Separating VMware/VBA cloning from VMware protection policy

Any help folks?

Hi Pankajpal,

The VBA cloning is slow and is a known issue. It will affect your backup completion times. Currently there is no fix for it and you cannot simply create a cloning action alone for the VBA.

Hence, you will have to perform the NetWorker Clone Controlled Replication method. I assume you are using a dedicated media pool for backups ( which ideally should be) which you can use in selection criteria and clone backups to desired clone pool.

Regards,

Chetan Tikandar

Or you could clone using the client name of your EBR/VBA server. This would clone all VBA backups created by the EBR/VBA client.

hmm... never tried that actually. Can you explain on the effectiveness of this operation? How was the cloning speed ( GB/hour) ?

regards,

Chetan

Hi all

I think the best way is duplicate your backup policies in order to have one backup writing to prod DD and another one writing to DR DD.

I'm not sure the CCR is applicable for VBA backups ,never tried it

-Nicola

Hi Nicolino,

On the other hand I never tried your method of duplicating the policy and having it write to prod and DR DD simultaneously. Can you please share the procedure if thats okay with you ?

Since the VBA cloning is too slow on 8.1.x versions, CCR can be employed. All you have to do is create a traditional clone group and the filter set at pool level with the media pool that has all the VBAsavesets in them. Get the DDBoost device attached to pool and then cloning will start writing from source pool to your destination like any other saveset cloning. But again, this process takes a looot of time.

On NW 8.2 onwards the cloning is better as they introduced the parallel clone sessions features. Also the VBA cloning process sped up on 8.2 with DDOS 5.5.2.x and above

Regards,

Chetan

About "double configuration" : you 'll take 2 different snapshot and so 2 different PIT ..not simultaneously ,of course

About CCR : happy to know that we can use it also for VBA backups , have you tried a restore from CLONED image? Are you able from Emc restore tab on Vsphere to see all copies?  My concern is how can vba (avamar) manage clone done by NetWorker ?

thank you and regards,

-Nicola

Nicola,

Yes the replica copy does show up in the restore tab of the vCenter web client GUI. I myself havent initiated restore but I would know if there was a failure during such restore request so I am pretty sure the restore works too. NetWorker mm db knows everything about a saveset present and thus when it clones it adds up clone info and probably this information is sync'd with vCenter and VBA and thus making it available for restore.

Regards,
Chetan

Hi Nicola,

Yes CCR will work with VBA configuration.

You can configure the VBA backup with CCR to replicate the backup on another site and you can restore by using secondry copy. In one of the setup have configured CCR for VBA backup for around 200-300 VMs and it is quite fast. Have configured the replication on Pool level.

Recovery also work with same VBA or if you have 2 VBA server in single data zone you can try option called " Recovery from secondary site"

Refer bellow link for more info.

https://support.emc.com/kb/193994

Regards,

Nitesh Turkar.

Hi, yes I can confirm it too, I tested it.

However CCR filtering ,in my case, is too large (vba name or pool). I've 45Mbit/sec for replication and I need to be able to manage single VM's replica.

I've already used "Recovery from secondary site" with success during last DR exercise , I remember that you can use this feature only from vba/ebr version 1.1.1.x and NetWorker 8.2.1.x (or later)

ciao

-Nicola