The Virtual Server Agent (VSA) for vCloud Director supports VM-centric backup and restore operations using Indexing Version 2. (This feature is also called VSA V2 or VSA Indexing V2.)
This feature is supported for streaming backups of VMs running in vCloud Director, from the Command Center and the CommCell Console.
For a new Commvault deployment with Service Pack 16 or more recent service packs, Indexing Version 2 is enabled by default, and new virtualization clients automatically use Indexing Version 2 to support VM-centric operations.
Note
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Collecting file and folder information during backups is not supported with Indexing Version 2. Browse and restore operations use the live browse method to get file and folder information.
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Guest file restores from tape backups are not supported with Indexing Version 2, because file details are not collected in backups and live browse operations are not supported from tape copies.
Key Features
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VM clients:
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Automatically create clients, backup sets, and subclients for each virtual machine during discovery. These entities are visible to end users as well as administrators.
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Associate VM backup sets with the parent backup set.
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Enable or disable activity (backup, restore, and data aging) for individual VMs.
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Specify security settings for individual VMs. In the CommCell Browser, end users can see only clients for virtual machines for which they have appropriate ownership and permissions.
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To delete the backup history for a VM, delete the VM client.
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Backups:
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Perform streaming backup operations.
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A backup operation for a subclient automatically creates child jobs with unique IDs for each VM, and commits VM-specific backup data as each child job finishes.
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Distribute VM backup jobs across the available VSA proxies and MediaAgents, with a separate stream for each job.
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Index extents are backed up for each VM. Subclient indexes are archived after all VM backups finish.
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Changed block tracking (CBT) information is included as part of the index metadata. Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) information is stored as part of the extent header for each extent, and changed extents are backed up.
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Run synthetic full backup operations for individual VMs.
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Perform multi-stream synthetic full backup operations.
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For streaming backups, incremental backups are maintained when VMs are moved to a different subclient within the same backup set.
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Job control:
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Perform job control operations for each VM.
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Set the job priority for each VM.
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Restores:
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Browse and restore VMs or files from the client or subclient for an individual VM, or from the backup set for a subclient.
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For a restore job that includes multiple VMs, the restore operation can use up to 10 streams (one stream per VM).
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Customized options for end user restores.
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Other operations:
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Customize retention and data aging for each VM.
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Identify a subset of VMs for secondary copy operations.
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Generate reports for specific VMs.
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