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Once the recovery data disk has been mounted to the VM, utilize the native OS
tools to recover the data. For example, in Windows 2008R2, first open up disk
management. Online the disk and it will assign a drive letter to that disk. After
the drive letter is assigned, browse that drive letter and it will be the version of
the original data drive from the point in time that the Smart Copy was taken.
Copy or move the files or data that need to be recovered inside the VM. If
using a recovery VM move the files back to the original VM via the network or
some other process.
Step 8 - Cleanup
Once the files have been recovered there are some steps that need to be taken
to clean up the environment.
Remove the hard disk that was added by editing the VM settings and removing
it. If the VM or recovery VM does not support hot add/remove the VM will need
to be powered off to remove the hard disk.
Use VSM Datastore Manager to delete all of the clone volumes that were
created during the recovery process. These clones will be listed in the
completed task for the clone. This will ensure proper removal of iSCSI targets
and the deletion of PS Series cloned volumes.
MULTILAYERD DATA PROTECTION APPROACH AND DATA PLACEMENT
Dell EqualLogic PS Series SANs are tightly integrated with vSphere through the
Virtual Storage Manager and with features such as Smart Copies to provide an
additional layer of protection by offering hypervisor-aware snapshots for virtual
machines. These tools and techniques are designed to enhance an
organization’s existing data protection or business continuance strategies and
work in conjunction with other solutions such as traditional backup techniques
as well as the Dell EqualLogic Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition inside
Windows VMs to protect SQL, SharePoint and Exchange data or Auto-Snapshot
Manager/Linux Edition to protect Linux data drives.
Leveraging all of these tools together though requires a new approach to data
protection and data placement. It is worth noting again that the snapshot
within the PS Series SAN is still done at the volume level even if the object in
vCenter is a folder or a subset of VMs. This means that to meet the SLA and
RTO of a particular set of VMs, they should all reside together in the same
protection scheme. During VM deployment another decision needs to be
made. Where does this VM go so that it can have the required protection
options and service level for recovery? As you build out your data protection
scenarios it will be easier to decide which tier a particular VM falls into and then
once these tiers are set up and configured either by folders or datastores, VM
placement will be easier. In addition to meeting SLAs, VM placement will also
have an effect on local PS Series snapshot space. Whenever a VM is moved
using migrate or storage vMotion, the SAN keeps track of this movement as it is