Enabling Validation for a VM Group

For an existing VM group, you can enable backup validation.

Before You Begin

To validate backups, perform the following setup:

• To mount VMs to a recovery target, create a recovery target. To mount all of the VMs in the VM group as a virtual lab, specify the Virtual lab options for the recovery target.

• To use your own script for validation, copy the script to a location that can be accessed from the access node using a UNC network path.

The following options are not supported from a snapshot copy, but these options are supported when primary or secondary copies are used as the source in an application validation configuration:

• recovery targets

• keeping the validated virtual machines running

• maximum number of threads

• custom validation scripts

• Guest credentials

Procedure

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

   The Virtual machines page appears.

2. Click the VM groups tab.

   The VM group page appears. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.

3. Click a VM group.

   The VM group properties page appears.

4. Click the Configuration tab.

5. To enable validation for virtual machines that run applications, perform the following steps:

   1. In the Backup validation section, turn on the Validate VM Backups option.

      The Configure backup validation dialog box appears.

   2. The Source section appears only for IntelliSnap enabled VMware VM groups. A user can select the snapshot copy ,the Primary copy, or another copy for Application Validation. Choose one of the following options for validation:

      • If the Use source VM ESX to mount option is enabled, backups are mounted on the ESX host where the source VM resides.

        Note

        Only administrators can use this option. Non-admin users must use a recovery target to perform backup validation.

      • If the Use source VM ESX to mount option is disabled, a recovery target is used to validate backups.

        If you are using a recovery target to validate backups, provide the following:

        From the Recovery target list, select the recovery target that can be used to mount VMs for validation, or click Create new to create a new recovery target.

        To retain the live mounted VMs on the recovery target after validation, select Keep the validated virtual machines running after the validation job completes. The VMs are retained using the network options that were specified for the recovery target.

   3. Optional: To modify the default schedule for backups and validation, under Backup validation schedule, click the schedule and then make any required changes.

   4. Optional: To supply your own validation script, for the Custom validation script option, click Add, and then provide the following information:

      • Path: Provide the script path that is present inside the guest VM. You must include the script file name in the path.

      • Optional: For Script arguments, enter any additional arguments that should be used when executing the script.

      Logs for the script execution are created in the folder identified by the provided script. The log files are named by combining the script name with other parameters, such as the VM name. The script returns an exit code of 0 after successful script execution, and returns a nonzero exit code with additional details if the script failed.Optional: To run the default scripts to validate applications inside guest VMs, in the Guest credentials section, choose one of the following options:

      • Select Enter credentials, and then specify the username and password for a user account that can be used to start and run the application on the guest VMs.

      • Select Use saved credentials, and then select the saved credentials or click Create new to create new saved credentials.

        Note

        If you are executing a custom validation script, you must enter your guest credentials.

   5. Click Save.

6. Click Save.