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VMware Cloud on Dell EMC

You can deploy Commvault to protect workloads running on virtual machines in VMware Cloud on Dell EMC. The vSphere cluster and hosts reside on high-performance Dell EMC servers in the datacenter.

Features

Commvault provides the following features for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC:

  • Streaming and IntelliSnap backups and restores for virtual machines using vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP)

  • Changed block tracking (CBT)

  • Full, incremental, differential, and synthetic full backups

  • Restores of full VMs, VMDKs (alone or attaching to a VM), and guest files and folders

  • Agentless file recovery to virtual machines

Architecture

The following diagram shows the components for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC:

VMware Cloud on Dell EMC (1)

Requirements

Commvault uses the following components to protect workloads for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC:

  • The CommServe system (CS) is the machine running Commvault software.

  • The Virtual Server Agent (VSA) manages backups and restores for virtual machines.

  • The MediaAgent (MA) handles data movement.

VMware Cloud on Dell EMC operates in the same way as an on-premises deployment of VMware, except that Dell EMC does not provide access to ESXi hosts.

  • vSAN is used as a shared datastore.

  • Backups use VDDK 6.7.3, which is loaded by default, or a more recent version of VDDK.

  • SDDC versions: 1.10

Commvault Deployment and Configuration

For best results, deploy Commvault components on guest VMs on VMware Cloud. The CommServe software, VSA proxies, and MediaAgents can be installed on a single standalone VM, or on separate VMs.

  • Create a virtualization client, entering the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the vCenter host name.

  • Deploy Virtual Server Agent (VSA) proxies as virtual machines running in the VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

  • Add virtual machines to a subclient that is used as a target for backups.

  • For IntelliSnap backups, configure the VSA subclient to use Virtual Server Agent Snap as the snap engine.

Limitations

  • Because there is no access to hosts, the following Commvault features are not supported for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC:

    • Live VM recovery using vMotion

    • Live mount

  • Only HotAdd transport mode is supported.

    SAN and NBD transport modes do not work with VMware Cloud on Dell EMC.

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