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Restoring a Full Virtual Machine In Place Using Live Recovery for VMware

You can restore a full VMware virtual machine in place using a live recovery operation.

Before You Begin

  • If a passkey is configured for restores, you must have the passkey.

  • Ensure that you are using a supported version of VMware vCenter Server. For more information, see "VMware vCenter Server Support" in System Requirements for Virtual Server Agent with VMware.

  • VMware licensing must include a license for vMotion operations.

  • The ESX server that is used to mount the NFS datastore for browse and restore operations must be able to resolve the MediaAgent (which uses 3DFS components to perform the live recovery). To ensure connectivity, create a host file entry for the MediaAgent on the ESX server.

  • The vCenter user account must have permissions set as described in Permissions for Custom User Accounts.

  • The live recovery operation uses a 3DFS cache on the MediaAgent that performs the live recovery. The 3DFS cache is circular, which means that unused data are pruned from the cache as needed. By default, 5% free space is maintained on the cache.

    For each live recovery operation, the 3DFS cache requires minimum free space that is equal to the larger of the following values:

    • 20 GB

    • 15% of the total VM size (the sum of the sizes of all VMDKs for the VM)

      Note

      For faster recovery times, host the 3DFS cache on a solid state drive (SSD) using flash memory storage.

  • If a File Recovery Enabler for Linux is configured, the restore operation will use the default File Recovery Enabler for Linux for the live recovery operation. Otherwise, the MediaAgent that performed the backup is used.

  • The same requirements that apply to a MediaAgent also apply to a File Recovery Enabler when it is used for live recovery.

  • The user performing the live recovery operation must be an owner of the virtualization client and access node used for the operation.

  • If you want to restore data using a specific MediaAgent and/or copy, review the information in MediaAgent and Copy Precedence Considerations for Virtualization Restores.

Procedure

  1. From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

    The Virtual machines page appears.

  2. Click the VM groups tab.

    The VM group page appears.

  3. On the VM groups tab, in the row for the VM group, click the action button action_button , and then click Restore.

    The Select restore type page appears.

  4. Select Full virtual machine to restore one or more full virtual machines.

    The Restore Options page appears.

  5. To choose a different MediaAgent or source copy for the restore, do the following:

    1. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Settings.

      The Settings dialog box appears.

    2. For MediaAgent, decide whether to have the Commvault software automatically select the MediaAgent or to specify a MediaAgent:

      • Automatic: By default, the Commvault software selects the MediaAgent for the restore operation based on availability and environment.

      • To restore data using a specific MediaAgent, from the list, select a MediaAgent.

    3. For Source, decide whether to have the Commvault software automatically select the copy of backup data or to specify the copy:

      • Automatic: By default, the restore operation searches for the requested data in the primary copy and selects a different copy if the data is not found in the primary copy.

      • To restore from a specific copy of backup data, from the list, select a backup copy.

    4. Click Save.

  6. Select the content that you want to restore, and then click Restore.

    The Restore options dialog box appears.

  7. For Type, select In place.

  8. From the Access node list, select the access node or the access node group to use for the restore.

    If you are restoring multiple VMs, select Automatic to distribute the VMs in the restore job across the access nodes that are assigned for the VMware destination hypervisor.

    VMs are assigned to access nodes using the round-robin method.

    The Automatic option is available for full VM restores from streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies.

    If you select an access node group to restore VMs, the Commvault software distributes the workload (instances or VMs) in the restore job across the access nodes (also called proxies) that are available in the access node group.

  9. To automatically start the restored VM, move the Power on VMs after restore toggle key to the right.

    Lower in the dialog box, when you turn on live recovery, the Power on VMs after restore toggle key is automatically selected, and you cannot clear it.

  10. Under Additional options, specify the following:

    • For Disk provisioning, do the following:

      • To retain the provisioning method that was used at the time of backup, select Original.

      • To specify a different disk provisioning method, select Thick Lazy Zero, Thin, or Thick Eager Zero.

    • For Transport mode, do the following:

      • To have the Commvault software automatically select the best transport mode for the environment, select Auto.

      • To specify a specific transport mode, select the transport mode.

      • Generate new GUID for VMs: To generate a new GUID for the restored VM, move the toggle key to the right.

      • Reuse existing VM client: To redirect the restored VM client to the source VM, move the toggle key to the right. Enabling this option will map all information, such as Client Name, Host Name, and Client id of the VM client to the source VM.

  11. Move the Restore virtual machine using live recovery (vMotion) toggle key to the right, and then configure the datastore and delay restore options:

    • To specify a different datastore for redirect writes, from the Redirect writes to datastore list, select the datastore.

    • To delay the restore, in the Delay migration (in hours) box, enter the number of hours (1-12) for the delay.

      You can use the VM during the delay.

  12. Click Submit.

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