You can use the Virtual Server Agent for Amazon to back up and recover Amazon EC2 instances, to convert VMs and instances to different virtualization platforms, and to enable end users to provision and manage their own instances.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) provide scalable computing resources in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. You can create instances (virtual computing environments) based on Amazon Machine Images (AMIs), which are preconfigured templates for instances. (Amazon instances are the equivalent of virtual machines for other hypervisors.)
An Amazon environment includes regions for different geographical areas, and regions contain different locations referred to as availability zones. Instances are associated with regions and zones.
Key Features
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Feature |
Description |
Additional information |
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Agentless backups and restores |
Install the Virtual Server Agent on a machine to act as a VSA proxy. A VSA proxy manages backup and restore operations for guest instances in your environment, eliminating the need to install agents on guest instances. |
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"Incremental forever" data protection |
After an initial full backup, you can perform ongoing incremental backups to capture changes for the source instance. |
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Restores |
You can restore full instances (virtual machines) or guest files and folders. |
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Disaster recovery |
Replicate instances to a warm recovery site to ensure that instances are available in the event of a disaster or other outage. DR orchestration features include planned or unplanned failovers and failbacks. |
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Simplified operational interface |
The web-based Command Center interface uses smart defaults to simplify configuration and support streamlined operations. |
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Advanced administration |
The CommCell Console provides advanced options for Commvault operations. Using the CommCell Console, you can configure a virtualization client that serves as a single point of administration for an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account. You can perform backups and restores from the virtualization client, and perform other administrative tasks such as creating schedules and generating reports. |
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Self service for end users |
The Web Console provides self service options for end users and groups. |
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Instance provisioning |
End users can use the Web Console to provision instances based on pre-defined templates. |
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Automatic protection for all instances |
By default, all instances are automatically selected for backup, to ensure that all instances are backed up. |
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Application-aware backups |
Perform application-consistent backups without manually installing application agents on instances. |
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Cost management |
Reduce costs by using storage tiering, deduplication, and power management. |
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Security |
Integration with AWS security mechanisms, including IAM roles, AWS security tokens, and access keys. |
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Automatic discovery |
To back up categories of instances, you can create rules to automatically select instances based on specific criteria. Automatic discovery is useful in environments where instances are frequently added or removed. |
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Customized filters |
To exclude instances from backups, create rules to filter instances. |
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Instance conversion |
When restoring an instance, you can choose to restore to a different hypervisor. This capability can be used to migrate instances to a different virtualization platform. |
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Reports |
You can view detailed information about each backed up instance, including information such as size of the data and the guest operating system. |
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Snapshot support |
Commvault uses AWS native snapshots to enhance backup performance, and provides snapshot management, retention, and replication features. |
Commvault Platform Features
The following features are available throughout Commvault and are not limited to the Virtual Server Agent.
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Feature |
Description |
Additional information |
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Policy-driven data protection |
Policies drive operations to meet service level agreements (SLAs). |
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Block-level deduplication |
Block-level deduplication compares blocks of data during backups. If instances contain identical blocks of data, block-level deduplication eliminates the storage of redundant data and reduces the size of data in storage. |
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Built-in compression |
Commvault storage policies automatically enable compression to reduce the quantity of data sent to storage. |