White Papers

RECOVERING WITH SMARTCOPIES

The reasons for to recover virtual machines can be many; bad patch or

software build, corrupt file or virtual machine, or even a file that was deleted by

accident. Creating Smart Copies on a standard schedule adds additional

recovery points of the virtual environment to a traditional backup schedule in

case data needs to be restored. By utilizing the Smart Copies in addition to the

traditional backup schemes, administrators gain a shorter recovery time

objective. Instead of deploying a new virtual machine, patching it, installing the

applications and backup agent, and then recovering data from the previous

known good backup with the resulting loss of many hours or even days’ worth

of work, Smart Copies can be utilized to rapidly roll a virtual machine back to a

good point-in-time and work can continue with minimal disruption.

To launch the Smart Copy recovery wizard click on the Smart Copies button in

the VSM main UI page.

In the left pane you will see all of the Smart Copies that have been created

broken down by object. Click a Smart Copy object and then the Smart Copies

tab on the right to display all of the available Smart Copies of that object.

For more information, click on a Smart Copy in the left pane. In the bottom

pane there are four tabs each with additional information about the selected

Smart Copy.

Virtual inventory - A list of VMware inventory objects that are part of the

Smart Copy as well as the datastores they reside on.

Virtual Machines - A list of the VMs included, whether a VM snapshot was

taken, and if it included a memory dump, and finally if the VM was

quiesced.

PS Series Snapshots - A list of the PS Series snapshots and PS Series

groups that were part of the Smart Copy.

Smart Copy details - A summary of details such as, the schedule that

created the Smart Copy, the number of virtual machines, and snapshots

contained in the Smart Copy

Select the Smart Copy and either click the Actions dropdown or right click on

the Smart Copy to be recovered and select Restore from Smart Copy.