VM-Centric Operations in Command Center (VSA V2)

The Command Center uses a VM-centric approach for all hypervisors, but some hypervisors use Indexing Version 2 (VSA V2) to enable more efficient backup and recovery for virtual machines. For Command Center users, there are some differences in job types when Indexing Version 2 is enabled, and there are some differences in back-end processing.

Hypervisor Support for Indexing Version 2

Known Issues

For detailed information about VM-centric operations using the CommCell Console, see VM-Centric Operations for Virtual Server Agent with VMware.

The following issues have been identified with VM-centric operations for VMware.

Files and Folders

• File and folder information is not collected during backups.

• File indexing for virtual machines is supported for selected hypervisors.

  For more information, see File Indexing for Virtual Machines.

• To restore guest files and folders from a VM-centric backup, use one of the copies (primary or secondary) and perform a live browse from the disk/cloud library. Guest file restores from tape are not supported with VM-centric backups, because file details are not collected in VM-centric backups, and live browse operations are not supported from tape copies. As a workaround if no disk library is available, you can restore a full VM or a virtual machine disk from a tape copy.

• If you restore files from a virtual machine that has a File System Agent installed, the Virtual Server Agent backup might not have the most recent backup data. To ensure that you are restoring from the most recent backup, initiate the restore from the job history for the virtual machine.

• You cannot use the virtual machine archiving feature for VM-centric virtualization clients.

• You cannot use the Web Console to perform VM-centric operations.

Encryption

You cannot specify encryption settings at the VM-level. You can specify encryption settings using the storage policy.

IntelliSnap

If you convert VM (subclient) backups or VM Group backups from streaming to snapshot, then you must manually configure the first IntelliSnap backup to be a full backup operation. For instructions, see Performing a Virtual Machine Backup.

Copies and Storage

• To create a secondary copy, configure the storage policy copy to use the offline copy method, which creates the secondary copy as a separate operation after the backup completes. For a virtualization client that is configured for VM-centric operations, you cannot use the inline copy option, which creates a secondary copy as part of the backup operation.

• If a VM is backed up using multiple subclients under the same backup set, and the subclients use different storage policies, this configuration could result in incorrect handling of extents for synthetic full backups and restores, premature data aging, and failed restores. This situation can occur when VMs are assigned to subclient content based on automatic discovery rules: for example, when a VM moves to a different datastore and subclient contents use rules to select VMs based on the VM datastore.

• On storage policies that are used for VMware backups with Indexing Version 2, the Incremental Storage Policy option is not supported. If that option is selected in the storage policy associated with a subclient or VM group that uses Indexing Version 2, incremental and differential backups for some VMs fail during the archive indexing stage. For more information, see KB Article VMW0043.

VM Admin and Synthetic Full Jobs

• VM Admin (synthetic full) jobs do not appear in the Job Controller, and you cannot create alerts based on them. These jobs are created only to report job status, and they appear only in the job history and some reports.

• In 11.20 and later releases, current throughput will not be updated at the VM Admin (parent) job level. You should check the VM status to confirm current throughput for each job.

• For virtualization clients that are configured for VM-centric operations, after performing a synthetic full backup, you cannot perform another synthetic full backup until you have run at least one incremental backup.

• If a synthetic full backup job is initiated by an automatic backup schedule that is associated with a subclient, only the child jobs for each VM run, and no VM Admin (synthetic full) job is created for the subclient. The system staggers automatic synthetic full backups at the VM level. This eliminates the need to have a parent synthetic full backup job, because VM jobs may run at different times due to the staggering.

• For virtualization clients that are configured for VM-centric operations, if you associate child VMs with a schedule policy that initiates synthetic full backups, the synthetic full backup jobs are only visible from the job history for the child VMs or when you view jobs for the schedule policy. Synthetic full backup jobs appear in the job history for the subclient only if the virtualization client or subclient are associated with the schedule policy.

CommCell Migration

• If you use CommCell Migration to migrate a CommCell that includes a hypervisor that is configured for VM-centric operations, the backup jobs that were performed for a VM group or subclient are not migrated. As a result, you can only perform browse and restore operations from a VM client. Browse and restore operations from the VM group or subclient are not supported for backups that were performed prior to the migration.