Back Up Virtual Machines on Microsoft Virtual Server

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Required Capability: See Capabilities and Permitted Actions

To back up virtual machines on Microsoft Virtual Server using the Windows File System iDataAgent:

  1. Obtain the VSBackupUtil.exe utility from the Resource Pack, and copy it to the virtual server. (See Tools and Utilities for more information on the Resource Pack.) If copying to a directory other then the ../<software installation path>/Base directory, also copy the stlport.5.0.dll from the Base directory.
  2. Create a new subclient that contains the virtual machine configuration folder as content.
  3. Click the Use VSS checkbox to back up data using VSS.
  4. In the ../<software installation path>/Base directory of the virtual server, create a pre-snap batch file for the subclient with the name <subclientname>_presnap.bat. The batch file must call VSBackupUtil.exe with the following option:

    Volume:\<virtual_machine_location>\VSBackupUtil\VSBackupUtil.exe -o quiesce -st vs2005\exit 0

  5. In the ../<software installation path>/Base folder, create a post-snap batch file for the subclient with the name <subclientname>_postsnap.bat. The batch file must call VSBackupUtil.exe with the following option:

    Volume:\<virtual_machine_location>\VSBackupUtil\VSBackupUtil.exe -o unquiesce -st vs2005\exit 0

  6. Back up the subclient.

If you want to back up individual virtual machines in the virtual machine configuration directory, you can specify them in the pre- and post- scripts with the -vs parameter. To do so, you must enter the name of the virtual machine as it appears in the Microsoft Virtual Server console. For example:

Volume:\\VSBackupUtil\VSBackupUtil.exe -o quiesce -st vs2005 -vs <virtual_server_name> exit 0