Hi, in this demo we'll take a look at how to perform a file system copy migration from Avamar to PowerProtect Data Manager. Managing historical restores across two platforms adds complexity, increases operational overhead, and slows down recovery. With the latest PowerProtect Data Manager 20.1 release, we are expanding the platform's migration capabilities. Earlier versions supported virtual machine copy migration from Avamar.
Now with 20.1 we are introducing support for file system copy migration as well. With this new capability all file system backup and recovery operations come together under PowerProtect Data Manager bringing a modern unified experience and no dependency on Avamar for historical restores. Once the migration is completed, PowerProtect Data Manager takes full ownership of the long-term retention copies, making them fully restorable directly from Data Manager. The migration from Avamar to PowerProtect Data Manager happens in two simple steps.
Step one, migrating the file system metadata using the GSAN mover tool. This tool can be downloaded from the Dell support site. Step two is to initiate the asset and copy metadata migration from the Data Manager UI after adding the Avamar server as an asset source. With just these two steps, user can smoothly transition their file system copies from Avamar to Data Manager.
Now let's walk through a demo of the file system copy migration process. For this demonstration, I'm using a file system server that has been backed up with Avamar. As you can see here, the backup has been completed successfully, and we have one backup copy available. We'll now use this file system backup copy to perform the migration. From the Data Manager UI, navigate to infrastructure asset sources. For this demo, I have already enabled the Avamar asset source. Click on ‘add’. Enter the name for the Aamar server and input the FQDN or IP of the Avamar server. Click on ‘verify’. Once verification is successful, enter the Avamar server credentials and click ‘save’. Once the asset source discovery is successful, notice the pre-check job is ‘in progress’.
Once the pre-check job is successful, the migration status for the Avamar server shows ‘ready to migrate’. Navigate to ‘assets’. We can see that the file system asset is listed in the non-migrated section and the migration status shows ‘ready to migrate’. As the first step, we will now migrate the file metadata using the GSAN mover tool. Log to the Avamar server and switch to root user. As a prerequisite, I have already downloaded the GSAN mover tool from Dell support site and copied it to the Avamar server. Uncompressing the GSAN mover binary. The binary comprises the following files and utilities using the config input.yaml and clients input CSV files.
We will be executing the GSAN mover utility to perform the file system metadata migration. In the config input yaml file, we will be providing the Avamar server and data domain details along with the DD boost user that was configured with the Avamar server. In the client's input CSV file, we will be providing the file system client details that we will be migrating to Data Manager. Once configured, the migration can be executed using the command referencing the configured files. We now see the migration for the file system client has been completed successfully. As a next step to perform asset and copy metadata migration, navigate to the Data Manager UI. Select the client on the non-migrated list and click on ‘Migrate to Data Manager’. Navigate to the jobs system job section to view the migration progress.
This is the job that shows the migration progress. And we now see the migration is successful. We can now see that the client is listed under migrated list. To view the copies, select the client and click ‘view copies’. We now see the copy that was backed up by Avamar is now listed in Data Manager and available for performing restore. Using this copy, we will now perform a file system restore from Data Manager. Navigate to ‘restore assets’. Select the asset and click on ‘restore’. Select the copy and click ‘next’. In the scope, we see we have the option to perform restore of entire file system or file level restore using the copy. For this demo, we will perform a file level restore. On the location section, select the file system host to mount the copy.
The file system host that has the Data Manager file system agent and registered successfully with Data Manager will be listed here for restore. Once the copy is mounted successfully, we will be able to browse. I'm restoring it to the alternate location by creating a new folder for this restore. The restore has been initiated successfully. We can monitor the restoration progress from the jobs protection job section. The restore is now successful. Let's verify the files on the file system host. We now see the files have been restored successfully.
This demonstrates the successful migration of Avamar file system long-term retention copies to PowerProtect Data Manager, making them fully restorable and manageable within Data Manager. For more information, refer to the PowerProtect Data Manager Administration Guide. Thanks for watching.
