: Select VM(s) to backup. When to backup. Where to backup. How to backup.
machines running within this group will be automatically included in the backup list. Moreover, any new machines created in this group will be backed up automatically by the current backup task. You can also back up replica VMs (see the Replication section (p. 51)). For that click the show replicas button above the VMs list and select the replica VM for backup. Note that it's not recommended to perform replication to and backup from replica VM at the same time. Be careful while setting up the schedules.
1. Every: 1 week(s) on: . Selecting the Workdays check box automatically selects the corresponding check boxes (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, and Fri), and leaves the remaining two unchanged. 2. Once at: 09:00:00 PM. After setting up your backup schedule of “When to back up”, click Next to go to the last step of the wizard. 8.3 Where to back up In the third step, you should define the location for your backup archive. Select a location by clicking on the Browse button.
Choose one of the backup location types from the browse tree on the left side. If the chosen location requires authentication (Cloud backup storage, Network folders or FTP/SFTP servers), you will initially see a dialogue for submitting your credentials in the right pane. After successfully logging in, this pane shows the contents of the selected location, i.e. the archives inside this location. Note that Acronis Backup for VMware Cloud backup storage might be unavailable in your region.
Create Backup wizard, Step 3 “Where to back up”, Simple cleanup scheme, delete the outdated backups The second option allows you to clean up the archive if the number of backups exceeds <…>. Again, if you set this number at 1, then for the Always Incremental archive mode there will be a synthetic full backup created, i.e. an incremental backup which will remove the unnecessary old recovery point contents after the backup is finished.
Create Backup wizard, Step 3 “Where to back up”, GFS cleanup scheme Note that retention rules are applied only before the backup task execution. The reason for this is that with the Always Incremental archive there is no need to remove recovery points after the backup because it does not free disk space. If after performing the backup there are new excessive recovery points which have to be deleted according to the set up retention rules, they will be removed only before next backup.
From the When to copy drop down list select if you would like to copy the backup to the second location immediately after each backup is created. Or you can indicate the specific days for performing your backup copy, other than the backup schedule days. In this case you can also choose to copy all missed recovery points or copy last created recovery points only. The Copy last created recovery points option might be useful when the first location selected is sometimes unreachable.
1. Disable UAC for the specified user. The UAC can be enabled/disabled via a domain group policy, for example. 2. Specify a different user for which UAC is disabled. For example you can use a built-in domain administrator account which has UAC disabled by default. 3. Install a small (up to 30Mb) “Acronis Backup Agent” inside the VM. For that: run Acronis Backup for VMware installation package, choose Extract Components option from the menu, extract Acronis Backup Agent .
8.4.4 Completing the Create backup task wizard To complete the New backup task wizard, you should define the task name. Note that [ ] { } ; , . symbols are not allowed for the task name. When you click on the Save button, all the parameters of your set up backup task will be saved and you will see the created task in the Tasks view. Clicking on the Save & Run button will result in saving the task and running it right away. 8.
8.5.2 Source Files Exclusion With the source files exclusion rules you can define which data will be skipped from the source data during the backup process and thus be excluded from the list of backed up items. These can be files or folders defined by a path set up for exclusion. This option is effective for the backup of virtual machines which contain volumes of NTFS/FAT16/FAT32/ext2/ext3/ext4/ReFS file systems.
8.5.3 Compression Level The Compression level option defines the level of compression applied to the data being backed up. The default setting for this option is Normal. The optimal data compression level depends on the type of data being backed up. For example, even maximum compression will not significantly reduce the archive size if it already contains fairly compressed files, such as .jpg, .pdf or .mp3. However, such formats as .doc or .xls could be significantly further compressed.
Disaster Recovery Plan is generated by Acronis Agent and sent after the first backup. A new Disaster Recovery Plan is sent if the backup task is modified or if there are significant changes to the backup contents. The default value for the Disaster Recovery Plan parameter is “Disabled”. You can enable the Disaster Recovery Plan in the Default Backup Settings for all backup tasks. Go to Configure -> Backup settings and click Disaster Recovery Plan.
Port – set the port of the SMTP server (the default port value is set to 25). User name – enter your username. Password – enter your password. From – type the e-mail address of the user from whom the message will be sent. If you leave this field empty, messages will be sent as if they are from the destination address. Use encryption – you can opt for the encrypted connection to the mail server and choose SSL or TLS encryption types. Click Send test e-mail message to make sure all your settings are correct.
1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0:I0064000B Supported operations Acronis Backup for VMware supports only TRAP operations. It is not possible to manage Acronis Backup for VMware using GET- and SET- requests. This means that you need to use an SNMP Trap receiver to receive TRAP-messages. More information http://kb.acronis.com/content/11851 About the test message When configuring SNMP notifications, you can send a test message to check if your settings are correct.
After you finish with all the settings, click Ok to close the pop-up and save or discard the changes. These settings will be used for new created tasks. 8.6 Managing created backup task When editing an existing backup task you will see all the sections (steps) of the backup wizard you completed while creating your backup task. All four steps of the wizard will appear on the screen at once.
9 Replication 9.1 New Replication Task The replication feature provides you with the ability to clone your critical VMs and to be able to start your critical service fast in case of failure. To run the New Replication Task, click Actions -> Replication. 9.1.1 Select VM(s) for Replication In the first step of the New Replication Task wizard you should select the virtual machine(s) you want to replicate.
9.1.2 When to Replicate In the second step of the New Replication Task wizard, you should define the schedule of replicating your virtual machines. There are two options available – creating a single time replication task (“Do not schedule, run on demand”) and weekly scheduling. By default the schedule is to create replicas daily at 12:00. In this step, you can change the default value or select “Do not schedule, run on demand” which means that the replication task will not be executed on schedule.
New Replication Task, step 3 “Select location and datastore for replica” Define the Replica name's Suffix to be used when creating the VM replica. The default replica name is “%Machine_Name%_vmpreplica”, where “%Machine_name%” is the original VM name which is being replicated, and “_vmpreplica” is the Replica name's Suffix. If a VM with such a name already exists, you'll get a warning prompting you to change the name suffix. Upon making the selection, click Next to proceed to the next step. 9.1.
4) Provisioning mode. Specify the provisioning mode that will be used on the target VM replicas. The modes are thin provisioning/thick provisioning/flat provisioning/As an original. The default mode is Thin provisioning. Flat provisioning mode is used for ESXi version 5.0+. When you click on the Save button, all your task parameters will be saved and you will see the created task in the Tasks view. Clicking on the Save & Run button will save the task and run it right away. 9.2 9.2.
Replicated VM Manager On the Replica Info tab you can see the summary information on the selected replica: ESX(i) Host information. Datastore information. Resource Pool where original VM is stored. Here, you can also perform the basic operations - Failover and Failback from replica. The following sections describe these basic operations in detail. 9.2.2 Failover If a replicated virtual machines crashes, you can start it quickly by running replica VM (Failover).
Failover 9.2.3 Failback VM from Replica The failback operation (restoring a VM from replica) allows you to restore your original VM by using the replica VM. This operation can also be used if you decide to stop the replica VM after the Failover operation is started and save the changes to the original or new location. Click Failback from Replica to start the wizard.
In the second step, Where to failback VM(s) from replica, select the VM(s) location. You can select the original location and choose to overwrite the original VM(s) or generate new names for the restored VM(s). You can also select a new location. Upon selecting the location, click Next. Failback from Replica, step 2 “Where to failback VM(s) from replica” In the third step, How to failback, select the restore task options.
When you click on the Save button, all your task parameters will be saved. In the Tasks view, you will be able to see the failback from replica task which you have created. Clicking on the Save & Run button will save the task and run it right away. In case replica VM is running, the Failback VM from replica task is restoring the original VM without stopping the replica VM. Only when the failback is finished, the replica VM is stopped.
10 Recovery 10.1 Restoring a Backup of Virtual Machines Select the Recovery -> Entire VM in the Actions tab of the main menu to restore one or several backed up virtual machines. The New Restore Task wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and configure the necessary settings for the new restore task. The wizard consists of the three consecutive steps which appear in the same area: Select VM(s) to restore. Where to restore. How to restore.
You can select any of the virtual machines from the left side list and move them to the Selected Virtual Machines section on the right. The selection of the virtual machines is done by moving the machines from the left side of the butterfly control to the right one by double-clicking it or via the > and < buttons. The list on the right shows all the virtual machines selected for recovery. The > button is used to add the VM to the recovery list, and the < button is used to remove the VM from this list.
When the Original Location is selected for restoring VM(s), you can implement the incremental restore mode by selecting the Use Incremental restore check box. Incremental restore checks and restores only the blocks that have been changed on the original VM instead of restoring all the data over the virtual machine. This mode can help to increase the speed of recovering from the slow backup locations like Acronis Cloud Storage or other slow connections and help to minimize the traffic during recovering.
If there are virtual machines on the selected ESX(i) host or datastore with the same names, you will be asked to confirm overwriting the existing VMs. This choice defines the restored virtual machines naming. If you choose to “Overwrite VMs”, then the existing virtual machines will be replaced with the restored ones.
New Restore Task wizard, Step 3 “How to restore” To complete the wizard and create the restore backup task you must set up the task name and define how to run it. Note that [ ] { } ; , . symbols are not allowed for the task name. When you click on Run Now button the task will be immediately executed with the specified parameters. You could see the task progress bar in the Tasks view and in the Dashboard view. This is your choice if you want to execute this task just once.
10.1.4.1 Notifications 1) E-mail notifications This option allows setting up the e-mail notifications about the basic events during your restore task, such as successful completion, restore failure or need for user interaction. The default setting for this option is disabled. Select the Send e-mail notifications check box to enable notifications.
Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the events log of the restore operations to SNMP managers. 10.1.4.2 Error Handling These options enable you to specify how to handle errors that might occur during the restore operation. Select the Re-attempt if an error occurs check box for enabling the silent mode. When a recoverable error occurs, the program re-attempts to perform the failed operation. You can set the Interval between attempts and the Number of attempts.
10.1.4.5 Exchange Restore Settings Prior to running Microsoft Exchange Server Backup Extraction you have to configure the Default application extracting settings. Extracting of mailboxes or mailbox contents requires temporary mounting of a specific VM from the backup. Go to Application settings tab and specify the VM mounting parameters. ESX(i) host. Resource Pool. Datastore. 10.1.
File Recovery wizard, Step 1 “Select VM(s) to extract files from” If the selected location contains any password-protected archives or archives of physical machines (Encrypted and Physical machines Data), you have to specify the password in order to restore your data from these archives. The selected location is scanned for archives and their contents.
Also, you can sort the search results by any of the columns: name, date and time modified, size, and folder. If you select to sort first by a certain field, for example, by time, you can then select to sort by another field, for example, by name. In this case your data will have a sorting of 2 levels, first the name, and then the time. So you can easily find the needed files for recovery. After you’ve selected all the files you would like to recover, click the Extract to... button or Download as .
On the first step you have to select a location and a VM with Exchange Server backups. On the left you can see the list of backup locations. When choosing a location it is then scanned for Exchange VM backups which you see in the middle section. Select the VM you need to extract Exchange Databases from. On the right you can see the summary information. Then click Next. Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting a lication with Exchange Server backups Select Databases on the second step.
Finally, click Browse and select the destination folder where to save the database archive. Click Finish to proceed with extraction. The extracted databases will be in a Dirty Shutdown state and cannot be mounted. To be able to mount the databases you have to bring them to a Clean Shutdown state by using the Eseutil /r command. specifies the log file prefix for the database (or storage group that contains the database) into which you need to apply the transaction log files.
Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting a recovery point for browsing On the final step click Browse to select the destination folder where to save the selected items, and click Finish to proceed with the extraction. Upon completing the wizard, the extraction task is created which you can see in the Tasks view (View -> Task) You will be able to track the progress and other statistics for your task. Note that it is not possible to edit this type of task.
10.3.3 Extracting Mailboxes content When choosing to extract Mailboxes Content you can browse mailboxes to extract specific content folders and items - by going through the following steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Select location with Exchange Server backups. What do you want to extract? (Mailboxes Content). Select Mailbox(es) for extraction or Recovery Point for browsing. Select Folders or Items for extraction. Where to save selected Items.
Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting destination for saving items The selected Mailboxes & Mailboxes Contents are saved to the specified destination as the Acronis Backup for VMware self-extractible (.exe) archive. You can run this file on any machine which has Microsoft Outlook (2003+) installed in order to extract the e-mails and other items in .pst format. When unpacking the data from the archive you can also select the contents to be extracted and indicate the folder where to exctract the data to.
On the first step of the wizard you have to select a location and a VM with MS SQL Server backups in the VM tree. On the left you can see the list of backup locations. When choosing a location it is then scanned for VM(s) with MS SQL Server backups which you see in the middle section. Select the VM you need to extract MS SQL Server Database(s) from. On the right you can see the summary information. After finishing the selection, click Next.
11 Running VM from Backup Click Run VM from Backup in the Actions tab of the main menu to mount certain backed up virtual machine without restoring it. The Run VM from Backup wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and configure the necessary settings for the Run VM from Backup task. The wizard consists of the three steps: Select VM(s) to run from backup. Where the VM(s) will be run. Additional settings.
from the left side of the butterfly control to the right one by double-clicking it or via the > and < buttons. The list on the right shows all the virtual machines selected for mounting. The > button is used to add the VM to this list, and the < button is used to remove the VM from the list. This list contains the selected virtual machines and their latest available recovery points, i.e. points in time you can go back to. For each virtual machine the latest recovery point is selected by default.
Once the ESX(i) host is defined, the list of available resource pools is build up automatically where you can define the exact location for the mounted virtual machine(s). The datastore selection is necessary to define where to store the changes made to the mounted virtual machine(s). Note that when mounting multiple virtual machines all of them will be placed to the destination defined at this step of the Run VM from backup wizard, each to one particular resource pool.
Select the Power on the mounted VM option to automatically run your machine upon completion of the wizard. Note that the mounted machine's replica (e.g. the original machine) might appear on the network. Theerefore, for safe operation, it’s advisable to power on the mounted virtual machine manually after taking the necessary precautions. Select the Connect to network check box when mounting a failed VM which is no longer present in the network.
12 P2V Migration 12.1 How to Perform a P2V Migration To reduce hardware requirements, there is often a need to migrate physical machines to virtual ones. To perform a physical to virtual migration (P2V), you need to boot your physical machine from Acronis bootable Media, create a full backup and then restore it to a virtual machine. To perform a P2V migration the following steps are to be made: 1. Create Acronis Bootable Media.
13 Bare Metal Recovery of ESXi Hosts The Acronis Backup for VMware Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) of the ESXi host feature provides a totally unique functionality that helps you minimize the recovery time if the ESXi server crashes, fails to start or doesn’t work properly after a patch update.
New ESXi Backup Task, Select an ESXi Host to back up In the second step (When to Backup), you can schedule the backup. The options of the BMR backup task scheduler are the same as for the VM backup wizard. New ESXi Backup Task, When to back up In the third step (Where to back up), select the location for storing your ESXi configuration backup archive and archive name. Click Browse to open the pop-up, select the location among one of the following and then click OK: Local folders.
Select Automatically delete old backups check box to set up the clean up rules. The details for these settings are explained in the “Where to back up” section (p. 38). Select Copy the backup to a second location check box. The following settings allow you to configure the backup copying options. Select the second location where you would also like to store your backups and the archive name. Click Browse and select from the available list of locations.
To complete the New ESXi Backup Task wizard, you should name the task. Note that [ ] { } ; , . symbols are not allowed for the task name. The default task name is “Backup of ESXi configuration [date/time]”. When you click on the Save button, all the parameters of your New ESXi Backup Task will be saved and you will see the created task in the Tasks view. Clicking on the Save & Run button will save the task and run it right away. 13.
ESXi Host Configuration Recovery Note, if you do not select the VMs backup locations here, these VMs will not be recovered automatically after the recovery of the initial ESXi server configuration. In this case, you will have to recover the missing VMs manually. Also note, that unpredictable issues may occur if you restore ESXi host configuration to a new machine while the original ESXi host is active and managed by a vCenter.
By default, automatic mapping is used. The current hardware is scanned for NICs in order to automatically match them with the vSwitches present in the ESXi configuration backup. You may check the automatic mapping of the vSwitches and remap them if required. During the ESXi recovery process you can check if the cable is plugged to the vmnicX or not. After going through all the steps, click OK to start the recovery. Here’s what happens after you proceed with the recovery: 1.
14 Managing Tasks Click Tasks in the View tab of the main menu to open the Tasks page (View -> Tasks), where you can see the details and perform the operations with your tasks. Note that the Tasks page allows performing the basic operations with the existing tasks only, and doesn’t let you create new tasks (for creating a new Backup/Restore/Validation/etc. task you have to go to the Home tab of the main tool bar). The page presents a general list of all the tasks created in Acronis Backup for VMware Agent.
14.2 Cancelling a task You can cancel the selected active task by clicking the Cancel button. You’ll be asked to confirm the operation. Upon confirmation the progressing task will be immediately stopped and will go into the idle state. The Cancel button for the idle task is disabled, as you can only cancel the task that is currently running. 14.3 Editing a task You can edit the selected task by clicking the Edit button.
Backing up: Windows Server 2012 Speed: 3.337 MB/s Schedule: Manual The Options section on the right shows the settings of the current selected task. This section shows only the options which differ from default values. If all task options are default, then this section just states “Options: default” without listing any specific values.
Managing tasks, View task details, Summary tab, Source and Target tab If the backup task was configured to Copy the backup to a second location then the summary tab of the task details will consist of both the Backup task info and the Copy tack info, as shown in the picture below.
Managing tasks, Viewing task details, Backup and Copy task info 90 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2013
15 Managing Recovery Points Click the Recovery Points button in the View tab of the main menu to open the Recovery Points page. The Recovery Points view of Acronis Backup for VMware provides you with an interface to manage the recovery points available for the virtual machines in your environment or the points in time which you can go back to for each virtual machine. Upon the successful execution of each backup task, a new recovery point is created and the recovery points list is updated automatically.
Managing Recovery Points, no locations available 15.1 Adding a backup location Optionally, you can add or remove the backup locations right from the Locations list. Click the Add New link on the top to open the Add Location pop-up. Note that the remove operation will not physically remove the archives from the location, but will just delete the location from the Acronis Backup for VMware configuration.
An alternative to browsing the location in the tree is entering the path in the corresponding Location field below and clicking the Go button to explore this location. In this case, you will also see the same authentication dialogue in the right pane where you are asked to enter your login and password. You have to select or specify the path in the Location field in order to complete the wizard, and then click OK. The OK button is grayed out until there is a valid location selected. 15.
Recovery Points: the column shows the date and time values corresponding to creation of each recovery point in the list. Archive Name: shows the file name (in the selected backup location) this recovery point belongs to. Size: shows the physical size of the archive (in MB/GB) this recovery point belongs to. From the Recovery Points list you can switch to the Summary view (see “Summary tab” section (p. 94)).
15.5.2 Exchange Recovery Click the Exchange Recovery button in the ribbon menu to extract the Exchange data from the selected recovery point by running the Extract Exchange Server Items wizard. The wizard will be pre-filled with the selected recovery point settings described in the “Exchange Server Backup Extraction” section (p. 68). 15.5.3 Run VM from backup Click the Run VM from backup button in the ribbon menu to perform the Mounting VM operation by activating the Run VM from backup wizard.
16 Other Operations 16.1 Validating backups Validating backups is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup. Note that while successful validation means high probability of successful recovery, it does not check all factors that influence the recovery process. If you back up the operating system, only a test recovery to a new virtual machine can guarantee success of the recovery. In Acronis Backup for VMware you can validate a Location, an Archive or a Recovery Point.
After selecting the validation item type, define the backup location. You can either specify a location or location and an archive in order to retrieve the list of recovery points. If you are validating a recovery point, the selected archive or location will be scanned for recovery points included there. This is needed in order to pick up the recovery point(s) to be validated.
16.2.1 Mounted VM(s) list The Mounted VM(s) view provides an overview on the virtual machines which are currently mounted or running from backup on an ESX(i) host. Mounted VMs view. At first, when you don’t have any virtual machines running, the Mounted VM(s) list is empty. After you performed Run VM from backup operation (see “Running VM from backup” section (p. 75)), this Mounted VM(s) view will automatically open where you could see the machine you’ve just run.
Location: \\172.20.24.68\BackupLocation\ Archive: Archive(4) 172.20.24.120:443 Virtual Machine 2 Recovery point: 08/01/2013 14:39 The Target tab presents the information on the location where the selected VM runs. Here is an example of the Target tab contents: ESX Host 1 (10.250.40.30) “All Virtual Machines”: Small_vm 16.2.3 Unmounting VM(s) At the Mounted VM(s) view there are two control buttons in the context tool bar – Unmount and Unmount & Save.
Logs list. The logs list contains the Date/Time, Task name and Message columns. You can sort the logs list by clicking the column header. For switching between the ascending and descending sort order click the column header one more time. Also, you can filter the log events using several filters located above the list: Event flags (Success, Warning or Error). Date/Time. Task Name. Click the log event in the list to see the detailed message for this log in the right window.
Clear log dialog. 16.3.3 Log cleanup rules Click the Log Cleanup Rules button in the main tool bar to set up your rules for keeping the log entries. In other words, this option specifies how to clean up the Acronis Backup for VMware agent log. Log Cleanup Rules dialog. Select the check box in order to enable this Log cleanup rules option. Then, define the maximum size of the agent log folder (for example, in Windows XP/2003 Server %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\vmProtect\VMMS\LogEvents).
When the Log cleanup rules option is enabled, then after every 100 log entries, the program will compare the actual log size with the pre-set maximum log size. Once the maximum log size is exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log entries. The default 95% setting will keep most of the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared. 16.3.4 Save logs to file Click the Save to File button in the ribbon bar to save the filtered log entries from the logs list.
Managing Licenses page, licenses list. 16.4.1 Adding license You can add licenses by copy-pasting them into the corresponding field or by browsing the file with the licenses you would like to import. Acronis Backup for VMware supports .txt or .csv file format. Managing Licenses page, Add license dialog.
Upon adding new licenses you will get the following message indicating the number of licenses added. Managing Licenses page, “Successfully added” message. 16.4.2 Adding license failure Adding a license may fail due to the following reasons: The license is already imported. The license is incorrect. There could also be other problems. If you are sure that your license is a correct one but it still fails to be added, please contact Acronis support (p. 116). 16.4.
16.4.4 Available Licenses There are several license types that can be used by Acronis Backup for VMware: Acronis vmProtect 6/7/8 Standard Licenses Acronis Backup for VMware Upgrade Licenses Acronis Backup for VMware Standard Licenses Acronis Backup for VMware Trial Licenses Acronis Backup for VMware uses “per-socket” licensing scheme, where each CPU socket of an ESX(i) host requires one license of Acronis Backup for VMware.
Configuring ESX(i) Hosts page, Hosts list. Adding an ESX(i) host/vCenter will not bind the licenses to it automatically. It will be bound only when you execute a backup/restore task with a virtual machine running on this host. After you add an ESX(i) host/vCenter you will be able to perform backup/recovery tasks with the virtual machines running on this ESX(i) host/vCenter.
Managing ESX(i) hosts page, Add Host/vCenter dialog. 16.5.3 Adding an ESX(i) host which is a part of vCenter When you directly add an ESX(i) host which is a part of vCenter instead of adding the vCenter itself, the main concern is that Acronis Backup for VMware Agent will not be able to track the changes made to the ESX(i) host on behalf of the vCenter. This may cause unpredictable results.
Managing ESX(i) Hosts page, Enter credentials dialog. 16.5.5 Removing ESX(i) host Removing an ESX(i) host from Acronis Backup for VMware configuration may be required if you no longer want to perform backup/recovery operations over the virtual machines running on this ESX(i) host. The licenses assigned to this host will not be removed automatically. To remove binding licenses, you have to go to Configure -> Licenses (p. 102) page.
Managing ESX(i) Hosts page, Remove Host dialog. 16.6 Managing settings 16.6.1 Cloud Backup Subscription Go to the Configure tab, click Agent Settings and select the Acronis Cloud Backup Subscription section. First, you have to specify your credentials to log in to Acronis Cloud Backup Storage and click OK. Make sure you have an account at the Acronis website. If you do not have an account, you will need to create one.
This option defines whether the Acronis agent will connect to the Internet through a proxy server. Note that the Acronis Backup for VMware Cloud Backup Storage supports only HTTP and HTTPS proxy servers. Configuring settings, Cloud backup proxy. To set up proxy server settings: Select the Use a proxy server check box. In Address, specify the network name or IP address of the proxy server, for example: proxy.example.com or 192.168.0.
16.6.3 Agent Password To change your User password go to the Configure tab, click Agent Settings and select the Agent Password section. Here you can change the password for the user of Acronis Backup for VMware Agent. The username (login) cannot be changed. In order to change the password you have to first provide the old password and then enter and confirm the new password in the corresponding fields.
Export Configuration Click the Export button to save the Acronis Backup for VMware tasks and other infrastructure configuration as an .xml file to your local computer. The exported configuration includes: A list of added ESX(i) hosts with credentials to access these hosts/vCenter. Acronis Cloud Backup proxy settings. A list of added licenses. All current tasks and their schedule. Recent backup locations such as Local Folders, Network Share, FTP/SFTP, Acronis Cloud Backup.
Configuring settings, Import configuration.
17 Best Practices In this section we will give a few examples of some operations with Acronis Backup for VMware. After you installed your Acronis Backup for VMware Agent you have to connect to it with your access credentials. 1. Add ESX(i) host First of all, to be able to perform backup and other operations, you have to specify the IP address/hostname and credentials for your vCenter or individual ESX(i) host where your virtual machines are running.
In order to do that, you have to run the Restore backup task wizard which will guide you through all the steps of the restore process. Click Restore in the Home tab of the main menu. Then go through the wizard. The detailed information can be found in the “Restoring a backup of virtual machines” section (p. 59). On the first step of the wizard select a backed up virtual machine. On the step 2 select the desired new location where you would like to restore your machine.
18 Support 18.1 Technical Support Maintenance and Support Program If you need assistance with your Acronis product, please go to http://www.acronis.com/support/ Product Updates You can download the latest updates for all your registered Acronis software products from our website at any time after logging into your Account (http://www.acronis.com/my) and registering the product. See Registering Acronis Products at the Website (http://kb.acronis.com/content/4834) and Acronis Website User Guide (http://kb.
19 Glossary A Agent (Acronis Backup for VMware Agent) An application that performs backup and recovery of the virtual machines and enables other management operations on the VMware ESX(i) infrastructure such as task management and operations with available backups, machines, etc. Acronis Backup for VMware includes the Agent for backing up virtual machines residing on a VMware ESX(i) virtualization server which the Agent is connected to. There could be several ESX(i) hosts or a vCenter managed by one Agent.
B Backup The result of a single backup operation (p. 118) as a single recovery point (p. 124) inside archive (p. 118). Physically, it is a file that contains a copy of the backed up data (virtual machine volumes) from specific date and time for a specific virtual machine. Backup files created by Acronis Backup for VMware have a TIB extension. One backup file may include useful data from multiple machines plus necessary metadata inside. Backup archive (Archive) A set of backups (p.
Backup task (Task) A set of rules that specify how the given virtual machine or a set of virtual machines will be protected. A backup task specifies: What data to back up (i.e. which machines to back up). Where to store the backup archive (the backup archive name and location). The backup scheme, including the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention rules. [Optionally] the archive validation rules. The backup options.
C CBT (Changed Block Tracking) A feature of VMware ESX(i) which allows to identify which blocks of the virtual disks have changed and to transfer only those blocks during the backup/replication process. For example when using CBT technology, the incremental backup speed can increase up to 20 times. Cleanup Deleting backups (p. 117) from a backup archive (p. 118) in order to get rid of outdated backups or prevent the archive from exceeding the desired size.
Deduplication in Acronis Backup for VMware is managing data within only one backup archive. For example if the backups are saved into 2 different archives (even if they are in the same location) then there will be no relations between these archives and they may contain duplicated data. Differential backup A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup (p. 123). You need access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup.
Dynamic disk A hard disk managed by Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that is available in Windows starting with Windows 2000. LDM helps flexibly allocate volumes on a storage device for better fault tolerance, better performance or larger volume size. A dynamic disk can use either the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style. In addition to MBR or GPT, each dynamic disk has a hidden database where the LDM stores the dynamic volumes' configuration.
To reduce the access time (a striped volume). To achieve fault tolerance by introducing redundancy (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). When backing up virtual machines which contain dynamic disks inside, Acronis Backup for VMware backs up the logical dynamic volumes instead of the entire dynamic disks structure. E Encrypted archive A backup archive (p. 118) encrypted according to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
I Incremental backup A backup (p. 117) that stores changes to the data against the latest backup. You need access to other backups from the same archive (p. 117) to restore data from an incremental backup. L Legacy mode Archive See Backup archive (p. 118). M Machine (Virtual machine) A virtual computer uniquely identified by an operating system installation. Media builder A dedicated tool for creating bootable media (p. 119). P P2V Migration of physical machine to virtual environment.
Registered machine A virtual machine managed by Acronis Backup for VMware Agent. All virtual machines which reside on the registered ESX(i) host or vCenter are automatically registered and can be managed by Acronis Backup for VMware Agent. Replication A process of replicating the virtual machine to new location (new datastore and/or resource pool). As the result of this process there will be a duplicate virtual machine created which is running independently from the original one.
U Universal Restore (Acronis Universal Restore) The Acronis proprietary technology that helps boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine. The Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset. In Acronis Backup for VMware the Universal Restore technology is primarily used for P2V (p. 124) migration scenarios. Universal Restore is not available when recovering Linux.
vCenter VMware vCenter Server, formerly VMware VirtualCenter, centrally manages VMware vSphere environments allowing IT administrators dramatically improved control over the virtual environment compared to other management platforms. See more details at http://vmware.com/products/vcenter-server/. In terms of Acronis Backup for VMware product the “vCenter” item is considered to be a container for the ESX(i) virtual infrastructure including datacenters, ESX(i) hosts, etc.
