The following is a list of requirements that must be met to perform online
backups. If these requirements are not met, then only offline backups can run
and the guest virtual machine will be unavailable for the duration of the
backup.
Integration services are installed and the backup integration service
has not been disabled.
Integration services on the guest virtual machine must be set to the
same level as the host Hyper-V server.
All disks used by the virtual machine are configured within the guest
operating system as NTFS-formatted basic disks. Virtual machines that use
storage on which the physical partitions have been formatted as dynamic
disks or the FAT32 file system prevent an online backup from being
performed. This is not the same as dynamically expanding virtual hard disks,
which are fully supported by backup and restore operations.
Volume Shadow Copy Service must be enabled for all volumes used by the
virtual machine. Each volume must also serve as the storage location for
shadow copies of the volume.
There are also some forms of storage in Hyper-V guest virtual machines that
are not supported for backup through the Virtual Server Agent.
Physical disks that are directly attached to a virtual machine
Storage accessed from a virtual machine by using an Internet SCSI
(iSCSI) initiator within the guest operating system.
Windows 2008 R2 allows the use of Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV).
Microsoft Hyper-V can be installed as standalone servers or be clustered
utilizing CSVs, that include the Failover Clustering feature. Volumes
that are configured as Cluster Shared Volumes can be accessed by all
nodes of a failover cluster. Each node can open and manage files on the
volumes. Therefore, different nodes can host different virtual machines
that all have files on the same volume. This gives the virtual machine (VM)
complete mobility throughout the cluster as any node can be an owner,
and changing owners is easy. This design has many advantages, including
the following:
Easier storage management: When virtual machines share volumes,
fewer LUNs need to be configured and managed to host the same number
of virtual machines.
Independent failover of virtual machines: Although multiple
virtual machines are sharing the same volume, each virtual machine
can fail over, or be moved or migrated, independently of other
virtual machines.
No drive letter restrictions: Cluster Shared Volumes do not need
to be assigned a drive letter, so you are not restricted by the
number of available drive letters, and you do not have to manage
volumes using GUIDs.
Enhanced availability: The Cluster Shared Volumes feature is
designed to detect and handle many problems that would otherwise
cause the storage to be unavailable to virtual machines. This
includes detecting and handling storage connection problems (Cluster
Shared Volumes reroutes the storage access through another node).
Efficient use of storage: You can make better use of disk space,
because you do not need to place each Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) file
on a separate disk with extra free space set aside just for that VHD
file. Instead, the free space on a Cluster Shared Volume can be used
by any VHD file on that LUN. This reduces the total amount of space
that must be set aside for expansion, and simplifies capacity
planning.
Cluster shared volumes allow multiple Hyper-V hosts
in a cluster to share the same LUN.
The basic concept of CSV can be seen in the graphic.
CSV allows multiple virtual machines that are running
on multiple cluster nodes to access their Virtual Hard Disk files at the
same time, even if the VHD files are on a single disk (LUN) in the storage.
The clustered virtual machines can all fail over independently of one another.
CSV enables Live Migration which allows a live virtual machine to migrate
from one node to another with zero down time.
Disks in a cluster shared volume are placed
into redirected I/O mode during management operating-system based backups.
This can be seen in the diagram.
Once the backup of a virtual machine
has been started on Node 1 it has ownership of the volume and all of the
I/O traffic from the other nodes with virtual machine’s on this volume will
flow through Node 1.
This obviously can cause resource contention and
requires care when scheduling backups.
For parallel backups of all nodes in the cluster, it is
recommended to use multiple cluster shared volumes. Distribute the
virtual machines on these volumes as shown in the diagram.
Backup virtual machines residing on one CSV from one node. Virtual
machines
residing on other cluster shared volumes can be backed up from another
node of the cluster, at the same time.
To catch the Virtual machines that migrate from one node to another, it
is recommended to leave Auto Discovery ON.
While rule-based discovery provides certain levels of granularity
in populating virtual machines to back up, there may be scenarios where an
entire Microsoft Hyper-V Server requires complete protection on a routine
basis. The Automatically add new VMs that do not qualify for membership in
any of the subclients option provides the facility to assign any virtual
machines found during discovery to the default subclient provided the virtual
machine is not already configured in another subclient.
Note, however, that selecting this option overrides any previously configured
regular expressions, or the selection of Do Not Backup
for any virtual machines.
From the CommCell Browser, right-click the backup set and select
Properties.
Select Automatically add
new VMs that do not qualify for membership in
any of the subclients.
You can perform backups using the hardware VSS Provider offered by the
storage vendor. It is recommended to use a hardware VSS Provider as it improves
the performance of backup operations. For Hyper-V clusters, it reduces the time
in which the cluster shared volumes are caught in redirected-access mode.
Follow the steps below to create a registry key which will allow you to use
the vendor's VSS provider:
From the CommCell Browser, navigate to Client Computers.
Right-click the <Client>, and the click Properties.
Certain properties of Agents, Instances, and Subclients can be modified to
accommodate changes to your configuration, data, or desired backup behavior.
It is recommended that that you do not modify the properties of an instance or
subclient when a job is in progress for that specific instance or subclient. If
a job is in progress, either wait for the job to complete or kill the job from the
Job Controller.
The following table describes the properties that can be configured from these levels.
Option
Description
ReLATED TOPICS
Job Results Directory
Ensure that the full path name for the Job Results Directory, combined
with the VMDK file name, is no
greater than 255 characters in length.
From the CommCell Browser, right-click the icon of the client
computer whose job results path you want to change, then click
Properties.
From the Job Configuration tab of the Client Computer
Properties dialog box, click User Name/Password to
establish or change the Impersonate User account to access the Job
Results Directory. Click OK once you have administered the
account.
From the Job Configuration tab, type a new job results
path in the Job results path field.
You can also click Browse to browse to a new job results path
from the Browse for Job Result Path dialog box. Click OK.
From the CommCell Browser, right-click thesubclient.
Click
Properties.
Type the new name in the Subclient name field.
Click OK.
Data Transfer Options
You can efficiently configure the available resources for transferring data secured
by data protection operations from the subclient level. This includes the following:
Enable or disable Data Compression either on the client or the MediaAgent.
Configure the transfer of data in the network using the options for Network
Bandwidth Throttling and Network Agents.
You can configure the data transfer options.
From the CommCell Browser,right-click the subclient.
Click Properties.
Click Storage Device.
Click Data Transfer Option tab.
Choose the appropriate software compression option for this subclient.
Select Throttle Network Bandwidth and set the required bandwidth.
You can view the data paths associated with the primary
storage policy copy of the selected storage policy or incremental storage
policy. You can also modify the data paths including their priority from
the subclient level.
From the CommCell browser, right-click the subclient.
Click Properties.
Click Storage Device.
Select Storage Policy from the drop-down menu.
Click Data Paths.
Number of Data Readers
Use this option to specify the number of
simultaneous backup data streams allowed for this subclient.
From the CommCell browser, right-click the subclient.
Configure a Subclient for Pre/Post Processing of Data
Protection
You can add, modify or view Pre/Post processes for the
subclient. These are batch files or shell scripts that you can run before
or after certain job phases.
From the CommCell browser, right-click the subclient.
Click Properties.
Click Pre/Post Process.
Click one of the following phases and type the full path of the
process that you want to execute during that phase. Alternatively, click
Browse to locate the process (applicable only for paths that
do not contain any spaces).
PreBackup Process
PostBackup Process
Click OK.
Select Run Post Scan Process for all attempts to run a
post scan process for all attempts .
Select Run Post Backup Process for all attempts to run a
post backup process for all attempts.
For subclients on Windows platforms, Run As displays
Not Selected.
If you want to change the account that has permission
to run these commands, click Change.
In the User Account dialog box, select Use Local System
Account, or select Impersonate User and enter the user
name and password. Click OK.
If you selected Local System Account, click OK to the
message advising you that commands using this account have rights
to access all data on the client computer.
You can configure user security from the agent or subclient
level.
You can perform the following functions:
Identify the user groups to which this CommCell object is associated.
Associate this object with a user group.
Disassociate this object from a user group.
From the CommCell browser, right-click the subclient.
Click Properties.
Click Security.
Select the appropriate user groups to
which you want to associate to the CommCell object from the Available
Groups pane, and then move the user group to the Associated Groups
pane.
The Version tab, at the Agent level displays the
software version and post-release service packs and updates installed for
the component.
From the CommCell browser, right-click the agent.
Click Properties.
Click Version.
Click OK.
CommCell Configuration Report
The CommCell Configuration Report provides the properties of the
CommServe, MediaAgents, clients, agents, subclients, and
storage policies within the CommCell based on the selected filter
criteria.
The following sections describe the steps involved in deleting an instance, backup
set, or subclient.
When you delete an instance or backupset,
the associated data is logically deleted and you can no longer access the
corresponding data from CommCell Console for recovery purposes.
Consider the following before deleting an instance:
When you delete a specific instance all job schedules and job histories
that pertain to any of the levels within the deleted instance are deleted.
You cannot delete an instance if it is being backed up. Attempts to
delete an instance under such conditions cause the deletion to fail. If a
backup is in progress, either wait for the backup to complete or kill the
backup job using the Job Manager. Once the backup is no longer in progress,
you can delete the instance level.
You cannot delete an instance if there is only one instance present for
an agent. To delete the final instance, you must remove the agent
software from the client computer.
From the CommCell Browser, right-click the instance that you want to
delete, click All Tasks and then click Delete.
Click Yes to confirm the deletion. (Clicking No cancels
the deletion and retains the node.)
Type the requested phrase in the Enter Confirmation Text dialog
box and click OK. This should delete the instance.
