Administrator Guide

VMware Backup Types

During backups of VMware datastores and virtual machines, Replay Manager Service for VMware takes a

temporary VMware snapshot.

Backup set options specific to VMware include the following:

• If the Include virtual machine memory in vSphere snapshot option is selected in the backup set

definition, the backup includes the internal state of the virtual machine.

• If the Create Storage center Replay of Physical RDMs option in selected in the backup set definition,

the backup includes the physical mode raw device mappings (pRDMs).

NOTE: Since vSphere cannot create a VMware snapshot of physical RDMs, the physical RDM

Replays are unlikely to be consistent with the Replay containing the .vmdk file for the same virtual

machine.

NOTE: Windows guest virtual machines that store data for VSS aware applications (like SQL Server

or Exchange) on physical RDMs, or iSCSI volumes mapped directly to the guest, may fail to create

snapshots when using the VMware 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/selfservice/microsites/search.do?

language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1031298

NOTE: Including virtual machine memory can significantly increase the time it required to create a

snapshot and may cause the backup creation to take longer than expected.

Related links

Summary of Backup Set Actions

Guidelines for Creating Backup Sets

Replay Manager creates a Replay based on a backup set.

A backup set is assigned a unique ID. It defines:

• Backup Data: One or more volumes or application components included in the backup.

• Backup Set Options: Options for the backup, such as the backup type and expiration settings.

Guidelines for Backup Sets in VMware Datacenters

Modifying components or options, moving or deleting components, and renaming source components

requires the creation of a new backup set.

To avoid needing to frequently re-create backup sets to account for component changes, create a

separate backup set for VMware components that are likely to be deleted, moved, or renamed.

• Renaming source components breaks the association between source data and backup set. If a

source component included in a backup set is renamed, the backup set will fail. For this reason, when

source components are renamed in any way (renamed server or datastore, renamed database,

renamed VM, and so on), create a new backup set that includes the renamed components.

• Moving components between VMware datacenters causes backups to fail. If a component included

in a backup set is moved between VMware datacenters, the backup set is unable to backup data at the

original location and the backup job fails. Moving source components within a VMware datacenter

will not cause failures.

• 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 will

fail. For this reason, make sure all source components in each datacenter have unique names.