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
● The existence of VMs with non-unique names within the same datacenter cause backups to fail.
If two or more source components included in a backup set have the same name, the backup set fails. For this reason, make
sure all source components in each datacenter have unique names.
Guidelines for Backup Jobs
Follow these guidelines when working with backup jobs.
● Replay Manager queues a maximum of one scheduled job per backup set at a time.
● If a scheduled backup job is running, it does not count towards this limit.
● Manually triggered backup jobs do not count towards this limit.
● Manually triggered jobs take priority over scheduled jobs.
NOTE: Tasks do not have a limit. However, jobs (taking a Replay) have a limit.
In addition, follow these guidelines when creating schedules for backup jobs:
● Although a backup snapshot completes in seconds, the entire backup snapshot process—from temporarily freezing all
application IO, taking the snapshot, and then releasing all application IO—can take significant time to process depending on
the applications in use. It also takes time to apply a retention policy. For this reason, make sure that a scheduled backup can
finish before another backup is scheduled to start.
● For large volumes and components, Dell recommends scheduling backups during off hours.
● At present, Replay Manager does not support backups for Storage Center Live Volumes.
Related tasks
View Queued Items on page 51
Display the Backup Schedule Run Time Report on page 49
Backing Up a Boot Volume (LUN 0)
In some instances, backing up a boot volume may fail because the Virtual Shadow Copy Service (VSS) cannot suspend all IO on
the volume. Therefore, do not use Replay Manager to back up boot volumes. To back up boot volumes, create a Storage Center
Replay of the boot volume.
Guidelines for Scheduling and Expiring Replays
Replays allow a site to restore data from a specific point-in-time. When planning schedules and expiration settings for Replays,
take care to balance the point-in-time restore requirements with the amount of resources consumed by unexpired Replays. That
is, do not create Replay schedules and expiration settings that allow unexpired Replays to consume a disproportionate amount of
Storage Center resources.
Extension-Specific Best Practices
Before using Replay Manager to create backup sets, schedule backups, and restore data, see the best practice guidelines. These
guidelines are specific to each available Replay Manager backup extension.
Related concepts
Replay Manager Best Practices on page 55
Backing Up and Restoring Data
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