While backup is a topic of much discussion, development, and strategy, the name of the game is rapid recovery. Given the explosive growth of data in our Client environments, there is a need to provide solutions to our Clients that meet their recovery time objective and recovery point objective needs.

Traditional backups of files, databases, and similar objects sent across networks (LAN or SAN) to backup servers provide a degree of recoverability, but the speed of backup and recovery is constrained by resource capacity (server, network, storage, and so on). This results in longer backup and recovery times. Data growth is steadily making the problem worse. A new approach to rapid recovery is required to meet requirements of single file recoveries and recoveries of large data sets.

The new approach is snapshot technology. The ability to make point-in-time snapshots with limited impact to the application while rapidly recovering large data sets by reverting to a snapshot greatly reduces the recovery time for these data sets.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication has been written to identify the IBM software that enhances the ability to deliver rapid recovery and gives directions and procedures to design, install, configure, and use IBM Spectrum™ Protect for Virtual Environments and IBM Spectrum Protect™ Snapshot for VMware. While the two products work hand in hand to provide a comprehensive protection to VMware environments, the two products are separate and are installed and configured separately.

Chapter 1. Architecture corner

Chapter 2. Product introduction

Chapter 3. Installation roadmap

Chapter 4. Installation and configuration

Chapter 5. Virtual machine backup

Chapter 6. Backup scheduling

Chapter 7. Virtual environment recovery

Chapter 8. Reporting

Chapter 9. Disaster recovery

Chapter 10. Problem determination and FAQs

Appendix A. Install and setup