Administrator Guide
Table Of Contents
- Replay Manager Version 8.0 Administrator’s Guide
- About this Guide
- Overview
- Installing Replay Manager Components
- Licensing for Replay Manager
- Install Replay Manager Service for Windows
- Installing Replay Manager Service for VMware
- Install Replay Manager Management Tools
- Install Replay Manager Service for Windows on Windows Server Core
- Installing and Configuring the Verification Service for Exchange
- Using Replay Manager Service on Clustered Servers
- Configure an HTTP Proxy Service
- Getting Started
- Backing Up and Restoring Data
- Using the Replay Manager Explorer
- Understanding Backup Types
- Summary of Backup Set Actions
- Summary of Backup Set Options
- Creating and Running Backups
- Managing Existing Backup Sets
- Managing Restore Points and Restoring Data
- Restoring Data
- Display Restore Points for a Component
- Restore Data to its Original Location
- Restore SQL Server Components without Recovering the Database
- Rename and Restore SQL Server Components Stored on a Volume
- Rename and Restore SQL Server Components Stored on an SMB File Share
- Expose a Restore Point (Windows Extensions Only)
- Expose a Restore Point (VMware Extensions Only)
- Expose a Restore Point Stored on an SMB File Share
- Resync a Restore Point (Windows Extensions Only)
- Make an Exposed Restore Point Writable (Windows Extensions Only)
- Unmanage an Exposed Restore Point (VMware Extensions Only)
- Unexpose an Exposed Restore Point
- Add a Note to a Restore Point
- Edit a Note for a Restore Point
- Unimport a Restore Point
- Delete a Restore Point
- Prevent a Restore Point from Expiring (Force Keep)
- Allow a Restore Point to be Automatically Expired (Allow Auto-Deletion)
- Transport a Restore Point
- Advanced Recovery Scenarios for SQL Server
- Locating Replays on a Storage Center
- Working with Backup Set Jobs
- Viewing Backup Job Reports
- Replay Manager Best Practices
- Using Replay Manager Cmdlets
- Troubleshooting
Virtual Machines backup extension. This is a known issue with Windows VSS snapshot integration and VMware snapshot
creation. If a failure occurs, use the vSphere Client to change the value of the disk.EnableUUID parameter to
FALSE. For further instructions, see: HTTP://KB.vmware.com/KB/1031298
● Backing up virtual machine memory
By default, a backup of a VMware virtual machine does not include machine memory. To include a dump of the virtual
machine memory at the time of the backup, use the Include virtual machine memory in vSphere snapshot backup set
option. Including machine memory causes the backup to take more time to complete. For more information, see: HTTP://
KB.vmware.com/KB/1007532
Data Recovery for VMware
Replay Manager provides two data recovery actions: Expose and Restore. The VMware backup extension selected for the
Replay Manager job determines which data recovery actions are available.
Expose Action for VMware
The Expose action is supported by both VMware backup extensions. This action presents a View of the exposed Replay back to
the vSphere cluster in order to recover data at either the image or file level.
Although exposing the volume is managed by Replay Manager, the act of data recovery is not. The administrator must manually
register the virtual machine on the View volume and power it on for an image level recovery, or add its .vmdk disk file back to
the original (or surrogate) virtual machine's virtual inventory to perform file level recovery.
Restore Data with VSS Consistency
If data is required to be restored with VSS consistency, take the following steps for each virtual machine being recovered:
1. Register the virtual machine in inventory.
2. From VMware, Revert to Snapshot.
3. From VMware, Delete Snapshot.
Although the Expose action requires some manual steps, it is the fastest way to recover data at both the file and image
levels while maintaining storage efficiency and while preserving the data progression history. Experienced users of vSphere
and Dell storage should use the Expose action whenever possible to ensure the fastest recovery and most efficient use of
raw storage.
Restore Action for VMware
Instead of exposing the datastore for large scale or rapid image level recovery, the Restore action automatically deletes the
existing virtual machines being restored and then restores the virtual machines individually by using a copy operation from
a View volume back to its original location. The Restore action is only supported by the VMware Virtual Machines backup
extension and is fully automated.
Because Restore is a bulk copy operation, available blocks are written to as new according to the storage profile applied to the
volume. Using the Storage Center defaults, the virtual machines are copied into Tier 1 storage regardless of where the blocks
existed previously. The main benefit of this method is that it provides automated virtual machine recovery at the expense of
storage efficiency and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
vSphere Site Recovery Manager
VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) provides an automated disaster recovery solution for vSphere virtualized datacenters.
When integrated with Dell Storage Center, Replays are used by SRM to register and power on virtual machines during the
recovery process at the remote site and as such Replays effectively represent the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for virtual
machines.
NOTE: When creating Replay Manager job schedules, RPO and expiration should always be considered.
Replay Manager Best Practices 63