User Guide
Copyright Statement Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2013. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore”, “Acronis Instant Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis vmProtect 8 ............................................................................................7 2 Acronis vmProtect 8 Overview ...............................................................................................8 2.1 3 Acronis vmProtect 8 Features ...................................................................................................8 How Acronis vmProtect 8 Works ..................................................................
7.5.6 7.5.7 7.6 8 Notifications................................................................................................................................................... 42 Additional Settings ........................................................................................................................................ 44 Managing created backup task ................................................................................................45 Replication ..........................
14.2 ESXi host configuration recovery .............................................................................................82 15 Managing Tasks ................................................................................................................... 85 15.1 Running a task..........................................................................................................................85 15.2 Cancelling a task ........................................................................
18 Best Practices .................................................................................................................... 113 18.1 Backing up virtual machines to a network share ...................................................................113 18.2 Restoring a backup of a virtual machine to a new location ..................................................113 18.3 File/folders recovery ........................................................................................................
1 Introducing Acronis vmProtect 8 Acronis believes that virtualization and transition to the cloud are not only a better way of doing computing, but also allow for achieving less downtimes and faster recoveries while reducing costs. Unfortunately, most of backup and recovery solutions are designed for physical systems and are either not good enough for virtual environments or do not allow for all of the benefits and savings that virtualization could potentially give.
2 Acronis vmProtect 8 Overview Acronis vmProtect 8 is a comprehensive backup and recovery solution designed for VMware vSphere™ environments. It enables organizations to perform an agent-less backup of entire ESX(i) virtual machines with the ability to recover entire machines or individual files and folders. 2.
3 How Acronis vmProtect 8 Works 3.1 Virtual machines backup and restore As with a physical machine, your virtual machine (or several VMs as a whole virtual infrastructure) should also be protected. Once you have installed Acronis vmProtect 8 agent, you can: Back up a virtual machine or multiple virtual machines residing on the server without having to install additional software on each virtual machine.
3.2.2 Single file backup scheme (Always Incremental mode) Usually, backups are kept only for a certain time period (retention time) or there is a policy to keep only the last X backups in the backup chain. Backup archives are managed on a daily, weekly, etc. basis. The main limitation of the Legacy mode backup archive is that you cannot delete a random backup from the backup chain since it may have dependencies on it from subsequent backups. This is where Always Incremental backup archive can help.
4 Installation of Acronis vmProtect 8 4.1 Requirements 4.1.1 Supported operating systems Acronis vmProtect 8 supports the following operating systems: Windows XP Professional SP2 (x64), SP3 (x86). Windows Vista - all editions (x86, x64). Windows Server 2003/2003 R2 - the Standard, Enterprise, Small Business Server editions (x86, x64). Windows 7 - all editions (x86, x64). Windows 8. Windows Server 2008 - the Standard, Enterprise, Foundation editions (x86, x64).
VMware vSphere Essentials (Hot-add backup mode is supported on vSphere 5.0+ only). VMware vSphere Essentials Plus (Hot-add backup mode is supported on vSphere 5.0+ only). VMware vSphere Hypervisor (Free ESXi) is NOT supported. ESX(i) version 4.0 environment is supported with exceptions, for example, Exchange Server Backup Extraction (p. 63) and ESXi configuration backup (p. 78) features are not supported. Acronis vmProtect 8 Exchange Server Backup Extraction (p.
Right click the virtual machine and select Guest->Install/Upgrade VMware Tools. Follow the onscreen instructions. Note that the Run VM from backup feature requires VMkernel networking to be configured on the ESX(i) server. This can be done in vSphere client by going to Configuration->Networking and adding VMkernel connection type to the vSwitch properties. 4.1.
Add or remove device + Change CPU count + Memory + Remove disk + + Rename + + + Settings Virtual machine -> Interaction + + Configure CD media + Console interaction + Power off + + + + + + + Create new + + + Remove + + + + + Power on Virtual machine -> Inventory Create from existing Virtual machine -> Provisioning Allow disk access Virtual machine -> State Create snapshot Remove snapshot 14 + + + + + + + + Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2012
The roles privileges can be configured via the vSphere Client connected to a ESX(i) host/vCenter from Administration->Roles. After that you can assign the specific user for connection to vCenter with particular role from Permissions tab, as shown in the pictures below.
4.2 Installation options The very first thing you have to do is to install Acronis vmProtect 8 software, configure your ESX(i) host connection settings and set up your access credentials to Acronis vmProtect 8 web console. When you run your Acronis vmProtect 8 installation package, the installation menu appears. Acronis vmProtect 8 has three main installation options: Install Acronis vmProtect 8 as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) host. Install Acronis vmProtect 8 as Windows Agent.
4.2.1 Installing Acronis vmProtect 8 as Virtual Appliance on an ESX(i) host Acronis vmProtect 8 software could be installed directly on an ESX(i) host. The process of remote installation of Acronis vmProtect 8 Virtual Appliance to an ESX(i) host is called deployment. The software for running all necessary Acronis services will be installed on a separate small virtual machine under a specially customized OS (small Linux distribution). 1.
NOTE: it is highly recommended to change the password after first login at Configure->Agent Password page (for more information refer to Managing Agent Password section (p. 112)). With default credentials the login is performed automatically. If you've changed the Agent Password configuration, then you'll get the default login screen upon connection to the Web Console.
The diagram below illustrates a LAN-based and a LAN-free backup. LAN-free access to virtual machines is available if you have a fibre channel (FC) or iSCSI Storage Area Network. To completely eliminate transferring the backed up data via LAN, store the backups on a local disk of the agent's machine or on a SAN attached storage. Acronis vmProtect 8 Windows Agent can be installed on any machine that runs Windows and meets the system requirements.
in a new folder name or selecting it by browsing. If the folder does not exist, it will be automatically created in the process of installation. The Disk usage button shows the available disk space for the different volumes on your PC and helps you to choose the target disk for installation. If there is not enough free space on the selected volume, you’ll be prompted to free up the required space or select another volume. Upon specifying the desired destination, click Next. 4.
Close the dialog when the extraction process is completed. 4.2.4 Configuring ESX(i) host connection settings For detailed information on setting and configuring your ESX(i) host connection credentials, please refer to Managing ESX(i) hosts (p. 106) section. 4.2.5 Using a locally attached storage You can attach an additional disk to an Agent for ESX(i) (Virtual Appliance) so the agent can back up to this locally attached storage.
5 Getting started Once you installed the Acronis vmProtect 8 or deployed your Acronis vmProtect 8 Virtual Appliance, you can run the Acronis vmProtect 8 Web Console. The Web Console will be opened in the default Internet browser. Note that the Acronis vmProtect 8 web server (installed on the Agent side) which provides the user interface uses self-signed certificates.
First of all, to be able to perform the first backup task of a Virtual Machines, you have to go to the ESX(i) Host section (p. 106) and specify the IP address / hostname and credentials for the vCenter or individual ESX(i) host where these machines are running. Setting up an ESX(i) host will not bind the licenses to it automatically. Therefore, you have to follow to the Licenses page (p. 103) to set up your licenses.
Virtual Machines The Virtual Machines section shows the hosts and clusters (vCenter) names and gives the total number of VMs running on the managed ESX(i) host(s) as well as the number of mounted virtual machines (see the Mounted VMs (p. 98) section). Locations The Locations section shows the total statistics for your backup locations status. It shows the Total backups number, information about the Occupied space, space Occupied by others, and Free space (both in megabytes/gigabytes and percentages).
d. Extract Exchange task This is the Exchange Recovery button which runs the Extract Exchange Server Items wizard. The wizard settings are described in the "Exchange Server Backup Extration" section (p. 63). e. Run VM from backup task This is the Run VM from backup button which activates the run VM from backup task wizard. The wizard settings are described in the "Running VM from backup" section (p. 69). f. File recovery task This is the File Recovery button which runs the files recovery wizard.
3) Configure tab The third Configure tab contains the basic tools for Acronis vmProtect 8 configuration and allows you to specify the default settings for the basic backup/restore operations as well as other settings. a. ESX(i) Hosts This is the link to the ESX(i) hosts management page. Managing ESX(i) hosts is described in the "Managing ESX(i) hosts" section (p. 106). b. Licenses This is the link to the Licenses management page. Managing licenses is described in the "Managing licenses" section (p. 103).
5.2.2 Logout link In the top right corner of Acronis vmProtect 8 you can see your current user name and the Logout button to exit the program or reenter it with another user name.
6 vCenter Integration The main tool for managing the vSphere virtual infrastructure is the VMware vSphere client. Although the VMware vSphere client does not provide native backup/restore functionality, it's not always convenient to run another tool to manage these important operations. Acronis vmProtect 8 introduces vCenter integration which allows for basic backup and restore functionality directly from the VMware vSphere client without having to run Acronis vmProtect 8 Web interface.
Select any Virtual Machine, vApp/Resource Pool or ESX(i) host/Cluster in the VMware vSphere tree list. Right-click on the selected item to open the context menu. The context menu contains the Acronis vmProtect 8 Backup and Acronis vmProtect 8 Restore options. Choosing one of these options results in opening the Acronis pop-up and activating the backup/restore wizard which will help you create the backup/restore task and implement it right away.
vCenter Integration, New Restore Task, step 1 Note that it's not possible to operate with folders in the VMs and Templates view of vSphere client. In this case you will get Acronis context menu items only for Virtual Machines. Note that vCenter integration is managed by a particular vmProtect 8 Agent. Therefore if the Agent is inaccessible from vCenter side, the functionality available from context menus will not work properly.
7 Creating a Backup of Virtual Machines Click Create Backup Task in the dashboard’s Quick start or Backup in the Actions tab of the main menu to create a new backup task. The New Backup Task wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and make all necessary settings for the new create backup task. The wizard consists of the four consecutive steps which appear in the same area: Select VM(s) to backup. When to backup. Where to backup. How to backup.
New Backup Task wizard, Step 1 “Select VM(s) to back up” You can back up dynamic groups of the machines by selecting the upper level unit (e.g. ESX(i) host or VMs folder) in the tree and moving it to the right list with the same > button. As a result, all the machines running within this group will be automatically included in the backup list. Moreover, any new machines created in this group will be backed up automatically by the current backup task.
Set your scheduling of how often to back up the data. Acronis vmProtect 8 allows for weekly scheduling and functions in Windows and Linux operating systems. In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows: Every: <...> week(s) on: <...>. Specify a certain number of weeks and the days of the week you want the task to be run. For example, with the Every 2 week(s) on Mon setting, the task will be performed on Monday of every other week. In the During the day execute the task...
New Backup Task wizard, Step 3 “Where to back up” The Archive name field shows the name of the archive selected in the Browse pop-up. The left side of the Browse pop-up shows the list of: Online backup storages. Recent Locations. Local folders. Network folders. FTP servers. SFTP servers. If your vmProtect 8 Agent has no licenses added, the only possible choice for a backup destination is Acronis Online Backup Storage.
Instead of browsing for the location in the tree, you can manually enter the path in the corresponding Location field below and click on the Go button to explore this location. In this case, you will see the same authentication dialogue in the right pane where you are asked to enter your login and password. Enter your archive name value in the corresponding Archive name field below. Note that it is not recommended to have more than one backup task writing data to the same archive.
Create Backup wizard, Step 3 “Where to back up”, Simple cleanup scheme, delete the outdated backups The second option allows you to clean up the archive if the number of backups exceeds <…>. Again, if you set this number at 1, then for the Always Incremental archive mode there will be a synthetic full backup created, i.e. an incremental backup which will remove the unnecessary old recovery point contents after the backup is finished.
Create Backup wizard, Step 3 “Where to back up”, GFS cleanup scheme Note that retention rules are applied only before the backup task execution. The reason for this is that with the Always Incremental archive there is no need to remove recovery points after the backup because it does not free disk space. If after performing the backup there are new excessive recovery points which have to be deleted according to the set up retention rules, they will be removed only before next backup.
Select Copy the backup to a second location check box. The following settings allow you to configure the backup copying options. Select the second location where you would also like to store your backups and the archive name. Click Browse and select from the available list of locations. From the When to copy drop down list select if you would like to copy the backup to the second location immediately after each backup is created.
3. Install a small (10Mb) "Exchange Backup Agent" inside the VM. For that: run Acronis vmProtect 8 installation package, choose Extract Components option from the menu, extract Exchange Backup Agent .msi component and install the Agent onto the Exchange server where UAC is enabled. Then, you can employ any domain user with domain administrator privileges independently from UAC state.
7.5 Options Clicking on the More options in the last step of the New Backup Task wizard opens up a pop-up with the settings. If no changes were made to the settings, they will retain their respective default values for your current backup task. Note that if later on you change certain settings and save them as default, it will not affect the tasks created with the default settings (they will retain the settings which were default at the moment of the task creation).
To exclude a folder specified by a path containing the drive letter, add a backslash (“\”) to the folder name in the criterion, for example: C:\Finance\. For example, you can set the Source files exclusion to Exclude files matching the following criteria: *.tmp, *.~, *.bak 7.5.3 Compression Level The Compression level option defines the level of compression applied to the data being backed up. The default setting for this option is Normal.
instructions on how to recover data from backup archive in case of system failure. The Disaster Recovery Plan can be sent by e-mail to specified users or saved to specific location/folder. Disaster Recovery Plan is generated by Acronis Agent and sent after the first backup. A new Disaster Recovery Plan is sent if the backup task is modified or if there are significant changes to the backup contents. The default value for the Disaster Recovery Plan parameter is “Disabled”.
Indicate the desired Subject for your notification messages. SMTP server – enter the name of the outgoing mail SMTP server. Port – set the port of the SMTP server (the default port value is set to 25). User name – enter your username. Password – enter your password. From – type the e-mail address of the user from whom the message will be sent. If you leave this field empty, messages will be sent as if they are from the destination address.
Example of varbind values: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0:Information 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0:I0064000B Supported operations Acronis vmProtect 8 supports only TRAP operations. It is not possible to manage Acronis vmProtect 8 using GET- and SET- requests. This means that you need to use an SNMP Trap receiver to receive TRAP-messages. More information http://kb.acronis.
Enable this option if your FTP server supports active mode and you want this mode to be used for file transfers. After you finished with all the settings, click OK to close the pop-up and apply them for the current backup task only. 7.6 Managing created backup task When editing an existing backup task you will see all the sections (steps) of the backup wizard you completed while creating your backup task. All four steps of the wizard will appear on the screen at once.
8 Replication 8.1 New Replication Task The replication feature provides you with the ability to clone your critical VMs and to be able to start your critical service fast in case of failure. To run the New Replication Task, click Actions->Replication. 8.1.1 Select VM(s) for Replication In the first step of the New Replication Task wizard you should select the virtual machine(s) you want to replicate.
You can back up dynamic groups of the machines by selecting the upper level unit (e.g. ESX(i) host or VMs folder) in the tree and moving it to the right list with the same > button. As a result, all the machines running within this group will be automatically included in the backup list. Moreover, any new machines created in this group will be replicated automatically by the current replication task. You have to select at least one VM for replication.
8.1.3 Select location and datastore for replica In the third step of the New Replication Task wizard you should define the location and datastore for VM replicas. Here, you have to first define the ESX(i) Host by selecting one from the drop-down list. Then, select the Resource Pool on the destination ESX(i) Host and destination datastore. New Replication Task, step 3 "Select location and datastore for replica" Define the Replica name's Suffix to be used when creating the VM replica.
3) CBT replication. This option in the Additional settings section defines whether to utilize the Changed Block Tracking (CBT) feature of VMware for the virtual machines supporting it. The default setting for CBT replication is: Enabled. CBT replication keeps track of all the changed blocks inside the virtual machine. This significantly reduces the time for replication. The time is reduced because Acronis vmProtect 8 does not need to check which blocks have changed since the last backup.
Replicated VM Manager On the Replica Info tab you can see the summary information on the selected replica: ESX(i) Host information. Datastore information. Resource Pool where original VM is stored. Here, you can also perform the basic operations - Failover and Failback from replica. The following sections describe these basic operations in detail. 8.2.2 Failover If a replicated virtual machines crashes, you can start it quickly by running replica VM (Failover).
Failover 8.2.3 Failback VM from Replica The failback operation (restoring a VM from replica) allows you to restore your original VM by using the replica VM. This operation can also be used if you decide to stop the replica VM after the Failover operation is started and save the changes to the original or new location. Click Failback from Replica to start the wizard.
Failback from Replica, step 1 "Select Replica(s) to failback from" In the second step, Where to failback VM(s) from replica, select the VM(s) location. You can select the original location and choose to overwrite the original VM(s) or generate new names for the restored VM(s). You can also select a new location. Upon selecting the location, click Next.
Failback from Replica, step 2 "Where to failback VM(s) from replica" In the third step, How to failback, select the restore task options. In the VM power management block, select the check boxes for Power off target VMs when starting failback and Power on target VMs when failback is finished and other options. Define the task name.
Failback from Replica, step 3 "How to failback" When you click on the Save button, all your task parameters will be saved. In the Tasks view, you will be able to see the failback from replica task which you have created. Clicking on the Save & Run button will save the task and run it right away. In case replica VM is running, the Failback VM from replica task is restoring the original VM without stopping the replica VM. Only when the failback is finished, the replica VM is stopped.
9 Restoring a Backup of Virtual Machines Click on the Restore button in the Actions tab of the main menu to restore one or several backed up virtual machines. The New Restore Task wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and configure the necessary settings for the new restore task. The wizard consists of the three consecutive steps which appear in the same area: Select VM(s) to restore. Where to restore. How to restore.
Note that if you select an archive which contains an image of a physical machine (when you need to perform “physical to virtual” or P2V migration), there will be no other options provided at this step, because such archives have a single recovery point inside. If the selected location contains any password-protected archives or archives of physical machines, they are shown in the separate list under the Encrypted and Physical machines Data.
New Restore Task wizard, Step 2 “Where to restore” First of all, with the Select location drop-down list you should define the desired destination for your restore task. Please choose if you want to restore the selected virtual machine(s) to their original location or to a different ESX(i) host or datastore. The list shows only those ESX(i) hosts which are managed by Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent. If the ESX(i) host you need is not in this list, then make sure it is added in the Configure->ESX(i) hosts view.
Once the ESX(i) host is defined, the list of available resource pools and datastores is build up automatically where you can define the exact location for the restored virtual machine(s). You should also define the format of the restored virtual drives, As in original VM (recommended), Thick provisioning disk or Thin provisioning disk with the respective drop-down list.
9.3 How to restore In the third step of the restore backup task wizard, you should define the preferences of your recovery task. Here you can specify whether to validate the archives before the recovery (for further information on Backup validation, please refer to "Validating backups" section (p. 96)). Also, here you can adjust the settings for your recovery task by clicking the More options… link.
9.4 Options Click More options… on the last step of the restore backup task wizard to open the pop-up with the additional settings. In case of no changes made to the settings, they will retain their respective default values for your current restore task. Note that if later on you change certain settings and save them as default, it will not affect the tasks created with the default settings (these settings will retain the values which were default at the moment of the task creation). 9.4.
managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. The default setting for this option is disabled. Select whether to send the restore operation events log messages to machines running SNMP management applications. Please choose one of the following: Send SNMP notifications individually for restore operation events – to send the events log of the restore operations to the specified SNMP managers. Types of events to send – choose the types of events to be sent: Info, Warnings or Errors.
9.4.4 Additional Settings Use FTP in active mode It is possible to use FTP active mode for FTP authentication and data transfer. The default setting for Use FTP in active mode is disabled. Enable this option if your FTP server supports active mode and you want this mode to be used for file transfers. After you finished with all the settings, click OK to close the pop-up and apply them for the current restore task only. 9.4.
10 Exchange Server Backup Extraction Sometimes there is a need to extract just Exchange data from disk-level backups of Virtual Machines with Microsoft Exchange server installed. The Extract Exchange Server Items feature allows: Extracting complete Exchange databases from VM backups. Extracting Exchange data (mailboxes, mailbox items) from VM backups. NOTE: Prior to running Extract Exchange Server Items wizard you have to configure your backups to become “Exchange-aware”.
Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting a lication with Exchange Server backups Select Databases on the second step. On the third step select your Exchange Server databases from the list on the left, and then select the recovery point on the right. By default, the latest recovery point is selected. Here you can see the information on the selected recovery point, database and its size. Click Next.
Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting databases and a recovery point Finally, click Browse and select the destination folder where to save the database archive. Click Finish to proceed with extraction. The extracted databases will be in a Dirty Shutdown state and cannot be mounted. To be able to mount the databases you have to bring them to a Clean Shutdown state by using the Eseutil /r command.
On the first step you have to select the location and a VM with Exchange Server backups. On the left you can see the list of backup locations. When choosing a location it is then scanned for Exchange VM backups which you see in the middle section. Select the VM you need to extract mailboxes from. On the right you can see the summary information. Click Next. Select Mailboxes on the second step. If there is another active Exchange items extraction task you will get a pop-up warning to continue.
Note that this temporary VM stays mounted for 15 minuted. If you leave the Extract Exchange Server Items wizard and then start it back again, you'll be opt to Continue browsing the previously selected recovery point. The selected Mailboxes are saved to the specified destination as the Acronis vmProtect 8 self-extractible (.exe) archive. You can run this file on any machine which has Microsoft Outlook (2003+) installed in order to extract the e-mails and other items in .pst format.
Extract Exchange Servet Items, Selecting destination for saving items The selected Mailboxes & Mailboxes Contents are saved to the specified destination as the Acronis vmProtect 8 self-extractible (.exe) archive. You can run this file on any machine which has Microsoft Outlook (2003+) installed in order to extract the e-mails and other items in .pst format. When unpacking the data from the archive you can also select the contents to be extracted and indicate the folder where to exctract the data to.
11 Running VM from Backup Click Run VM from Backup in the Actions tab of the main menu to mount certain backed up virtual machine without restoring it. The Run VM from Backup wizard opens in the main workspace area and asks you to provide the required information and configure the necessary settings for the Run VM from Backup task. The wizard consists of the three steps: Select VM(s) to run from backup. Where the VM(s) will be run. Additional settings.
Note that for Run Vm from Backup locations, you can only select Network folders or Local folders. Other locations, such as Online backup storage or FTP/sFTP servers, are not available here. If the selected location contains any password-protected archives or archives of physical machines, then the VMs included in these archives cannot be shown, and you will be warned about it.
Run VM from Backup wizard, Step 2 “Where the VM(s) will be run” First of all, with the Select Location drop-down list you should define the ESX(i) host where you want to mount the selected VMs on. The list shows only those ESX(i) hosts which are managed by Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent. If the ESX(i) host you need is not in this list, then make sure it is added in the Configure->ESX(i) hosts view.
Where “Original_VM_name” is the original name of the mounted virtual machine and “_mount” is the postfix you can change. For example, if the mounted VM had the “VM_original” name then after mounting it will be named “VM_original_mount”. After you selected where the VM(s) will be run, click Next to finish the second step and proceed to the last one. 11.3 Additional Settings In the third step of the wizard you can select the check boxes for the Power on the mounted VM and Connect to network options.
production network and re-connect to an isolated non-production network to avoid possible conflicts. After clicking on the Run Now button, the selected VM will appear in VMware Infrastructure Client and you will be able to manage it like any other virtual machine in your environment. In order to dismount (stop running) the VM you should go to the View->Mounted VMs view. 11.4 Managing created “Run VM from Backup” activity There is no way to edit the existing Run VM from Backup activity.
12 File Recovery Sometimes there is a need to recover just a single file or just a few files from a backup archive without restoring the whole virtual machine. The File Recovery feature allows browsing the archive and restoring the selected files for the pre-defined version of this archive (recovery point).
File Recovery wizard, Step 1 “Select VM(s) to extract files from” If the selected location contains any password-protected archives or archives of physical machines (Encrypted and Physical machines Data), you have to specify the password in order to restore your data from these archives. The selected location is scanned for archives and their contents.
Acronis vmProtect 8 File Recovery wizard has the built-in search feature. The search box is located in the top right corner above the files and folders list. You can use the search when you don’t know the exact file name you want to restore. You can filter files and folders in the list, and see only those that match any of the search criteria called “file masks”. You can use one or more wildcard characters “*” and “?” as a file mask, for example: “C:\Finance\*.*”.
13 P2V Migration 13.1 How to Perform a P2V Migration To reduce hardware requirements, there is often a need to migrate physical machines to virtual ones. To perform a physical to virtual migration (P2V), you need to boot your physical machine from Acronis bootable Media, create a full backup and then restore it to a virtual machine. To perform a P2V migration the following steps are to be made: 1. Create Acronis Bootable Media.
14 Bare Metal Recovery of ESXi Hosts The Acronis vmProtect 8 Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) of the ESXi host feature provides a totally unique functionality that helps you minimize the recovery time if the ESXi server crashes, fails to start or doesn’t work properly after a patch update.
New ESXi Backup Task, Select an ESXi Host to back up In the second step (When to Backup), you can schedule the backup. The options of the BMR backup task scheduler are the same as for the VM backup wizard.
New ESXi Backup Task, When to back up In the third step (Where to back up), select the location for storing your ESXi configuration backup archive and archive name. Click Browse to open the pop-up, select the location among one of the following and then click OK: Local folders. Network folders. FTP servers. SFTP servers. ESXi backup is created only in the Multiple files backup scheme (legacy mode archive) (p. 9). The Save all backups in one file (Recommended) option is disabled.
The Copy last created recovery points option might be useful when the first location selected is sometimes unreachable. In case the Copy all missed recovery points option is selected and the retention rules for the first storage are executed on the main location, then the software deletes the recovery points that should be removed by these rules, even if these recovery points were not copied to the second location.
When you click on the Save button, all the parameters of your New ESXi Backup Task will be saved and you will see the created task in the Tasks view. Clicking on the Save & Run button will save the task and run it right away. 14.2 ESXi host configuration recovery ESXi host configuration recovery (BMR restore) can be used to quickly recover the ESXi server when, for example, it crashes and cannot be booted.
ESXi Host Configuration Recovery Note, if you do not select the VMs backup locations here, these VMs will not be recovered automatically after the recovery of the initial ESXi server configuration. In this case, you will have to recover the missing VMs manually. Also note, that unpredictable issues may occur if you restore ESXi host configuration to a new machine while the original ESXi host is active and managed by a vCenter.
During the ESXi recovery process you can check if the cable is plugged to the vmnicX or not. After going through all the steps, click OK to start the recovery. Here’s what happens after you proceed with the recovery: 1. The first HDD (by BIOS order) is used to create ESXi system partitions and then the system will be rebooted into the ESXi environment. 2.
15 Managing Tasks Click Tasks in the View tab of the main menu to open the Tasks page (View->Tasks), where you can see the details and perform the operations with your tasks. Note that the Tasks page allows performing the basic operations with the existing tasks only, and doesn’t let you create new tasks (for creating a new Backup/Restore/Validation/etc. task you have to go to the Home tab of the main tool bar). The page presents a general list of all the tasks created in Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent.
15.2 Cancelling a task You can cancel the selected active task by clicking the Cancel button. You’ll be asked to confirm the operation. Upon confirmation the progressing task will be immediately stopped and will go into the idle state. The Cancel button for the idle task is disabled, as you can only cancel the task that is currently running. 15.3 Editing a task You can edit the selected task by clicking the Edit button.
Backing up: N/A Speed: 8.053 Mb/s Schedule: N/A The Options section on the right shows the settings of the current selected task. This section shows only the options which differ from default values. If all task options are default, then this section just states “Options: default” without listing any specific values.
Managing tasks, View task details, Summary tab, Source and Target tab If the backup task was configured to Copy the backup to a second location then the summary tab of the task details will consist of both the Backup task info and the Copy tack info, as shown in the picture below.
Managing tasks, Viewing task details, Backup and Copy task info 89 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2012
16 Managing Recovery Points Click the Recovery Points button in the View tab of the main menu to open the Recovery Points page. The Recovery Points view of Acronis vmProtect 8 provides you with an interface to manage the recovery points available for the virtual machines in your environment or the points in time which you can go back to for each virtual machine. Upon the successful execution of each backup task, a new recovery point is created and the recovery points list is updated automatically.
Managing Recovery Points, no locations available 16.1 Adding a backup location Optionally, you can add or remove the backup locations right from the Locations list. Click the Add New link on the top to open the Add Location pop-up. Note that the remove operation will not physically remove the archives from the location, but will just delete the location from the Acronis vmProtect 8 configuration.
You can select the desired location by expanding the appropriate folder group and choosing it in the folder tree or by entering the full path to the location in the Location field. Choose one of the backup location types from the browse tree on the left side. If the selected location (Online backup storage, Network folders or FTP/SFTP servers) requires an authentication, you will first see the dialogue for submitting your credentials in the right pane.
Managing Recovery Points Only one virtual machine can be selected in this list at a time. The details window (the right section) for the selected virtual machine contains 2 tabs as explained below – the Recovery Points list and the Recovery Points details. 16.
16.4 Summary tab You can see the summary information on the selected recovery point by switching to the Summary tab. This tab shows the following information: VM Comments (taken from VMware vSphere client Summary tab for the selected VM). Guest OS (taken from VMware vSphere client Summary tab for the selected VM). VM version (taken from VMware vSphere client Summary tab for the selected VM). Provisioned Storage (taken from VMware vSphere client Summary tab for the selected VM).
16.5.3 Run VM from backup Click the Run VM from backup button in the ribbon menu to perform the Mounting VM operation by activating the Run VM from backup wizard. The wizard will be pre-filled with the selected recovery point settings described in the "Running VM from backup" section (p. 69). 16.5.4 File recovery Click the File recovery button in the ribbon menu to perform the Guest File Download operation by running the File Recovery wizard.
17 Other Operations 17.1 Validating backups Validating backups is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup. Note that while successful validation means high probability of successful recovery, it does not check all factors that influence the recovery process. If you back up the operating system, only a test recovery to a new virtual machine can guarantee success of the recovery. In Acronis vmProtect 8 you can validate a Location, an Archive or a Recovery Point.
New Validation Task. What to validate. Location. Archive – Validating an archive will check the integrity of all backups (recovery points) inside the specified archive. In general, this procedure will be faster than validating the whole location. However, it is slower than validating a specific recovery points inside this archive.
New Validation Task. What to validate. Recovery point. After clicking on the Run Now button, the selected items will be validated and you will see the progress of your newly created validation task in the Tasks view. You will see its result in the Dashboard view and in the Show Logs view. 17.2 Managing mounted VMs Click Mounted VMs in the View tab of the Acronis vmProtect 8 main ribbon menu to open the Mounted VMs page. 17.2.
Mounted VMs view. At first, when you don’t have any virtual machines running, the Mounted VMs list is empty. After you performed Run VM from backup operation (see "Running VM from backup" section (p. 69)), this Mounted VMs view will automatically open where you could see the machine you’ve just run. In the table, you can see the list of these machines and their state: “Running” (if the machine is running) or “Stopped” (if not). 17.2.
The Source tab presents the tree of mounted ESX(i) hosts+vApps/VMs. Here is an example of the Source tab contents: Location: \\Backups\ Archive: Archive_name ESX Host 1 (10.250.40.30) “All Virtual Machines”: Small_vm The Target tab presents the information on the location where the selected VM runs. Here is an example of the Target tab contents: ESX Host 1 (10.250.40.30) “All Virtual Machines”: Small_vm 17.2.
Logs list. The logs list contains the Date/Time, Task name and Message columns. You can sort the logs list by clicking the column header. For switching between the ascending and descending sort order click the column header one more time. Also, you can filter the log events using several filters located above the list: Event flags (Success, Warning or Error). Date/Time. Task Name. Click the log event in the list to see the detailed message for this log in the right window.
warning message in order to confirm the delete logs operation. Upon your confirmation, all logs will be cleared. Clear log dialog. 17.3.3 Log cleanup rules Click the Log Cleanup Rules button in the main tool bar to set up your rules for keeping the log entries. In other words, this option specifies how to clean up the Acronis vmProtect 8 agent log. Log Cleanup Rules dialog. Select the check box in order to enable this Log cleanup rules option.
exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log entries. The default 95% setting will keep most of the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared. 17.3.4 Save logs to file Click the Save to File button in the ribbon bar to save the filtered log entries from the logs list. This operation allows you to get the .zip file with the selected logs and save it to your local PC. You may need to perform Save logs to file operation for troubleshooting the problems you might encounter.
Managing Licenses page, licenses list. 17.4.1 Adding license You can add licenses by copy-pasting them into the corresponding field or by browsing the file with the licenses you would like to import. Acronis vmProtect 8 supports .txt or .csv file format.
Managing Licenses page, Add license dialog. Upon adding new licenses you will get the following message indicating the number of licenses added. Managing Licenses page, “Successfully added” message. 17.4.2 Adding license failure Adding a license may fail due to the following reasons: The license is already imported. The license is incorrect. There could also be other problems. If you are sure that your license is a correct one but it still fails to be added, please contact Acronis support (p.
You would have to confirm removing the license binding by choosing Yes in the dialog. Managing Licenses page, “Remove license” confirmation dialog. 17.4.
17.5.1 ESX(i) hosts list The Hosts view provides an overview and management interface for the ESX(i) hosts/vCenter registered in the vmProtect 8 Agent settings. The ribbon buttons allow you to add other ESX(i) hosts to the list or remove them. At the first run of Acronis vmProtect 8 there are no registered ESX(i) hosts/clusters. On this page you can add new ESX(i) hosts as described below. After adding an ESX(i) host/vCenter, it will appear in the hosts list. Configuring ESX(i) Hosts page, Hosts list.
company policy requires changing passwords due to security restrictions. For that, select the ESX(i) host/vCenter in the list and click the Edit credentials button on the right. 17.5.2 Adding ESX(i) host In order to add an ESX(i) host/vCenter you have to provide the IP address/hostname and user credentials to access the desired ESX(i) host/vCenter. You can also specify the custom port. You can check the connection with Test connection button to ensure that the provided credentials are correct.
and provide the login/password information for the ESX(i) host/vCenter connection. If you are running Acronis vmProtect 8 in a domain environment, the username has to be specified in a domain\username format. You can check the connection with the Test connection button to ensure that the provided credentials are correct. Click OK to add your ESX(i) host/vCenter. Managing ESX(i) Hosts page, Enter credentials dialog. 17.5.
Managing ESX(i) Hosts page, Remove Host dialog. 17.6 Managing settings 17.6.1 Managing Online Backup Proxy Click Online Backup Proxy in the Configure tab of the Acronis vmProtect 8 main ribbon menu to open the Online Backup Proxy settings page. Online backup proxy settings are effective only for backup to and recovery from the Acronis Online Backup Storage over the Internet. This option defines whether the Acronis agent will connect to the Internet through a proxy server.
Configuring settings, Online backup proxy. To set up proxy server settings: Select the Use a proxy server check box. In Address, specify the network name or IP address of the proxy server, for example: proxy.example.com or 192.168.0.1 In Port, specify the port number of the proxy server, for example: 80 If the proxy server requires authentication, specify the credentials in User name and Password fields. To test the proxy server settings, click Test connection. To apply the settings, click Save.
Google Chrome. In Options, click Under the Hood. Under Network, click Change proxy settings. 17.6.2 Managing Agent Password Click the Agent Password button in the Configure tab of the Acronis vmProtect 8 main ribbon menu to change your User password. Here you can change the password for the user of Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent. The username (login) cannot be changed.
18 Best Practices In this section we will give a few examples of some operations with Acronis vmProtect 8. After you installed your Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent you have to connect to it with your access credentials. 1. Add ESX(i) host First of all, to be able to perform backup and other operations, you have to specify the IP address/hostname and credentials for your vCenter or individual ESX(i) host where your virtual machines are running.
In order to do that, you have to run the Restore backup task wizard which will guide you through all the steps of the restore process. Click Restore in the Home tab of the main menu. Then go through the wizard. The detailed information can be found in the "Restoring a backup of virtual machines" section (p. 55). On the first step of the wizard select a backed up virtual machine. On the step 2 select the desired new location where you would like to restore your machine.
19 Support 19.1 Technical Support Maintenance and Support Program If you need assistance with your Acronis product, please go to http://www.acronis.com/support/ Product Updates You can download the latest updates for all your registered Acronis software products from our website at any time after logging into your Account (https://www.acronis.com/my) and registering the product. See Registering Acronis Products at the Website (http://kb.acronis.com/content/4834) and Acronis Website User Guide (http://kb.
20 Glossary A Agent (Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent) An application that performs backup and recovery of the virtual machines and enables other management operations on the VMware ESX(i) infrastructure such as task management and operations with available backups, machines, etc. Acronis vmProtect 8 includes the Agent for backing up virtual machines residing on a VMware ESX(i) virtualization server which the Agent is connected to. There could be several ESX(i) hosts or a vCenter managed by one Agent.
B Backup The result of a single backup operation (p. 117) as a single recovery point (p. 123) inside archive (p. 117). Physically, it is a file that contains a copy of the backed up data (virtual machine volumes) from specific date and time for a specific virtual machine. Backup files created by Acronis vmProtect 8 have a TIB extension. One backup file may include useful data from multiple machines plus necessary metadata inside. Backup archive (Archive) A set of backups (p.
Backup task (Task) A set of rules that specify how the given virtual machine or a set of virtual machines will be protected. A backup task specifies: What data to back up (i.e. which machines to back up). Where to store the backup archive (the backup archive name and location). The backup scheme, including the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention rules. [Optionally] the archive validation rules. The backup options.
C CBT (Changed Block Tracking) A feature of VMware ESX(i) which allows to identify which blocks of the virtual disks have changed and to transfer only those blocks during the backup/replication process. For example when using CBT technology, the incremental backup speed can increase up to 20 times. Cleanup Deleting backups (p. 116) from a backup archive (p. 117) in order to get rid of outdated backups or prevent the archive from exceeding the desired size.
Deduplication in Acronis vmProtect 8 is managing data within only one backup archive. For example if the backups are saved into 2 different archives (even if they are in the same location) then there will be no relations between these archives and they may contain duplicated data. Differential backup A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup (p. 122). You need access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup.
Dynamic disk A hard disk managed by Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that is available in Windows starting with Windows 2000. LDM helps flexibly allocate volumes on a storage device for better fault tolerance, better performance or larger volume size. A dynamic disk can use either the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style. In addition to MBR or GPT, each dynamic disk has a hidden database where the LDM stores the dynamic volumes' configuration.
To reduce the access time (a striped volume). To achieve fault tolerance by introducing redundancy (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). When backing up virtual machines which contain dynamic disks inside, Acronis vmProtect 8 backs up the logical dynamic volumes instead of the entire dynamic disks structure. E Encrypted archive A backup archive (p. 117) encrypted according to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). When the encryption option and a password for the archive are set in the backup options (p.
I Incremental backup A backup (p. 116) that stores changes to the data against the latest backup. You need access to other backups from the same archive (p. 116) to restore data from an incremental backup. L Legacy mode Archive See Backup archive (p. 117). M Machine (Virtual machine) A virtual computer uniquely identified by an operating system installation. Media builder A dedicated tool for creating bootable media (p. 118). P P2V Migration of physical machine to virtual environment.
Registered machine A virtual machine managed by Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent. All virtual machines which reside on the registered ESX(i) host or vCenter are automatically registered and can be managed by Acronis vmProtect 8 Agent. Replication A process of replicating the virtual machine to new location (new datastore and/or resource pool). As the result of this process there will be a duplicate virtual machine created which is running independently from the original one.
U Universal Restore (Acronis Universal Restore) The Acronis proprietary technology that helps boot up Windows on dissimilar hardware or a virtual machine. The Universal Restore handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset. In Acronis vmProtect 8 the Universal Restore technology is primarily used for P2V (p. 123) migration scenarios. Universal Restore is not available when recovering Linux.
vCenter VMware vCenter Server, formerly VMware VirtualCenter, centrally manages VMware vSphere environments allowing IT administrators dramatically improved control over the virtual environment compared to other management platforms. See more details at http://vmware.com/products/vcenter-server/. In terms of Acronis vmProtect 8 product the “vCenter” item is considered to be a container for the ESX(i) virtual infrastructure including datacenters, ESX(i) hosts, etc.
