In a previous articles I discussed the installation and general configuration of the BDRSuite 5.6.0.2.
In this step-by-step, I will walk you through the process of the configuration, backup and recovery for VMware Virtual Machines of BDRSuite
Step 1: Logging on the the BDRSuite Webpage
Log in to BDRSuite console: http://<fqdn_BDRSuite_Backup_Server>:6060 with the credentials supplied during the installation
Step 2: Add the vCenter Server(s) or ESXi host(s) as data sources
On the top left corner, go to Data Sources ==> Add VMware vSphere ==> ESXi & vCenter
Click “Add ESXi/vCenter Server”
Enter the following details:
- ESXi Server name or IP Address
- Select your credentials from the drop-down list (or add new credentials)
- Port Number (default is 443)
Click SAVE
Your vCenter Server (or ESXi host) will be added to the list of configured data sources
Step 3: Create a backup job
On the top left corner, go to Backup ==> Configure Backup ==> VMware vSphere
Fill out the backup job details by entering the following details:
- Job creation Option
- Create a job without using a template
- Create a job using an existing template
- Backup Job name
- Backup Repository
- Block Storage
- Object Storage
- Select the Repository Name from the dropdown list (or create e new backup repository)
- Job descriptioN
Click “Next: Select Hosts/VMs to backup”
On the left hand-side you are presented with your vCenter server(s), datacenters, ESXi hosts, VMs. Select the VMs you want to backup (they will appear in the right-hand side)
Click “Next: Exclusions”
You are presented with the list of VMs you choose to backup. For each VM you can click on the “Action” button to choose whether you want to exclude certain disks from the backup
Choose the disks you want to exclude and click “APPLY”
Click “Next: Guest Processing”
With “Guest processing” you can enable application aware settings for individual VMs or for all Hosts/VMs:
- Application aware processing
- to quiesce the application using MS VSS before taking a snapshot for application-consistent backup
- Log truncation
- to truncate MSExchange and MSSQL transaction logs after successful backup
- Oracle
- Archive logs processing
- Oracle instance credentials
- File exclusions
- to exclude pagefile.sys and hyperfil.sys
Click “Next: Guest credentials”
Select each VM in the list of VMs to be backed-up, click “Apply credential” and supply the credentials to be used to backup the VM
Click “Next: VMware Quiesing”
Enable of disable VMware Quiescing for all VMs or per individual VM
Guest processing and VMware Quiescing should be enabled if you require application consistency for your backups. If you disable VMware quiescing for any of the VMs, then successful application processing cannot be guaranteed.
Select “Next: Schedule”
Define the backup schedule
Define if you want to enable “Synthetic Full Backup” and what the schedule should be.
A synthetic full backup is created by merging full and subsequent incrementals in the backup repository itself without running an additional full backup
Select “Next: Settings”
Define your desired retention settings
Click “Next: Encryption”
Define your desired encryption settings
Click “Next: Advanced settings”
Define your backup proxy if you have one
Click “Next: Review”
Review all the defined settings
If you want to run the backup job immediately after saving the job details select the option “Run this backup job immediately after saving”
Click “SAVE”
Click SAVE to confirm to save the backup job
The backup job will be listed in the list of all defined backup jobs
Once the backup job starts you will see that the status changes to “In Progress”
Once the backup job is finished you can click on the backup job report button next to the backup job to see the details of the backup
Step 4: recovery process
As with the backup process, the recovery process is very simple and straightforward.
On the top left corner, go to Recovery ==> Restore Backup Data
Click on the “Restore” button
On the left-hand side choose the VM you want to restore from
On the right-hand side choose the restore type:
- Instant Boot VM
- Instantly boot backup images in seconds or minutes as ready-state VMs for production us
- Full VM Recovery
- Restore the entire backed-up VM directly to any target ESXi host
- Disk Mount
- Mounts the backup disk on the Disk management service of the BDRSuite backup server through the BDRSuite Virtual Drive
- Disk Level Recovery
- Restore individual disks and attach them directly to target VMs in an ESXI host
- Download VMs & Disks
- Download backup images to any location in any of the following disk formats: VHD, VMDK, VHDX, flat-VMDK and RAW
- Recovery to Microsoft Azure
- Recover the entire VM as an Azure VM to any target Microsoft Azure Account
- Microsoft Exchange Server Recovery
- Recover mailboxes, Folder/Emails from Exchange server without restoring the full image
- Microsoft SQL Server Recovery
- Recover table schemas and data from Microsoft SQL Server without restoring the full image
- Microsoft Active Directory Recovery
- Recover containers/objects from Active Directory without restoring the full image
- Microsoft SharePoint Recovery
- Recover Site/content from Microsoft SharePoint without restoring the full image
- File Level Recovery
- Instantly recover required files/folders without restoring the full image
Click “Next: Restore Version”
Choose the required Restore Point
Click “Next: Restore Options”
Select the folders/files you want to restore
Select the Restore location (is a local folder on your backup server)
Select whether you want to compress and encrypt the data
Click “Next: Review & Restore”
Click “Restore”
Click “OK, Proceed”
Wait until the restore process is finalized (See the “Status” column)
In the reports selection you can see the result of the restore
This concluded the configuration, backup and recovery steps to perform to VMware Virtual Machine backups using BDRSuite.