Attaching a Disk to an Existing VMware Virtual Machine

You can perform a restore operation from a VMware VM backup and attach a disk to an existing VM.

Prerequisites

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

Procedure

Select the Disk to Restore

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

   The Overview page appears.

2. On the VM groups tab, in the row for the VM group that contains the VM, click the action button , and then click Restore.

   The Select restore type page appears.

3. Select Attach disk to VM to restore individual VMDK files and attach VMDKs.

   The VMs page appears.

4. To select a specific MediaAgent and/or source for the restore, in the upper-right area of the page, click the Change source button.

   The Change source dialog box appears.

   • Restore from copy: With the default value of Automatic, the software searches for the requested data in the primary copy. If the data is not found in the primary copy, the software selects a secondary or auxiliary copy.

   • MediaAgent: With the default value of Automatic, software attempts to use the MediaAgent that performed the backup.

   For more information, see MediaAgent and Copy Precedence Considerations for Virtualization Restores.

5. Select the disk to restore.

6. Click Restore.

   The Restore options dialog box appears.

Select the Hypervisor and VM to Restore the Disk To (Admin Users Only)

The following steps are performed on the Other Virtual Machine tab, which appears only for admin users—not for end users.

1. To restore to a VM on a different hypervisor, select the hypervisor name from the Destination hypervisor list.

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

   If you select Automatic, the Commvault software performs the restore operation using the most suitable access node from the VMware destination hypervisor.

   If you select an access node group, the Commvault software performs the restore operation using the most suitable access node that is available in the access node group.

   For access node selection, the Commvault software checks through the same host and the same datastore. If no host or datastore match is found, then any of the available access nodes from the selected destination hypervisor or access node group is used.

3. To select a destination VM, click Browse and select the virtual machine to which the restored disk should be attached.

4. To delete an existing virtual disk file and replace it with the restored file, select Overwrite if it already exists.

5. For Disk Provisioning, use the default value (Original) to retain the provisioning method used at the time of backup. Select a value from the Disk Provisioning list to force a specific disk provisioning method: Thick Lazy Zero, Thin, or Thick Eager Zero.

6. For Transport mode for VMware, select one of the following options:

   • Auto: The transport mode is selected automatically based on the backup environment as follows:

     • If the datastore is accessible to a physical proxy, SAN is used.

     • If the datastore is accessible to the ESX server for a virtual proxy, HotAdd is used.

     • Otherwise, NBD is used.

   • SAN: For directly connected storage using Fibre Channel (FC) or Internet SCCI (iSCSI) protocols. The Virtual Server Agent must have access to the datastore LUNs (logical drives) that provide storage for virtual machine disks. Data is read directly from the storage where virtual machines reside, without going through the ESX host or transferring data over the local area network (LAN). The ESX host is contacted only to coordinate access to the LUN. SAN transport mode cannot be used if the proxy computer is a virtual machine.

   • HotAdd: The Virtual Server Agent is installed on a virtual machine residing on an ESX server. In HotAdd mode, the data volumes containing the virtual machines to be backed up are automatically mounted to the proxy, so they can be accessed by the proxy as a local disk. The ESX host the proxy is running on must have access to all datastores for the virtual machine. If the virtual machine and the proxy are not on the same host, all datastores must be shared between the hosts.

   • NBD: Data is transferred using the TCP/IP connection between the ESX server and the proxy computer. The local area network (LAN) can be the production network or a dedicated backup network.

   • NBD SSL: Similar to NBD mode, but data transfer between the proxy computer and the ESX server is encrypted. Encryption should be used for sensitive information, even within a private network.

   • NAS: NAS (network attached storage) transport mode enables the virtual server agent (VSA) proxy computer to read data directly from the network file server (NFS), without going through an ESX host or transferring data over the local area network (LAN).

7. To use a different datastore for the restored VM disk, select the new datastore from the Datastore list.

8. Click Submit to run the restore job.

Select the VM to Restore the Disk To

The following steps are performed on the My virtual machine tab, which appears for both admin users and end users.

1. From the Select destination VM list, select the VM to attach the disk to.

2. For Disk name, you can enter a different name for the restored disk.

   If you do not enter a new disk name, a unique disk name is created automatically including a time stamp.

3. Select the Unconditionally overwrite if it already exists toggle to overwrite an existing disk.

4. If you do not want to receive an email when the backup job completes, unselect the When the job completes, notify me via email checkbox.

5. Click Submit to run the restore job.