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Which filesystems for single file restore to a vm?
Hi all, we're considering Networker and the sales folks tell me that with our proposed config of vstorage api, Networker and a Data Domain backup target, we'll be able to perform single file restores to the live vm's. I am lead to believe that this is possible by way of the api since there is no client software installed in the guests. I have not been able to get, or find, a good explanation of how that is actually possible without an OS-level agent. Can anyone fill me in on how that works?
Related to that, since the restore occurs without the guest OS's help, is it safe to assume that only filesystems that are understood by networker, the api, vcenter, ESXi or some combination of them all, are ones you can restore single files to? The EMC demos are always Windows, so that concerns me given our guests are all linux; centos 5 through 7. With that being the case, we have ext3, ext4 and now xfs present in guests.
Thanks!
ble1
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July 31st, 2014 10:00
I do not know what they said, but I assume they are talking about NW+DD+Avamar combo where Avamar part is VBA - you can find information on VBA in admin guide and probably there are some white papers on it too (didn't check). Actually, if they are offering it to you, I see no problem why you should not ask them for information. In essence, VBA will allow you to restore files from VM snapshot backup on both Windows and Linux. I personally plan to test it by the end of the year if I will have enough time, but it looks like this is nice way of protecting VMWare. From what I know, or from what I can remember reading it, Linux is ok too and ext4 I think requires backup to be managed by some external proxy (but you would use that anyway I suspect). For xfs I'm not sure, but I compatibility guide should be able to address that question.