CV10 Virtual Data Management Student Guide

Virtual Data
Management
Student Guide
2|
Copyright
1999-2014 CommVault Systems, Inc. All rights reserved
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The Information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.
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Table of Contents
(R10.2)
Preliminaries................................................................................................................................................ 8
Course Building Blocks ................................................................................................................................ 9
Course Objective ....................................................................................................................................... 10
Common Technology Engine ..................................................................................................................... 11
Training Environment ................................................................................................................................ 12
Education Advantage ................................................................................................................................ 13
Module 1 Understanding Virtual Environments.................................................................... 15

Topics ........................................................................................................................................................ 16
Virtual Software ........................................................................................................................................ 17
Virtual Software Overview ........................................................................................................................ 18
Why focus on VMware? .......................................................................................................................... 21
Planning for Virtual Data Management .................................................................................................... 22
Selecting Storage Devices.......................................................................................................................... 23
Selecting Storage Connections .................................................................................................................. 24
Optimizing Performance ........................................................................................................................... 25
Storage Repository, DataStore and Libraries ............................................................................................ 27
Virtual Machine Disks ................................................................................................................................ 28
Thick vs. Thin Disks .................................................................................................................................... 31
Change Block Tracking............................................................................................................................... 33
VSS Consistency ......................................................................................................................................... 35
Virtual Architecture Options ..................................................................................................................... 37
VMware vCloud Director (vCD) ................................................................................................................. 39
Module Review.......................................................................................................................................... 40
Module 2 Virtual Server Agent ............................................................................................. 43

Topics ........................................................................................................................................................ 44
Overview ................................................................................................................................................... 45
VSA Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 46
Virtual Server Configuration (V9) .............................................................................................................. 47
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Virtual Server Configuration (V10) ............................................................................................................ 48
Virtual Server Agent Host .......................................................................................................................... 49
Virtualization Clients ................................................................................................................................. 50
Configuring the Virtual Server Agent ........................................................................................................ 51
Discovering Virtual Machines .................................................................................................................... 52
Configuring Subclients ............................................................................................................................... 53
Transport Modes ....................................................................................................................................... 55
SAN Transport Mode ................................................................................................................................. 56
Hot-Add Transport Mode .......................................................................................................................... 57
LAN (NBD) Transport Mode....................................................................................................................... 58
Transport Mode Summary ........................................................................................................................ 60
IntelliSnap Technology .............................................................................................................................. 61
IntelliSnap Architecture........................................................................................................................... 62
Incremental Snapshots .............................................................................................................................. 65
SnapVault/SnapMirror Whats the difference? ..................................................................................... 67
Virtual Machine Recovery ......................................................................................................................... 69
Restore Types ............................................................................................................................................ 70
File Level Recovery .................................................................................................................................... 72
Restoring Multiple Virtual Machines......................................................................................................... 73
Restore VM to Different Destinations ....................................................................................................... 74
Using Web Console for Restores ............................................................................................................... 76
Using VM Plugin ........................................................................................................................................ 77
Module Review.......................................................................................................................................... 78
Module 3 Virtualize Me ....................................................................................................... 81

Topics ........................................................................................................................................................ 82
Virtualize Me Overview ............................................................................................................................. 83
Installation ................................................................................................................................................. 84
Configuration............................................................................................................................................. 86
Virtualize a Client ...................................................................................................................................... 88
Module Review.......................................................................................................................................... 90
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Module 4 VM Life Cycle Management .................................................................................. 92

Topics ........................................................................................................................................................ 93
VM Life Cycle Management ...................................................................................................................... 94
VM Life Cycle Set up .................................................................................................................................. 96
VM Life Cycle Usage Info ........................................................................................................................... 97
Other Available Actions ............................................................................................................................. 98
Policy Name and Description .................................................................................................................... 99
vCenter and Datacenter .......................................................................................................................... 100
Select ESX Server ..................................................................................................................................... 101
Select DataStores .................................................................................................................................... 102
Select Templates ..................................................................................................................................... 103
Enter Resources....................................................................................................................................... 104
Enter Storage Information ...................................................................................................................... 105
Enter Naming Pattern.............................................................................................................................. 106
Select User Membership ......................................................................................................................... 107
Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 108
Using VM Life Cycle Manager.................................................................................................................. 109
Select Virtual Machine Pool .................................................................................................................... 110
Enter Name, Description, Expiration, # of VMs....................................................................................... 111
Select Template to Use ........................................................................................................................... 112
Provide User Password............................................................................................................................ 113
Provide Configuration Settings................................................................................................................ 114
Provide Disk Size...................................................................................................................................... 115
Confirm Settings ...................................................................................................................................... 116
Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Multiple VMs)......................................................................................... 117
Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Single VM) .............................................................................................. 118
Other Available Actions ........................................................................................................................... 119
Module Review........................................................................................................................................ 121
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Introduction | 7
Virtual Data Management
No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.
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8 | Introduction
Preliminaries
Who am I?
Who are you?
Why are we here?
How will this course be conducted?
Preliminaries
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Introduction | 9
Course Building Blocks
Monitoring
VM Life Cycle
VirtualizeMe
Virtual Server Agent
Basic Concepts & Terminology
Virtual Environments
Course Building Blocks
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10 | Introduction
Course Objective
To facilitate the administrators productive

employment of Simpana Software for data
management of a virtual environment.
Course Objective
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Introduction | 11
Common Technology Engine
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12 | Introduction
Training Environment
Training Environment
The CommVault Virtual Training environment, when available, can be used by students to
perform course activities or explore the products user interface. The training environments are
NOT fully resourced, nor are all components installed or available. All course activities are
supported, but due to host memory (RAM and disk space) constraints, only a limited number of
Virtual Machines can be operational at the same time and few tasks beyond the activities listed
in the course manual can be performed. Please discuss with your instructor what other
activity/tasks you can do.
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Introduction | 13
Education Advantage
Track Career
Paths
Self Assessment
Register for
Courses
Track
Certification
Progress
Leave feedback
Education Advantage
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14 | Introduction
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Understanding Virtual Environments | 15
Module 1
Understanding Virtual
Environments
Module 1 Understanding Virtual Environments
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16 | Understanding Virtual Environments
Virtual Software Options

Whats out there?
Whats going to be out there?
Why VMware?
Basic Concepts and Technology
Topics
Virtual Software
Virtual Software Overview
Why focus on VMware
Planning for Virtual Data Management
Selecting Storage Devices

Selecting Storage Connections
Optimizing Performance
Storage Repository, Data Stores and Libraries
Virtual Machine Disks
Thick vs. Thin Disks
Change Block Tracking
VSS Consistency
Virtual Architecture Options
Topics
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VIRTUAL SOFTWARE
Virtual Software
As is often the case, virtual environments are built for application performance and end user
experience without regard for data protection/management requirements. There is nothing
wrong with this, but it does make achieving the best data protection/management experience a
bit harder.
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Virtual Software Overview

Virtual operating systems (or Virtual Machines) are quickly becoming a core component of
todays IT infrastructure. Virtual machines are typically full implementations of standard
operating systems and used for both applications and end-user support. The most common
guest operating systems are Microsoft Windows or Linux. Multiple Virtual Machines can be run
simultaneously on the same physical hardware.
A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) is a piece of computer software, firmware or
hardware that creates and runs virtual machines.
A computer on which a hypervisor is running one or more virtual machines is defined as a host
machine. Each virtual machine is called a guest machine.
The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and
manages the execution of the guest operating system.
There are many hypervisor vendors in todays market place. The top 3 are VMware, Citrix, and
Microsoft. Each has their own management toolsets.
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VMware consists of three primary products:

VMware ESXi is the latest VMware hypervisor and installs on bare metal hardware. VMware
ESXi is free. vSphere is ESXi with additional capabilities. vSphere is a licensed product.
VMware vCenter Server provides centralized multi-vSphere management and configuration.
vCenter Server runs as a Windows service on a separate management server and requires a
third-party database for storage and management of host system configurations. vCenter
allows administrators to configure and monitor ESXi hosts, provision virtual machines,
storage, networking, etc.
VMware vCloud Director orchestrates the provisioning of software defined datacenter
services as complete virtual datacenters. Virtual datacenters provide virtualized computers,
networking, storage, and security so that administrators can provision the complete set of
services necessary.
Microsoft Hyper-V consists of three primary products:
Microsoft Hyper-V Server which is equivalent to VMwares ESXi. Hyper-V Server is a free
product that is essentially Windows Server 2008 Core with the Hyper-V role and a text-based
menu that allows you to do a few key things like run Windows Update.
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 which is Microsofts equivalent of vSphere.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), which includes both a server and client
component is the management equivalent of VMware vCenter. Note that SCVMM can also
manage VMware Virtual Machines running under vSphere control.
Citrix offers two products:
XenServer which is the VMware ESXi equivalent and comes in several variants Express (ESXi
equivalent and free), Standard, and Enterprise.
XenCenter which is VMwares vCenters equivalent.
All of the above vendor products offer clustering and live relocation of Virtual Machines.
Citrix XenServer is currently NOT supported in Simpana Software Version 10, but was
supported in Version 9.
All management products offer clustering and live relocation of Virtual Machines. A summary
of feature comparison is provided below.
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Free Hypervisor
VMware
ESXi
Microsoft
Hyper-V Server
Citrix
XenServer (Free
Edition)
Microsoft Server 2008 XenServer Advanced,
R2
Enterprise, and
Platinum Editions
Hyper-V Snap-in or
XenCenter and 3rd
System Center Virtual Party
Machine Manager
(SCVMM)
Paid Virtualization
vSphere
Management
vCenter
Interface
vSphere Agent
Virtual Machine
ConnectionTool (RDP)
Integration
VMware Tools
Integration Tools
XenCenter or Xen
Server Console
(limited)
XEN Tools
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Why focus on VMware?
Why focus on VMware?

CommVault does not endorse or recommend any specific hypervisor software. Support is based
on market share and customer demands.
So why does this course (and the software) focus on VMware? Because according to 2013
industry studies, 60% of responding users of virtualization software say VMware is their primary
virtualization platform. However, VMwares share of the market is declining as competitors
match features. Microsoft Hyper-Vs market share is growing rapidly as is KVM in the Open
Source category.
In Simpana Software Version 10, support for Citrixs XenServer was discontinued leaving
VMware and Microsofts Hyper-V as the only officially supported virtual environments. This
course focuses on the common Simpana software issues and configuration between VMware
and Microsoft. As many users may still be using Simapana software version 9, we will also
address Citrix XenServer issues where its relevant.
Oracle, Parallels, and Red Hat are called niche players in the Open Source category with a very
small market share. They are not supported by Simpana software. Virtual Machines in these
environments can still be protected by locally installed Simpana Software agents.
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PLANNING FOR VIRTUAL DATA MANAGEMENT
Planning for Virtual Data Management

As is often the case, virtual environments are built for application performance and end user
experience without regard for data protection/management requirements. There is nothing
wrong with this, but it does make achieving the best data protection/management experience a
bit harder.
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VMware, Microsoft and Citrix hypervisors support SAS (Serial Attached Storage), SAN (Fibre
Channel), and iSCSI for storage repositories. VMware and XEN also support NAS (Network
Attached Storage) and NFS (Network File System) mounted storage.
Microsoft does not support CIFS or SMB 2.0 storage because host-level backups using VSS are
not possible with file streams. VSS depends on block-level volume mapping.
SATA vs. FC disk
You may think that SATA would be fast enough since it had massive amounts of cache to drive
better speed and indeed disk I/O performance. However, while caching is very effective for
random I/O workloads, it is not for sequential workloads. Caching cannot effectively accelerate
large sequential disk operations and closing a snapshot is a sequential disk operation. Besides
data protection, a cloning of a VM would be another example of a sequential I/O operation.
NAS is the most common, economical choice for virtual environment storage with vendors
providing hardware snap capability that Simpana software can use to facilitate backups and
restores.
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Throughput (MB/Sec)
Number of Virtual Machines


The data chart shows sequential read performance. All storage connection options available to
a Hypervisor perform well, achieving and maintaining wire speed even in the cases with large
numbers of virtual machines performing concurrent disk I/Os. In light of this, because of its
intrinsic wire-speed advantage, especially if the 8 GB technology is deployed, Fibre Channel is
likely the best choice if maximum possible throughput is the primary goal. Nevertheless, the
data also demonstrates other options being quite capable and, depending on workloads and
other factors, iSCSI and NFS may offer a better price-performance ratio.
The data on CPU costs indicates that Fibre Channel and hardware iSCSI are the most CPU
efficient (makes sense!), but in cases in which CPU consumption is not a concern, software iSCSI
and NFS can also be part of a high-performance solution.
The Virtual Server Agents performance may be constrained by storage connections.
Additionally, if the Virtual Server Agent is installed on a Virtual Machine, the resource demand
on both storage and processing will go up. This needs to be a consideration when planning your
virtual backup architecture.
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Disk Read
In a SAN environment, the smallest hardware unit used by a SAN storage array to build a LUN
out of multiple physical disks is a called a chunk or a stripe. To optimize I/O, chunks are usually
much larger than sectors. Thus a SCSI I/O request that intends to read a sector in reality reads
one chunk.
On top of this, lies the Virtual File system which is formatted in blocks ranging from 1MB to
8MB. Lastly, the file system used by the guest operating system optimizes I/O by grouping
sectors into so called clusters (allocation units).
Storage structure alignment for better performance needs to address all the above layers. An
unaligned structure may cause many additional I/O operations when only one cluster is ready
by the guest operating system, but multiple blocks from the virtual file system and possibly
more chunks from the storage array are required.
As shown by the graph - for random reads/writes, the performance gained by alignment is
insignificant. However, for sequential reads/writes (e.g. those performed by backups) - the
performance/throughput improvement is significant.
VMFS volumes created with the Virtual Infrastructure Client (vSphere Client) are automatically
aligned along the 64KB boundary.
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Windows 2012, 2008, and Windows 7 will automatically align partitions properly using the GUI
disk management tools. For prior versions of Windows, there is an additional layer of NTFS
partitioning that requires alignment using the diskpart.exe tool.
For Linux platforms, alignment can be done using fdisk.
WARNING: Due to the destructive nature of the alignment procedures, alignment is always
performed BEFORE data is placed on the volume. Alignment of the OS partition is unnecessary.
Only alignment of the data partitions is recommended. Weigh the benefits versus the cost of
performing alignment before attempting an alignment retro-fit.
In the case of dynamically expanding and differencing virtual disks, proper alignment cannot be
guaranteed and there is a performance penalty. Therefore, we recommend using fixed-size
(thick) virtual disks within a Hypervisor environment whenever possible. Avoid using
dynamically expanding and/or differencing virtual disks unless a good reason is found for their
use.
Alignment issues also exist with Hyper-V and XenServer. As these vendors use native file
systems, only the storage and the guest file system require alignment.
See VMwares Recommendations for Aligning VMFS partitions and NetApps Best Practices
for File System Alignment in Virtual Environments.
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Storage Repository, DataStore and Libraries
Hypervisor
Virtual Machines
VMDK/VHD Files
Linked/Mapped LUNs
RAW LUNs
Virtual/Native File System
Storage Repository, DataStore and Libraries

Virtual Machines usually reside on a storage repository spanning one or more physical servers
equipped with a hypervisor. This storage repository is typically one or more LUNs coming from a
storage server or array. VMware refers to this storage repository as a DataStore. Microsoft calls
it a Library.
DataStores or Libraries are logical containers that hide specifics of physical storage from virtual
machines and provide a uniform model for storing virtual machine files. DataStores that you
deploy on block storage devices can use the Hypervisor File system format. (Ex: VMFS)
The block size on a VMFS DataStore defines two things:
The maximum file size
The amount of space a file occupies
There is no noticeable I/O performance difference when using a larger block size. The block size
should be chosen based on the size of the largest file and virtual disk that must be stored.
Choose the VMFS block size carefully when creating VMFS datastores, because there is no way
to change the block size of a VMFS datastore once it is created. The datastore must be
reformatted with the required block size.
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You can only have up to 4 virtual IDE disks on the guest (2 controllers with 2 disks each). For
Microsoft Hyper-V, IDE disks are the only types of disk that the virtualized BIOS will boot from.
You can have up to 256 virtual SCSI disks on the guest (4 controllers with 64 disks each).
You can also use both IDE and SCSI with the same guest.
Although the I/O performance of physical SCSI and IDE devices can differ significantly, this is not
true for the virtualized SCSI and IDE devices in Hyper-V. IDE and SCSI storage devices that use
direct memory access (DMA) both offer equally fast high I/O performance when integration
services/VMware Tools are installed in the guest operating system. IDE disks can be very slow in
a guest operating system that either cannot use or is not set to use DMA. However, Hyper-V
cannot boot from SCSI drives.
With virtual hard disks, each virtual machine supports up to 512TB of storage. Physical disks
that are directly attached to a virtual machine have no size limit other than what is supported
by the guest operating system.
Virtual Disks, either local or remote support Virtual Hard Disk Snapshots. Physical disks do not.
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Physical Disks
Virtual Machine disks exist as either files on a native or hypervisor managed file system or as
Raw LUN(s) presented by the storage server. The Virtual Server Agent cannot backup physical
Raw LUN(s). In this situation, you would need to use a backup agent within the guest operating
system.
According to studies, Raw LUN/Physical/Pass-through Disk performance is only marginally
better than using a Disk File (.vmdk; .vhd). From a management aspect, using a Raw LUN is
much more difficult.
So why use Raw LUNs?
Three common reasons for using Raw LUNs:
Virtual disk file becomes too large to effectively manage (i.e. > 1TB).
Leverage native SAN tools (Hardware Snapshot, Backups).
Virtualized Microsoft Clusters (MSCS) are a requirement.
For VMware this means you can create a VMFS file system (VMware proprietary cluster file
system) and then create VMDK files to be assigned to virtual machines. With ESXi 5.0, if you
create a new VMFS5 datastore, the device is formatted with GUID Partition Table (GPT). The
GPT format enables you to create datastores up to 64TB. Alternatively you can assign RDM or
Raw Device Mappings which are essentially Raw LUNs that are assigned to the Guest without
any intervention from the hypervisor.
For Microsoft this means you can create an NTFS file system and then create VHD files to be
assigned to virtual machines. Alternatively you can assign Physical Hard Disk or Linked Disk
which is a pass-through to the LUN similar to the VMware RDM.
With Windows Server 2008 R2 Microsoft introduced a "clustered file system" called CSV (Cluster
Shared Volumes). In the strictest terms, VMFS and CSV are not clustered file systems as they
lack some of the scalability functionalities typical of such technologies. However, for the
purpose of this training we will refer to them as the Virtual File System (VFS) in which multiple
hosts can access the same LUN at the same time to store virtual machines instantiated on
different servers.
XenServer does not impose its own file system on storage systems but, instead, leverages the
native storage capabilities more directly. For example, with a file-based shared storage system
such as NFS, XenServer VMs are stored directly using Microsoft VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) format.
With block-based storage such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel SANs, XenServer extends VHD with the
open LVM (Logical Volume Manager) standard for volume management.
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Hyper-V Limitations
Physical disks that are directly attached to a virtual machine or iSCSI disks attached within the
guest OS cannot be backed up by the Hyper-V VSS writer. As a result, this type of disk will not be
included in any backup performed by the CommVault software. In this situation, you would
need to use a backup agent within the guest operating system.
All disks being used by the virtual machine are configured within the guest operating system as
NTFS-formatted basic disks. Virtual machines that use storage on which the physical partitions
have been formatted as dynamic disks or the FAT32 file system prevent an online backup from
being performed. This is not the same as dynamically expanding virtual hard disks, which are
fully supported by backup and restore operations.
Volume Shadow Copy Service must be enabled on all volumes used by the virtual machine with
a specific configuration. Each volume must also serve as the storage location for shadow copies
of the volume. For example, the shadow copy storage for volume C: must be located on C:.
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Thick = committed static
disk space
Thin = dynamic
expanding space
Both forms supported by
Simpana software

A virtual disk that immediately occupies the entire provisioned space is a thick disk.
For a thin virtual disk, the hypervisor provisions the entire space required for the disks current
and future activities, for example 40GB. However, the thin disk commits only as much storage
space as the disk needs for its initial operations. In this example, the thin-provisioned disk
occupies only 20GB of storage. As the disk requires more space, it can grow into its entire 40GB
provisioned space.
You get the most benefit out of using thin disks when you apply the function to servers whose
disk space usage will start small and grow over time, such as with file and database servers. If
you have mostly static servers like application and Web servers, give them the disk they need
and dont go overboard. You can always grow the disks later on if you find you are running out
of space.
From Microsoft, best practices say dynamic expanding VHDs thin disks are not recommended
for virtual machines that run server workloads in a production environment. Applying this
philosophy to VMware means you should use Thick disks in production environments.
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Key issues:
Disk capacity utilization will be much higher in a thin model compared with the
traditional/thick model.
Thin disks suffer slight performance impact from overhead in expanding disk to
accommodate more data.
Thin disks can cause big problems in your environment if left unmonitored. Essentially thin
disk technology allows you to overcommit disk space.
Thin disks grow or inflate as data is written to previously unwritten disk blocks, but they
do not automatically shrink or deflate when data is deleted.
Avoid doing disk defragmentation on VMs with thin disks. This will cause the VM disk file
to grow quickly.
Simpana software supports backing up both thick and thin disks.
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Disk level incremental backup
capability
Available in vSphere 4.1
Must be turned on to use
Change resource
Disk change tracking
Disk lease

Change Block Tracking (CBT) is a VMware feature that helps perform incremental backups. CBT
was first available in vSphere 4.1 and is used by the CommVault software to provide
incremental backup capability at the Disk level. This feature is disabled by default, because it
reduces performance by a small but measurable amount. If you query the virtual machine
configuration, you can determine if it is capable of changed block tracking. It must be turned
on by the user!
When Change Block Tracking is unavailable, backups revert to Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) to
determine changed blocks. Since the Virtual Server iDataAgent needs to read the entire virtual
machine disk, CRC incremental backups may take almost as long as full backups even though the
amount of data transferred and stored by an incremental backup is limited to the changed
blocks within the virtual disk. Therefore, correcting CBT on the problematic virtual machine is
recommended as quickly as possible to take full advantage of incremental backups.
Virtual disk block changes are tracked from outside virtual machines, in the virtualization layer.
CBT basically sets a marker when a backup or replication occurs and tracks which disk blocks
have been changed. When the next backup or replication occurs, CBT tells us exactly which
blocks have changed. We request transmission of only the blocks that changed since the last
backup, or the blocks in use.
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For CBT to identify altered disk sectors since the last change ID, the following items are
required:
The host must be ESX/ESXi 4.0 or later.
The virtual machine owning the disks to be tracked must be hardware version 7 or later.
I/O operations must go through the ESX/ESXi storage stack. So NFS is supported, as is RDM
in virtual compatibility mode, but not RDM in physical compatibility mode. Of course
VMFS is supported, whether backed by SAN, iSCSI, or local disk.
CBT must be enabled for the virtual machine.
Virtual machine storage must not be (persistent or non-persistent) independent disk,
meaning unaffected by snapshots.
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VSS Consistency
* On Windows 2008/R2, SCSI disks only (Dynamic Disks are not

supported
* disk.EnableUUID attribute must be enabled. (This attribute is
enabled by default on VMs created with vSphere 4.1)
VSS Consistency
The use of VSS for backup consistency has been made optional in Simpana software version
10. There are other means available to ensure data consistency. VSS initiation requires that the
disk be in a stable state. In some cases where multiple Virtual Machines are on the same disk,
this stable state may be hard to achieve. Ultimately, backup jobs may timeout waiting for VSS to
perform its function. As such, Simpana Software Version 10 introduced an Advanced Client
property to disable VSS action. In Simpana Software version 9, this capability is available via
registry value.
Data consistency is available at different levels.
Crash Consistent
Its about the same as if you pulled out the power plug. (Not really, if VM Tools is installed the
host then VSS will issue a File System level quiesce to the guest VSS service) Still, successful
recovery is dependent upon the level and type of activity in progress at the time of the
snapshot and the resilience of the file system/application to recover from this abrupt
termination. In all cases, the integration tools (VM Tools, Backup Integration Service, Xen Tools)
need to be installed in the guest VM.
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File System Consistent

File System consistency gives a much higher chance of recovery, but again dependent upon the
level and type of activity in progress at the time of the snapshot. Disk I/O is quiesed and buffers
flushed before a snapshot is performed. Applications are treated as plain files. File System
consistency is better served with the installation of the File System Agent in the Guest VM.
If licensing is an issue, the File System Agent can be installed in a Read-only state or even in a
decoupled state (unregistered with the CommServe server). Read-only state is recommended.
Application Consistent
Guest OS contains application specific VSS writers to address their specific needs (e.g.
transaction logs, etc.). For VMware with Windows 2003/2008/R2 guests, enabling the
disk.EnableUUID attribute can give you application consistent backups (SCSI disks only).
CommVault still recommends installing the respective application iDataAgent for Microsoft
Exchange (enables truncation of transaction logs) and Microsoft SQL. For other applications
where a Simpana Agent is available we also recommend installing the application iDataAgent
and performing backups at that level. It gives the administrator more options and control of
both backups and restores.
Hyper-V also offers fully-supported, application-aware, transaction-consistent backups of any
applications that have a VSS writer. These include Exchange, SQL Server, Oracle, SharePoint, and
others.
Notes:
1. VMwares Windows 2008 application-level quiescing is performed using a hardware snapshot
provider. After quiescing the virtual machine, the hardware snapshot provider creates two files
called REDO logs per virtual machine disk: one for the live (ongoing or upcoming) virtual
machine writes and another for the VSS and Writers in the guest operating system to modify the
disks after the snapshot operation is complete.
2. The backup integration service (identifiable as Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Requestor
service in the guest operating system) and the Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)
writer provide the mechanism for backing up virtual machines as well as system-wide settings
that apply to Hyper-V.
3. A Xen VSS provider included as part of Citrix XenTools enables quiesced VM snapshots.
Quiesced VM snapshots for XEN Server are only supported for Dell EqualLogic PS Series arrays
and Dell EqualLogic storage repositories.
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Single Server Multiple Data Stores
Multiple Servers Single

Data Store(Cluster)
Multiple Servers
Multiple Data Stores

Many factors drive Virtualization architecture Licensing, performance, costs, etc. .
A large number of companies use multiple single server/single datastore on Direct Attached
Storage (DAS) configuration. This is largely due to economic reasons. The next step up is
multiple servers/single datastore or a cluster configuration. This requires a Storage Area
Network (SAN) and provides a higher degree of service reliability.
Further redundancy can be added with multiple datastores and even remote ESX servers for
disaster recovery.
While the multiple servers/multiple datastores configuration is probably the most desirable
architecture, it is not always possible for every company.
What does your Virtual environment look like? Does it fit one of the categories shown here?
Where do you think your performance bottle necks are? Storage? Servers? Network?
Is your virtual environment documented?
www.commvault.com
Best Practices for Virtual Architecture

Configure all clustered and non-clustered physical hypervisor hardware in the same manner
(e.g. Same hardware/firmware; same PCI bus slot). In a clustered environment this will make
movement between hosts more successful. This is also true in a non-clustered environment
although movement between physical hosts is out-of-band.
Balance datastore loading by putting smaller (size and resource demands) VMs together and
fewer larger VMs (higher resource demand) together. Traditional datastore size is 2TB. As a
general best practice approximately up to a max of 25 small VMs in a single datastore. For
larger VMs you may even have 1 VM per datastore. Leave enough space (40-50%) for
cloning/recovery based on expected practice.
Build Disaster Recovery into the design. Clustered or multiple critical application VMs should
be on separate hypervisor hosts and maybe on separate sites. Use DNS round robin for load
balancing.
If you know the storage demand of the VM use thick provisioning. Thin provisioning does
incremental growth, but not incremental shrinkage. Moving the VM can recover space, but
thats not a great way to manage it. Thin provisioning also has a lot of overhead (metadata
update) associated with each incremental growth. This can impact overall performance.
Use blade vs. chassis servers/rack storage. Blades offer superior management and
provisioning, ultra-fast interconnects, and CPU/memory resources on par with full server
counterparts. Connect with 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Fibre Channel has the highest storage performance, but NFS has the lowest cost and broadest
options. iSCSI performance is on a par with NFS, but with a lower cost than Fibre Channel.
Both Fibre Channel and iSCSI enable you to take advantage of the vStorage VMFS file system.
Which storage protocol you use will most likely be driven by outside influences. (e.g. does a
SAN already exist, need for dedicated virtual storage or shared with other applications, etc.)
www.commvault.com
VMware vCloud Director (vCD)

Management
layer on top of
vCenter
Enables selfservice access
Metadata in vCD
Database
VMware vCloud Director (vCD)

VMware vCloud Director (vCD) is a new abstraction/management layer on top of vCenter. vCD
runs on a linux platform - Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 - and requires connection to either
an Oracle or Microsoft SQL Database. vCD manages self-service access for end users to the
vCenter CPU, network, and storage resources. In the underlying structure, these resources are
combined into repositories called ResourcePools.
Virtual Machines created in vCD will be displayed with a different name in vCenter. If the VM is
deleted from vCD which requires restoration, the associated metadata maintained by vCD also
needs to be restored to the vCD database. CommVault supports both backup and recovery of
individual Virtual Machines and their associated vCD metadata. vCD access is configured at the
Virtual Server Agents instance level and VM discovery can be (should be) configured for
ResourcePool affinity at the backupset level.
Restore supports both deleted VMs and overwrite. After restoring a deleted VM you need to
select the appropriate vCD organization->vApps level and select task to Import VM as vApp. A
vApp is a customized form of a resourcepool. Once the import has been completed you can
move the restored VM back to its original location. In an overwrite situation (VM still exists on
vCD), the Import VM as vApp task is not required.
www.commvault.com
Module Review
Why are Fibre Channel Drives preferred over SATA
drives for VM storage?
What tools can be used for disk alignment?
Under what conditions would you use RAW disks?
Thick or Thin? Which is recommended for Virtual
Machines servers in a production environment?
Whats the fallback method for Change Block Tracking?
What are the three (3) types of VSS consistency?
Module Review
Why are Fibre Channel Drives preferred over SATA drives for VM storage?
What tools can be used for disk alignment?
Under what conditions would you use RAW disks?
www.commvault.com
Thick or Thin? Which is recommended for Virtual Machines servers in a production

environment?
Whats the fallback method for Change Block Tracking?
What are the three (3) types of VSS consistency?
www.commvault.com
www.commvault.com
Virtual Server Agent | 43
Module 2
Module 2 Virtual Server Agent
www.commvault.com
44 | Virtual Server Agent

Virtual Manager Configuration (v9)
Virtual Server Configuration (v10)
Virtual Server Agent Hosts
Virtualization Client
Discovering Virtual Machines
Configuring Subclients
Transport Modes
SnapProtect
Deduplication
Virtual Machine Recovery
Topics
Overview
VSA Overview
VSA Configuration v9
VSA Configuration v10
Virtual Server Agent Hosts
Virtualization Clients
Configuring Virtual Server

Agent
Transport Modes
Restore Types
File Level Recovery
Restoring Multiple Virtual
Machines
Restoring VM to Different
Destinations
Using Web Console for Restores
Using VM Plugin
IntelliSnap Technology for

VSA
IntelliSnap Architecture
Incremental Snapshots
SnapVault/SnapMirror What's
the Difference?
Topics
www.commvault.com
OVERVIEW
Overview
www.commvault.com
VSA Overview
VSA Overview
Simpana Softwares Virtual Server Agent (VSA) enables the protection of Virtual Machines
through the supporting hypervisor software. In Version 9 of Simpana Software, the interaction
of the VSA with the virtual manager/hypervisor environment was defined in what is called an
Instance. One or more Instances could be hosted by a single VSA.
Simpana Software Version 10 freed the static link between the VSA and the instance and
replaced it with a Virtualization Client that can be hosted on multiple VSA hosts. This multiple
host capability facilitates data path management and load balancing for large virtual
environments.
Simpana Software Version 10 also pushed automatic content discovery down to the subclient
level. This enables the transparent handling of Virtual Machines that move between hypervisor
hosts and subsequently different subclients and data paths.
www.commvault.com
Virtual Server Configuration (V9)

Simpana Software version 9 also has a configuration concept called Virtual Manager that used
a single VSA instance to manage multiple subclients each using different VSA hosts for control
and data path management of Virtual Machine data. This is possible by the ability of the
subclient to select with which VSA component host to communicate with the virtual
environment. It is from this concept that V10 draws it new support configuration.
www.commvault.com

The benefit of enabling multiple VSA hosts is fault tolerance for the Virtualization Client. The
Virtualization Client will use the first added VSA host and use subsequent available hosts as
necessary should the current host become unavailable.
Communication from the CommServe server to the virtual environment manager will be
through the VSA host so all hosts need to be able to communicate with the virtual environment
manager
www.commvault.com
Virtual Server Agent Host

VMware
Install on Virtual
Machine or
Install on Proxy Host
Microsoft Hyper-V
Install on Hyper-V
host
Virtual Server Agent Host

Note that only Microsoft Windows platforms are supported for the Virtual Server Agent host.
For VMware environments, a Virtual Server Agent can be installed on a physical proxy host
(dedicated or clustered) or a guest Virtual Machine (dedicated). In the diagram note the
possible data path combinations dependent on where the VSA and Media Agent components
are installed. Transport paths/modes are discussed later in this course.
If for some reason a firewall exists between the Virtual Server Agents host and the vCenter
host, youll need port 443 open to the vCenter host and port 902 to the vSphere/ESXi server. If
using SAN mode for backups, port 902 is not required.
For Microsoft Hyper-V environments, Virtual Server Agents are installed on the Hyper-V host.
In a clustered environment, the Virtual Server Agent should be installed on all Hyper-V hosts.
The operating system of the host must meet the supported requirements. See CommVaults
documentation website for the latest supported platforms, guests, and disk space
requirements.
The number of VSAs required to support a virtual environment will be determined by the
number of guests, average VM size, BU window, etc
www.commvault.com
Virtual Server Agent supports:
VMware
vCloud; vSphere; vCenter; ESX Server
Microsoft Hyper-V
Hyper-V Server; Windows 2008 R2
Install/Operational Permissions
Administrative or equivalent
Use to group managed

Hypervisors/VMs
Each Virtual Server Agent can support multiple Instances/Virtualization Clients of the same, or
different type. Each Virtualization Client requires a user account/password in order to interact
with the Hypervisor/Management software. The user account must have certain privileges in
order to perform the required actions. Normally, the administrator account has the required
permissions. If another account is used, be sure it has all the necessary permissions.
These are the permission requirements for VMware. For Microsoft Hyper-V the system
Administrator user or equivalent is required.
The Virtualization Client requires user accounts that have sufficient privileges for the software
to:
Access the Virtual Center and ESX Servers
Access virtual machines
Access volumes, files, and folders within virtual machines
An administrative account configured with the VCB Role and the following additional privileges
can be used:
Virtual Machine
Resource
Datastore
Consult CommVaults documentation for details and latest updates.
www.commvault.com
CONFIGURING THE VIRTUAL SERVER AGENT
Configuring the Virtual Server Agent
www.commvault.com

Rule-based discovery available at the backupset level (V9)
or the Subclient level (V10)
Default subclient optionally used to capture new/unassigned
VMs
Rule-based discovery by:
VM Name/Pattern
Host
DataStore
Guest OS
Guest DNS Hostname
Browse (manual selection)

While virtual machine discovery can always be performed manually, it may be useful to discover
virtual machines based on a specific set of criteria, particularly in environments where virtual
machines are added, removed, or relocated on a routine basis.
For performance reasons, we recommend grouping VMs by DataStore.
Note: Virtual machines used as Hot-Add proxy hosts should always be excluded from subclient
content.
Note: If also installing an Agent inside the VM, be sure to use as the hostname the same Fully
Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) used by the Virtual Server Agent when discovering VMs.
www.commvault.com
The number of data readers determines the concurrency/resource demand placed on the
storage and transport paths. The recommendation is to have no more than 4-5 data readers per
datastore/RAID set. This may vary depending on resources and competing activities.
Each data reader will be associated with a Virtual Machine. Competing actions such as
snapshots are staggered/coordinated between data readers.
What Gets Backed Up
The Virtual Server iDataAgent backs up the following:
Windows Virtual Machines
Linux Virtual Machines of ext2 and ext3 file system types
Stand-alone ESXi with standard license level
Volumes
Files/folders
Virtual RDMs
Proxy Server
Proxy Server is a Windows host with the Virtual Server Agent installed. The Proxy Server is used
to define the backup/restore datapath and to provide a mount location for granular indexing.
www.commvault.com
VSA Manager
VSA Manager is a concept/configuration that centralizes control of multiple Virtual Server
Agents. The VSA agent assigned as Manager does not actually back up virtual machines. Rather
it designates the backup role to the other VSA Agents. This designation of roles is accomplished
by associating each subclient to a different proxy server.
www.commvault.com
Transport Modes
SAN Transport Mode

Hot-Add Transport Mode
LAN (NBD) Transport Mode
Transport Mode Summary
Transport Modes
www.commvault.com
SAN Transport Mode
SAN Transport Mode

In this mode the virtual disk library obtains information from an ESX/ESXi host about the layout
of VMFS LUNs. It then uses this information to read data directly from the SAN or iSCSI LUN
where a virtual disk resides. This is the fastest transport method for applications deployed on a
SAN-connected ESX/ESXi host.
SAN mode requires the VSA to be hosted on a physical machine with access to FibreChannel or
iSCSI SAN containing the virtual disks to be accessed. This is an efficient data path because no
data needs to be transferred through the production ESX/ESXi host. If the VSA Proxy host also
has a local Media Agent then backups can be made entirely LAN-free.
Proxy host must have at least Read access to the storage repository. Read/Write access is
required if you want to use SAN transport mode for restore. Some users are cautious about
exposing Write access outside of the ESX server for fear of corruption. Alternative would be to
use NBD transport mode for restore.
Thin disks cannot be restored via SAN mode; NBD must be used.
www.commvault.com

If the VSA runs on a proxy virtual machine along with a Media Agent component, it can mount
the Virtual Machines backup snapshot directly. This is called Hot-Add Transport mode and it
only works with virtual machines using SCSI disks. It is not supported for backing up virtual
machines using IDE disks.
Running the VSA on a virtual machine has two advantages: it is easy to move a virtual machine
to a new media server, and it can also back up local storage without using the LAN. Using HotAdd transport mode incurs more overhead on the physical ESX/ESXi host than using SAN
transport mode.
Limitation with Mismatched Block Size
Hot-Add cannot be used if the VMFS block size of the datastore containing the virtual machine
folder for the target virtual machine does not match the VMFS block size of the datastore
containing the proxy virtual machine. For example, if you back up a virtual disk on a datastore
with 1MB blocks, the proxy must also be on a datastore with 1MB blocks.
www.commvault.com

When no other transport mode is available, storage applications can use LAN transport for data
access. LAN Transport mode can be either NBD (network block device) or NBDSSL (encrypted).
NBD is a Linux-style kernel module that treats storage on a remote host as a block device.
NBDSSL uses SSL to encrypt all data passed over the TCP/IP connection.
The NBD transport method is built into the virtual disk library and is always available. As such,
its the default transport mode.
In LAN Transport mode, the ESX/ESXi host reads data from storage and sends it across a network
to the backup server. When using this mode virtual disks cannot be larger than 1TB each.
As its name implies, this transport mode is not LAN-free. LAN transport offers the following
advantages:
The ESX/ESXi host can use any storage device, including local storage or NAS.
The backup server could be a virtual machine, so you can use a resource pool and scheduling
capabilities of VMware vSphere to minimize the performance impact of backup. For example,
you can put the backup server in a different resource pool than the production ESX/ESXi
hosts, with lower priority for backup.
www.commvault.com
If the ESX/ESXi host and backup server are on a private network, you can use unencrypted
data transfer, which is faster and consumes fewer resources than NBDSSL. If you need to
protect sensitive information, you have the option of transferring virtual machine data in an
encrypted form.
NFC Session Limits
NBD employs the VMware network file copy (NFC) protocol. NFC Session Connection Limits
below shows limits on the number of network connections for various host types. These are
host limits, not per process limits, and do not apply to SAN or Hot-Add.
NFC Session Connection Limits
Host Platform When Connecting
Limits
vSphere 4
to an ESX host 9 connections directly,

27 connections through vCenter Server
vSphere 4
to an ESXi host11 connections directly,

23 connections through vCenter Server
vSphere 5
to an ESXi hostLimited by a transfer buffer for all NFC connections,

enforced by the host;
the sum of all NFC connection buffers to an
ESXi host cannot exceed 32MB.
52 connections through vCenter Server,
including the above per-host limit.
www.commvault.com

The diagram shown summarizes the available transport mode configurations. It is NOT a
recommended configuration.
ESX Server supports the following types of storage devices:
Local An internal or external SCSI device.
Fibre Channel A remote Storage Area Network (SAN). Requires Fibre Channel adapters.
iSCSI (hardware initiated) A remote iSCSI storage device. Files are accessed over TCP/IP
network using hardware-based iSCSI HBAs (host bus adapters).
iSCSI (software initiated) A remote iSCSI storage device. Files are accessed over TCP/IP
network using software-based iSCSI code in the VM. Requires a standard network adapter for
network connectivity.
Network File system (NFS) A remote file server. Files are accessed over TCP/IP network using
the NFS protocol. Requires a standard network adapter for network connectivity.
NOTE You cant store virtual machines on IDE or SATA drives. An ESX Server host must have a
SCSI, NAS, or SAN storage device on which to store virtual machines.
www.commvault.com
INTELLISNAP TECHNOLOGY
IntelliSnap Technology
www.commvault.com
Virtual Server Agent is installed on a Virtual Machine hosted by an ESX server that is not a
member of an ESX cluster and has access to the hardware array containing the Virtual Machines
you intend to IntelliSnap feature.
The IntelliSnap feature for Virtual Servers is enabled in the Advanced tab of the Virtual Server
Agents parent Clients Properties.
Subclient associated Storage Policy must have a Primary Snap Copy configured.
A Backup/Snapshot job is scheduled using the CommCell Console. When the backup job is
started:
The array is accessed to create a snapshot.
The snapshot is mounted on the proxy or source computer for post backup (optional granular
indexing) operations.
The snapshot is unmounted.
A Media Agent is required on the proxy if you wish to mount the snap on.
This snapshot is used for backup copy operations. This can also be used for restore/mount
operations.
www.commvault.com
During the Backup Copy operations:
The snapshot is mounted on the proxy or source computer.

The mounted snapshot is treated like a file system and the required contents are read.
The file system backup is performed to the Primary Copy of the storage policy.
When the backup copy job is finished, the snapshot is unmounted.
If backing up to tape or for that matter, any device, you may not be able to (or want to) access
the device from the virtual machine. In this case you can select the option to Use Separate
Proxy for Snap to Tape and designate another proxy host with a Media Agent installed upon
which to mount the snapshot and perform the backup.
Data Aging:
The jobs for the snapshot are pruned based on the retention policy of the snapshot copy.
The snapshots related to the pruned jobs are deleted from the array periodically.
Limitations
Snapshots can affect virtual machine performance and do not support some disk types or
virtual machines configured with bus sharing. Snapshots are useful as short-term solutions for
capturing point-in-time virtual machine states and are not appropriate for long-term virtual
machine backups.
VMware does not support snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, or guest
operating systems that use an iSCSI initiator in the guest.
Virtual machines with independent disks must be powered off before you take a snapshot.
Snapshots of powered-on or suspended virtual machines with independent disks are not
supported.
Snapshots are not supported with PCI vSphere Direct Path I/O devices.
VMware does not support snapshots of virtual machines configured for bus sharing. If you
require bus sharing, consider running backup software in your guest operating system as an
alternative solution. If your virtual machine currently has snapshots that prevent you from
configuring bus sharing, delete (consolidate) the snapshots.
Snapshots provide a point-in-time image of the disk that backup solutions can use, but
snapshots are not meant to be a robust method of backup and recovery. If the files
containing a virtual machine are lost, its snapshot files are also lost. Also, large numbers of
snapshots are difficult to manage, consume large amounts of disk space, and are not
protected in the case of hardware failure.
Backup solutions, such as Simpana, use the snapshot mechanism to freeze the state of the
virtual machine. The backup method has additional capabilities that mitigate the limitations
of snapshots.
Snapshots can negatively affect the performance of a virtual machine. Performance
degradation is based on how long the snapshot or snapshot tree is in place, the depth of the
www.commvault.com
tree, and how much the virtual machine and its guest operating system have changed from
the time you took the snapshot. Also, you might see a delay in the amount of time it takes
the virtual machine to power-on. Do not run production virtual machines from snapshots on
a permanent basis.
www.commvault.com
Snapshots by design typically trap changed blocks so they appear as a "block differential". There
is no such thing as an "incremental snapshot". Every snapshot is a point-in-time representation
of an entire volume. This is true for all Copy-on-Write (COW) snapshots.
When you run the Simpana VSA backup job using an "incremental type", we snapshot the
virtual machines - and when we extract the blocks to the backup copy we only take the
incremental changes and index that data. This means you can still select a Full or Incremental on
the IntelliSnap job. However, when you do this, the setting actually applies to the backup job
that copies the content of a snapshot to a secondary copy.
When you back up a snapshot, you either have a previously saved snapshot or you do not. If you
have a saved snapshot, it identifies the last time a backup was taken, and tells the changed
block tracking logic to identify changes that have occurred since the time indicated by the
ChangeId tracking number of that snapshot. If you do not have a saved snapshot, then changed
block tracking does not apply.
For arrays that leverage clones, we cannot incrementally update clone copies.
We leverage VADP (vStorage API for Data Protection) and CBT when performing incremental
backups from a hardware snapshot copy. This ensures that all of the complications arising from
multiple ESX servers placing exclusive SCSI-3 locks during VADP snapshots are completely
eliminated, leading to much faster backups and low impact backups.
www.commvault.com
Synthetic Fulls are NOT supported when creating backup copies on disk or tape from snapshots.
Synthetic Fulls (or DASH Fulls) ARE supported for non-SPE, VADP backups only.
www.commvault.com
SnapVault / SnapMirror Whats the difference?
SnapVault/SnapMirror Whats the difference?

SnapVault allows a secondary NetApp filer to store IntelliSnap snapshots. Multiple primary
NetApp file servers can backup data to this secondary filer. Typically, only the changed blocks
are transferred, except for the first time where the complete contents of the source need to be
transferred to establish a baseline. After the initial transfer, snapshots of data on the destination
volume are taken and can be independently maintained for recovery purposes.
SnapMirror is a replication solution that can be used for disaster recovery purposes, where the
complete contents of a volume or qtree is mirrored to a destination volume or qtree.
To use SnapVault or SnapMirror, a server running NetApp On Demand System Manager server
software verison 4.0.2 or later is required.
Comparison
SnapMirror, volume or Qtree level replication.
SnapVault, Qtree level replication.
SnapMirror, make the destination volume read/write with one command (snapmirror break).
SnapVault, destination volume read only.
SnapMirror, destination volume is the exact mirror or source volume. Same retention.
www.commvault.com
SnapVault, several versions of the source data can be kept at the destination. Independent
retention.
For volume SnapMirror the source and the destination volumes must be the same size.
For SnapVault the source volume can be larger than the destination volume.
www.commvault.com
VIRTUAL MACHINE RECOVERY
www.commvault.com
Restore Types
Available Types: Disk, Volume, File
Available Restore types are dependent upon backup type
File Level Restores
Require Index Cache on NTFS disk

For guest Windows VMs require Windows-based Media
Agent
Linux requires LinuxMetadataSupport registry key on VSA
host PRIOR to backup
Live Browse can restore files from snapshot
Restore Types
Virtual Machine data can be restored in various forms from a complete Virtual Machine to a
physical/logical file to a single file from within the virtual machine. Restoring folders/files from
within a Virtual Machine requires that the Advanced backup option, Granular Recovery was
selected (default).
Volumes can be restored to a physical volume, a VMDK file, or a VHD file format. Volume
restores are supported for Windows-based VMware Virtual Servers and must have been
formatted with the NTFS file system.
For File-level restores, the following apply:
The Media Agent must be a Windows-based computer when restoring from Windows
servers.
The Index Cache must be on an NTFS disk.
To perform Linux file-level restores, the LinuxMetadataSupport registry key must first be
configured on the computer on which the Virtual Server iDataAgent is installed prior to
performing the backup.
By default the disk is restored with its original provisioning type, as it was at the time of backup.
Thin disks can be restored as Thick disk, but Thick disks cannot be restored as Thin disks.
www.commvault.com
Restores from UNIX Media Agents

To restore using a UNIX Media Agent, the initial Browse must be performed using a Windows
Media Agent. You will be prompted to do an Index Restore from the UNIX Media Agent to the
Windows Media Agent. After selecting the Virtual Machine to browse, you will be prompted
again for an Index Restore. This index will direct the restore through the UNIX Media Agent.
Restore Files from Snapshots (Live Browse)
You can restore files and folders from a snapshot when a backup is performed without enabling
the Enable Granular Recovery advanced backup option. This feature is available for Windowsbased VMware virtual machines.
Depending on the hardware configuration, it may take some time to mount the snapshot on the
ESX server before displaying the files and folders.
XENServer Restore
Xen VM will lose its network configuration when restored.
www.commvault.com
File Level Recovery

Supported on Windows NTFS and Linux ext2/ext3
file system
File Level Recovery

Requires disk level backup with Granular Level Recovery enabled.
When performing out-of-place restores, restoring data to a UNC path (Windows) or NFSmounted file system (UNIX) is similar to a cross-computer restore except that:
The restored data passes through the client computer to the mapped share/file system.
The computer that hosts the share or mounted file system need not be another client within
the CommCell environment.
All data restored to the shared directory assumes the security attributes (i.e., permissions) of
the parent directory.
WARNING: Browsing data at the subclient level gives you more options.
Specifying disk provisioning
Restore to a resource pool (vCloud)
Unconditional overwrite (automatic restore)
Restoring multiple VMs
Restoring disks across different datastores
www.commvault.com
Restoring Multiple Virtual Machines

You can restore
multiple virtual
machines in a
single job
Restricted to VMs
in the same
subclient
Requires Browse
from the subclient
level
Restoring Multiple Virtual Machines

One of the advantages of having multiple VMs in the same client is the ability to restore
multiple VMs in the same restore job. Each VMs restore option (e.g. Rename, ESX Server,
DataStore) can be assigned individually.
The ability to restore multiple Virtual Machines is available only through the Browse dialog
window accessed from the subclient level.
www.commvault.com
Restoring VM to Different Destinations

Disk Level Backup must have been completed
You can restore to different:
Client
Virtual Center
ESX Server
DataStore
Resource Pool
Name
Restore VM to Different Destinations

A Disk Level backup must have been used to back it up.
Different Destination Client
By default, the virtual machine is associated to the client machine, as it was at the time of
backup. However, an entire virtual machine can be restored to a different client.
Different Virtual Center
An entire virtual machine can be restored to a datastore of the original Virtual Center or to a
different one using the credentials of the Virtual Center. Specifying a different location provides
the flexibility to distribute restored virtual machines to a location with greater space and
resource availability, should the virtual machine's original location prove not optimal.
Different ESX Server
By default, the virtual machine is restored to the ESX server, as it was at the time of backup.
However, an entire virtual machine can be restored to a different ESX server. Specifying a
different location provides the flexibility to distribute restored virtual machines to a location
with greater space and resource availability.
Different DataStore
Virtual machines can be restored to any datastore on a ESX Server using the credentials of the
default ESX Server or the Virtual Center. You can Override the default selection and select the
www.commvault.com
desired location to which the virtual machine will be restored. After restore, the virtual machine
is automatically associated to the new data store selected.
Different Resource Pool
By default, when a virtual machine is restored it will be restored to its original resource pool.
You can select a specific resource pool/vApp on the host into which the virtual machine can be
restored. vApp is a customized form of a resource pool.
Different Name
By default, the Virtual Machine is restored with the original name, exactly as it was at the time
of backup. This can be changed to a more appropriate name
www.commvault.com

Empowers End Users
to do their own
restores
Active Directory
Integrated
Find, latest Version,
and Point-in-Time
Browse capable
www.commvault.com
Using VM Plugin
Manage VMs and
File Level
Recoveries from
one place
Works with
snapshots or
VADP backups
File system data
only
Using VM Plugin
The VM File Recovery Plugin is a selectable option available during the VSAs Instance
configuration with vCenter target.
The VM File Recovery Plugin provides VMware administrators and virtual machine users with a
link to the Web Console for restoring files from virtual machine backups. Files can be recovered
directly from the vCenter/vSphere client.
Only File System data is recoverable via this method. Application data must be recovered using
the features and capabilities of the CommCell Console.
www.commvault.com
Module Review
What three (3) Instance types are supported by the
Virtual Server Agent?
What is the recommended VM affinity setting?
What are the (3) primary Transport Modes supported?
Where is the Virtual Server Agent located to support
IntelliSnap backups?
At what level can you Browse and select to restore one
or more Virtual Machines?
Module Review
What three (3) Instance types are supported by the Virtual Server Agent?
What is the recommended VM affinity setting?
What are the (3) primary Transport Modes supported?
www.commvault.com
Where is the Virtual Server Agent located to support IntelliSnap backups?
At what level can you Browse and select to restore one or more Virtual Machines?
www.commvault.com
www.commvault.com
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Module 3
Virtualize Me
Module 3 Virtualize Me
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82 | Virtualize Me
Topics
Virtualize Me Overview
Installation
Configuration
Virtualize a Client
Topics
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Uses 1-Touch to Boot

and Restore the Client
to a Virtual Machine
Supports Windows
and Linux
Supported only on
VMware
Requires Source
Server downtime
during virtualization
Simpana softwares Virtualize Me feature enables you to use Virtualization with Simpanas
1-Touch bare metal restore feature to virtualize any Windows or Linux client.
With Virtualize Me, the user has the option to create a Virtual machine from a backup of a
physical machine. This process can improve reliability when converting a physical to a virtual
machine by restoring offline from a previous backup rather than converting an existing physical
machine to a virtual machine.
Virtualize Me is supported for all current Windows operating systems with the exception of
Windows XP. It is also supported for Red Hat and SuSe Linux server versions. Once Virtualize
Me is configured it creates a base client image on the ESX server with a file system iDataAgent
installed. The process then restores the machine configuration and does a full system recovery.
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84 | Virtualize Me
Installation
Install 1-Touch Server (Windows only)
Install Virtual Server Agent
Windows install
Install File System iDataAgent

Windows and Linux Install
Installation
Install a 1-Touch Server
The 1-Touch server must be installed from DVD 2 of the Disc set:
The install must use the DVD Media release dated 10/21/2011 or later, for Simpana 9 with
service pack 4.
To perform a disk install of 1-touch, insert the CD and run the setup.exe program. This will install
the 1-Touch Server to the directory that you choose. The default install is to your CommVault
directory. Note that you will be required to reboot the 1-Touch Server after the installation.
View the 1-Touch Server Software installation in the online documentation for details on
installing the 1-Touch Server.
There is no indication/icon/task for the 1-Touch Server for Windows on the CommCell
Console. The presence of a SystemRecovery folder on the server and the 1-Touch.exe
executable in the ..\Galaxy\Base directory is the only indication of a 1-Touch Server installation.
Note that the 1-Touch server install is only required for Windows systems, and is only used to
create the Boot DVD image. The method for creating a Boot DVD is described in Books Online.
Install the Virtual Server iDataAgent
Virtualize Me requires the Virtual Server iDataAgent be installed on the client with Simpana 9
Service pack 4. The installation can be performed via local DVD install, or remotely using the
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Virtualize Me | 85
console install method. If you are using other application agents, they must be installed
separately after the Virtualize Me operation completes.
For more detailed information about installing the Virtual server agent for VMware, and various
transport modes that are available, please view the section on the Virtual Server iDataAgent in
Books Online.
The virtual Server iDataAgent can be installed using a local or push install method.
Install the File System iDataAgent
Virtualize Me requires only the File System iDataAgent be installed on the client. The client
must be running Simpana 9 with Service pack 4 in order to perform a Virtualize Me recovery.
The installation can be performed via local DVD install, or remotely using the console install
method. If you are using other application agents, they must be installed separately after the
Virtualize Me operation completes.
To perform a disk install of the file system agent, insert the DVD and run the setup.exe program
for Windows or cvpkgadd for Linux. This will install the file system agent to the directory that
you choose. The default install is to your CommVault directory. View the online documentation
for more details and instructions on how to install a file system agent for Windows or Linux.
To perform a console based install, from the console tools menu, select Add/Remove
SoftwareInstall Software. The installer wizard runs through the same basic process as a local
install. If you will be installing the agent on all of the available servers you can select automatic
install (Uses AD to collect a list of available servers) or manually select servers. The installation
completes silently and can be viewed from the Job Manager in the CommCell Console. View
the online documentation for more details and instructions on how to install a file system agent
for Windows or Linux.
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86 | Virtualize Me
Configuration
Configure the 1-Touch Server
Configure the Virtual Server iDataAgent for a vCenter or
ESX Host
Create an Instance
Define a vCenter host
Configure the Client

Run a Backup of the Clients File System iDataAgent
Create and Upload the Boot Image
Windows
Linux
Configuration
Once you have satisfied the install and pre-configuration requirements, the following steps can
be taken to configure Virtualize Me:
Configure the 1-Touch Server
For Windows systems, the 1-Touch server must be running Service Pack 4 at a minimum to
enable Virtualize Me. Install Service Pack 4 on the 1-Touch server per the installation methods
found in the Books Online for installing updates. Also you must update the 1-Touch cache. This
adds Service Pack 4 to the files used to build the Boot ISO that is used in the Virtualize Me
process. Note: If you do not update the 1-Touch cache, WinPE will not be able to start on the
VM that is created on the ESX server and the job will not complete.
Configure the Virtual Server iDataAgent for a vCenter or ESX Host
The first step in configuration for Virtualize Me is to configure vCenter/ESX for the virtual server
iDataAgent. To configure, you must create an instance for the virtual server agent and select
the vendor type VMware from the dropdown list of vendors. Once the vendor is selected you
must enter the vCenter hostname. Note here that even if you are not using vCenter, you must
select the vCenter option to configure this instance for Virtualize Me. You also need to select
the change button and enter a user name and password that has access to the vCenter or ESX
server. After the instance is created, the ESX server will show up under the Virtualize Me option
on the client to be virtualized.
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Virtualize Me | 87
Configure the Client

For Linux Clients, you must select the checkbox option for 1-Touch Recovery from the 1-Touch
tab in the Linux File System iDataAgent properties. Note that this can be set for all Subclients
from the Backup set as well. For Windows systems you must have selected the Backup System
State option from the Content tab in the Subclient properties.
Run a Backup of the Clients File System iDataAgent
In order to perform a Virtualize Me operation for a client there must be a valid backup of the
client to be virtualized. For Windows this means a full backup of the Service Pack 4 updated File
System iDataAgent including the system state. If a full backup has been run prior to installing
SP4, you can run an Incremental or Differential backup. For Linux it means running a full backup
of the File System iDataAgent. If a full backup has been run prior to installing SP4, you can run
an Incremental or Differential backup.
Note: Virtualize me will invalidate any pre Service pack 4 recovery points (Backups) for
Virtualize Me.
Upload the Boot Image
Once the correct iDataAgents are installed and configured, the last step in the process is to
create and upload the Boot image to the data store on the ESX server. Any data store can be
used to host the boot image (You will select which boot image to use during the virtualization
process). For Linux systems to virtualize, the boot DVD is DVD 4 in the ISO kit. This image can be
downloaded from CommVaults maintenance advantage site. The Boot CD for windows systems
is created using the 1-Touch applet found on the 1-Touch server, and selecting the 1-Touch Boot
CD Wizard option from the menu. The wizard will walk you through the process of creating a
boot CD.
Once you have the ISO for the Boot CD/DVD available, copy it to the vCenter client and you can
upload it into the data store by using the upload option from the Datastore browser. Once the
ISO is uploaded you are ready to run a Virtualize Me operation for a client system.
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88 | Virtualize Me
Virtualize a Client
Virtualize a Windows or Linux Client
Virtualize a Client
Virtualize a Windows or Linux Client
Note: The physical machine cannot be in a running state on the same network that the Virtual
Machine is being created on. If it is, the job will go into a pending state with an application
error.
The Windows client virtualization is run from the Client level in the CommCell console by right
clicking the client, and selecting All Tasks Virtualize Me. The Virtualize Me job runs in three
phases.
The Virtualize Me job runs in the following order:
To start the job, from the Virtualize Me window, select the vCenter, ESX Server and Data Store to
put the VM on, and the path to a Data Store containing the ISO with the 1-Touch boot image on
it. Select whether to schedule or run the job immediately.
When the Virtualize Me job is running, the first phase of the job is Provision VM. This creates a
new VM on the ESX Server and starts it. The 1-Touch process then detects and starts the
network interface and installs the File System iDataAgent on the VM.
The next phase is the Configuration Restore. In this phase the virtualized system is being
restored from a backup image. This phase runs as a subordinate job of the Virtualize Me job.
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Virtualize Me | 89
You will see it run as a separate job in the Job Controller window. The Configuration Restore is a
restore of the physical machine configuration such as drives, drive mapping, and partitioning.
The next phase of the Virtualize Me job is the Full Machine Restore. The Full Machine restore
also runs as a subordinate job of the Virtualize Me job. This phase is the actual restore of the
client system state and file system from the backup of the client.
Once the Full Machine Restore completes, the Virtualize me job will also complete and the VM
will automatically restart into a running state on the ESX server.
Note: You cannot suspend or kill a Virtualize Me job while subordinate jobs are running. Once
the sub jobs are started the Virtualize Me job will run through to completion.
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90 | Virtualize Me
Module Review
What Simpana software component is required in
order to use the Virtualize Me feature?
What is the minimum Service Pack Level required in
For Windows Clients, what must be in the backup in
Where must the Boot ISO image be located in order to
use the Virtualize Me?
Module Review
What Simpana software component is required in order to use the Virtualize.Me feature?
What is the minimum Service Pack Level required in order to use the Virtualize.Me feature?
For Windows Clients, what must be in the backup in order to use the Virtualize.Me feature?
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Virtualize Me | 91
Where must the Boot ISO image be located in order to use the Virtualize.Me?
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92 | VM Life Cycle Management
Module 4
VM Life Cycle
Management
Module 4 VM Life Cycle Management
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VM Life Cycle Management | 93
Topics
VM Life Cycle Management

VM Life Cycle Set up
VM Life Cycle Usage Info
Other Available Actions
Topics
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Can perform the following tasks:
Create and Manage Virtual Machines
Use pre-defined templates
Configuration Thresholds (maximum resource)
Recover Archived Virtual Machines
Power on virtual machines that have been archived

The VM Lifecycle Management feature provides virtual machine users with the ability to create,
manage, and recover their own virtual machines from a user-friendly interface.
The following conditions must be considered when utilizing VM Lifecycle Management:
VMware vCenter 4.1 or greater is required .
VMware Tools (version 8288 or greater) must be installed on templates.
Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Linux (RedHat5) Virtual Machines are supported.
Following CommVault Components must be installed:
CommServe
Web Search Server
Web Search Client
Can perform the following tasks:
Create and Manage Virtual Machines
Options are available to create, customize, and clone virtual machines to suit their needs.
Administrators can use pre-defined templates and configuration thresholds, such as
maximum allowable disk space, memory allocation, and virtual machine expiration to
effectively manage resources.
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Recover Archived Virtual Machines

When virtual machines are backed up, expired virtual machines are automatically powered
off and marked as archived, thereby conserving essential resources.
The capacity-based licenses for virtual machines are automatically released when virtual
machines are archived. As a result, only actively used virtual machines will consume license
capacity.
Users can recover and power on virtual machines that have been archived directly from the
web console interface.
www.commvault.com

Policies are supported/different for VMware and Hyper-V
Multiple Policies are allowed
Policy templates manages:
Which DataCenter (vCenter/SCVMM)
Maximum allowed Virtual Machines/life scan
DataStores used
Templates used to create/clone VMs
Allocated CPUs, Memory, and Network Interfaces
Min/Max number of Disks and size
VM Naming Pattern
User Group Membership to use the Policy

Virtual Machines can be set to decommission (turn off) after a specified number of days. When
you perform a backup of such virtual machines, they will be flagged as Archived.
Templates having a VMware Tools version before ESX 4.1 (8288) cannot be used and will not
appear on the Template List
No capabilities are required to be assigned to the CommCell User Group having access to use
of the VM Life Cycle Policy.
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Web Console URL

Active Directory Domain, User Name, and Password
Name of the VM Lifecycle Policy
Naming Pattern of the Virtual Machines

VM Life Cycles policies are applied via the Simpana Web Console. Authorized users (members of
the CommCell Users Group associated with a VM Life Cycle Policy) require the info shown above
to use/manage a VM Lifecycle Policy.
Note that multiple Web Console hosts (Web Search Clients) can be deployed. Directing users to
specific Web Consoles can be a security/load balancing/management tool.
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Policy Name and Description

vCenter and Datacenter
Select ESX Server
Select Datastores
Select Templates
Enter Resources
Enter Storage Information
Enter Naming Pattern
Select User Membership
Summary
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Select ESX Server
Select ESX Server
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Select DataStores
Select DataStores
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Select Templates
Select Templates
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Enter Resources
Enter Resources
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Summary
Summary
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Using VM Life Cycle Manager
Using VM Life Cycle Manager
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Select Virtual Machine Pool
Select Virtual Machine Pool
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Enter Name, Description, Expiration, # of VMs
Enter Name, Description, Expiration, # of VMs
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Select Template to Use
Select Template to Use
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Provide User Password
Provide User Password
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Provide Configuration Settings
Provide Configuration Settings
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Provide Disk Size
Provide Disk Size
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Confirm Settings
Confirm Settings
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Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Multiple VMs)
Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Multiple VMs)
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Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Single VM)
Sync with vCenter

Restore Files
Using VM Life Cycle Manager (Single VM)
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Restart
Renew
Power Off
Delete
Suspend
Edit
Revert
View Snapshot
Create Snapshot
Clone

Clone
The Clone option creates a copy of an existing virtual machine. The new virtual machine retains
the same characteristics of the virtual machine from which it was cloned (such as the operating
system). This option may be especially useful if you want to create a virtual machine from a
template that is no longer available.
Enter the following details:
Name of the virtual machine.
Username of the virtual machine owner.
Password of the virtual machine owner.
Description of what the virtual machine will be used for.
Expiration Date after which the virtual machine will no longer be available.
Manage
You can edit the selected virtual machines, name, configuration parameters, or disk space. VM
Policy limits apply. Such modification should be performed while the Virtual Machine is in a
stopped state.
You can also reset the expiration date.
Snapshots
The Snapshot feature allows you to create an exact image of a virtual machine as it exists at the
time the snapshot is taken. If the virtual machine encounters an irreversible problem (i.e.,
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important files are permanently deleted, the operating system becomes corrupted, etc.), you
can revert a virtual machine to its snapshot, thereby bringing the virtual machine back to the
state it was in when the snapshot was taken. You can also revert from a snapshot if you no
longer wish to use the virtual machine in its snapshot state.
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Module Review
What three(3) primary tasks does the VM Life Cycle Policy feature
enable for VM users?
Besides the Virtual Server Agent, what other Simpana software
components are required for this feature?
What Configuration parameters can be defined using a VM Life
Cycle Policy?
What capabilities must the associated CommCell User Group
have for users to access this feature?
Module Review
What three(3) primary tasks does the VM Life Cycle Policy feature enable for VM users?
Besides the Virtual Server Agent, what other Simpana software components are required for
this feature?
What Configuration parameters can be defined using a VM Life Cycle Policy?
www.commvault.com
What capabilities must the associated CommCell User Group have for users to access this
feature?
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Virtual Data

Module 1 Understanding Virtual Environments.................................................................... 15

Module 2 Virtual Server Agent ............................................................................................. 43

Module 3 Virtualize Me ....................................................................................................... 81

Module 4 VM Life Cycle Management .................................................................................. 92

Virtual Data Management

No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.

No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.

Course Building Blocks

Course Building Blocks

To facilitate the administrators productive

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Common Technology Engine

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No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.

Understanding Virtual Environments | 15

Module 1 Understanding Virtual Environments

16 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Virtual Software Options

Planning for Virtual Data Management

Selecting Storage Devices

Understanding Virtual Environments | 17

No unauthorized use, copy or distribution.

18 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Virtual Software Overview

Understanding Virtual Environments | 19

VMware consists of three primary products:

20 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Understanding Virtual Environments | 21

Why focus on VMware?

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Why focus on VMware?

22 | Understanding Virtual Environments

PLANNING FOR VIRTUAL DATA MANAGEMENT

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Planning for Virtual Data Management

Understanding Virtual Environments | 23

Selecting Storage Devices

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Selecting Storage Devices

24 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Selecting Storage Connections

Number of Virtual Machines

Selecting Storage Connections

Understanding Virtual Environments | 25

26 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Understanding Virtual Environments | 27

Storage Repository, DataStore and Libraries

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Storage Repository, DataStore and Libraries

28 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Virtual Machine Disks

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Virtual Machine Disks

Understanding Virtual Environments | 29

30 | Understanding Virtual Environments

Understanding Virtual Environments | 31

Thick vs. Thin Disks

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Thick vs. Thin Disks