The Virtual Server Agent (VSA) provides a unified protection and recovery vehicle for all virtual machine (VM) data in your enterprise. The VSA is installed on a dedicated virtual machine on a XenServer, enabling the VM to serve as a VSA proxy that backs up and restores virtual machine data for a Xen pool or a standalone XenServer. A Xen virtualization client manages all VSA proxies and all data protection operations for a Xen pool. Multiple virtualization clients can be configured to manage different Xen pools.
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 Xen VM to act as a VSA proxy. A VSA proxy manages backup and restore operations for guest VMs in your environment, eliminating the need to install agents on guest VMs. |
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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 VM. |
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Restores |
You can restore full virtual machines or guest files and folders. |
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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. 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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Automatic protection for all virtual machines |
By default, all virtual machines are automatically selected for backup, to ensure that all virtual machines are backed up. |
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Automatic discovery |
To back up categories of virtual machines, you can create rules to automatically select virtual machines based on specific criteria. Automatic discovery is useful in environments where virtual machines are frequently added or removed. |
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Customized filters |
To exclude virtual machines from backups, create rules to filter virtual machines. |
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Report |
You can view detailed information about each backed up virtual machine, including information such as size of the data, the guest operating system, and the host on which the virtual machine is running. |
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 virtual machines 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. |