VMware Cloud on Dell EMC

Updated

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, 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.