IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager for Virtual Environments (referred to as Data Protection for VMware) provides a comprehensive solution for protecting virtual machines (VMs). Data Protection for VMware eliminates the impact of running back-ups on a VM by offloading backup workloads from a VMware ESX or ESXi-based host to a vStorage backup server. It works with the Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client (installed on the vStorage backup server) to complete full, incremental, and incremental forever snapshots of VMs. The intent of this IBM Redbooks® Solution Guide is to help with key decisions you must address when you are designing a solution to protect a virtual environment. This information is not intended to replace the analysis of your environment and is not a complete set of decisions.

IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager for Virtual Environments (referred to as Data Protection for VMware®) provides a comprehensive solution for protecting virtual machines (VMs). Data Protection for VMware eliminates the impact of running back-ups on a VM by offloading backup workloads from a VMware ESX or ESXi-based host to a vStorage backup server. It works with the Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client (installed on the vStorage backup server) to complete full, incremental, and incremental forever snapshots of VMs. The intent of this IBM Redbooks® Solution Guide is to help with key decisions you must address when you are designing a solution to protect a virtual environment. This information is not intended to replace the analysis of your environment and is not a complete set of decisions. Figure 1 shows the Data Protection for VMware system components and the user environment.


Figure 1. Data Protection for VMware system components and user environment


Did you know?

Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments protects VMware® vSphere virtual machines by offloading backup workloads to a centralized Tivoli Storage Manager server for safe keeping. Administrators can create backup policies or restore virtual machines with just a few clicks. It enables your organization to protect data without the need for a traditional backup window. It allows you to safeguard the massive amounts of information that virtual machines generate without affecting the physical resources of the VMware server.


Business value

Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments integrates with and extends the role of Tivoli Storage Manager in providing data protection services to virtualized applications in production environments. These include backup and recovery, online database and application protection, disaster recovery, data reduction, bare-machine recovery, space management, and archiving and retrieval.

Faster, more frequent protection for virtual machines is enabled by offloading the backup workload from virtual machines and production VMware ESX hosts to vStorage backup servers. By providing an improved frequency of backups, the amount of data at risk in a virtualized environment is reduced. Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments also provides faster recovery of data to reduce downtime in a virtualized environment following a failure.

Overhead is eliminated with centralized vStorage backup. The VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection technology is supported, which simplifies and optimizes data protection. This technology conducts operations on the backup and management servers rather than the virtual machines, greatly reducing system overhead and any disruption that backups might cause to virtualized applications. VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection are used, including block-level incremental forever backups based on VMware Changed Block Tracking. Periodic full backups take a nondisruptive snapshot at the virtual machine image level. The need for traditional backup windows is eliminated by continuously capturing data changes at the block level.

Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments retrieves data from image-level backups. It provides flexible recovery options for file-level, volume-level, or VM image-level recovery using a single backup of a virtual machine image. Tivoli Storage Manager acts as a virtual datastore. Users can access virtual machines in the backup system for verification or to initiate recovery to the vSphere ecosystem. In a file restore operation, the administrator launches the Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments restore on the vStorage backup server, accesses a point-in-time view of the data in the storage pool using Tivoli Storage Manager, and performs a drag-and-drop of the desired files. Users can perform self-service object-level recovery for Exchange and SQL virtual machine backups. They can also get instant access and instant restores from full virtual machine backups.


Solution overview

Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments - Data Protection for VMware provides advanced data protection and flexible recovery options for VMware vSphere ESX and ESXi servers. Nondisruptive virtual machine backup is simplified and streamlined. VMware vSphere 4 and vSphere 5 environments are supported.

Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments protects VMware vSphere and vCloud virtual machines by offloading backup workloads to a centralized server and enabling near-instant recovery. It enables you to protect data without the need for a traditional backup window. You can protect the massive amounts of information that virtual machines generate without affecting the physical resources of the VMware server. Multiple virtual machines are supported with one Tivoli Storage Manager agent. LAN-free data transfer from the VMware server’s storage to the backup server is supported. This preserves bandwidth for other users.

The management of the backup and restore processes for virtual machines is simplified. Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments provides an easy to use GUI that you can access from within the VMware vCenter. Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environment - Data Protection for VMware V7.1 has introduced a stand-alone web-based user interface, in addition to the vCenter plug-in, to perform the same operation. This new interface has the advantage to be web-based and compatible with the VMware vSphere 5 and later web-based management interface. It allows backup administrators (or VMware administrators) to create a backup policy or restore a virtual machine with just a few clicks. Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments integrates with and extends the role of Tivoli Storage Manager in providing data protection services to virtualized applications in production environments. These include backup and recovery, online database and application protection, disaster recovery, data reduction, bare-machine recovery, space management, and archiving and retrieval.


Solution architecture

Data Protection for VMware must interrelate with several existing components, such as the VMware infrastructure, identity management (for example, Active Directory), and the Tivoli Storage Manager backup server. Figure 2 shows the components of the Data Protection for VMware solution.


Figure 2. Data Protection for VMware components overview

vStorage backup server

The vStorage backup server is the machine where the Backup-Archive client is installed. The vStorage backup server can be a virtual machine or separate physical machine. The first consideration to determine which type of vStorage backup server to use to transfer the data between the VMware environment and the Tivoli Storage Manager server is to determine whether physical or virtual proxies are used. You do not need to decide to use all one or the other. It is possible to use virtual proxies for part of an environment and physical proxies for another part where it makes sense.

Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client data mover

The Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client data mover is an instance of the backup-archive client program, and it is configured on a vStorage backup server. Therefore, you can install the backup-archive client on a single vStorage backup server and create several logical instances or data movers from this single installation. The backup-archive client data mover can run on a Windows or Linux vStorage backup server and cross-platform operations are supported. A Windows backup-archive client data mover can back up a Linux VM, and vice versa. A backup that is performed by a Linux proxy can be restored by a Windows proxy, and vice versa. The backup-archive client data mover is generally not provided as part of the Data Protection for VMware installation package, but it is a prerequisite. The exception is Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V7.1 for Microsoft Windows 64-bit, which includes the Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client data mover features on the product DVD or download package.

Data Protection for VMware Recovery Agent

The Data Protection for VMware Recovery Agent is part of the Data Protection for VMware installation package and provides the file restore and instant restore of a volume functions:

• File restore can be performed in-guest or off-host on supported Windows and Linux machines. File restore is accomplished by using the Data Protection (DP) for VMware Recovery Agent Mount function to expose a virtual disk snapshot from a Tivoli Storage Manager storage pool and copy the required files. The user chooses whether to expose a complete disk as an iSCSI LUN or a single partition from the selected disk as a local volume.
• Instant restore of a volume is a method of restoring the contents of a single volume that provides the user or application on-demand access to data while a background process restores the entire volume contents. To the user or application, the volume appears to contain all the restored data, even though the restore process is in-progress. Instant restore can be done from a full or incremental virtual machine backup. Instant restore is performed by using the DP for VMware Recovery Agent’s Instant Restore function. Mount and instant restore can use full or incremental backups that were created with the backup-archive client data mover.

• 10 TB total storage space

• Up to 150 virtual machines (70 GB average size)

• 6% daily change rate

• Incremental forever backup strategy

• One virtual vStorage backup server (Proxy)

• One Tivoli Storage Manager server

• Estimated disk storage space required is based on the following policy:

10 TB initial full + 614 GB Daily * NB days to be retained on Tivoli Storage Manager server where NB is the first full backup of the virtual machine that must be spread over several days, or another virtual proxy can be set up temporarily.

• 80 TB total storage

• Up to 1,500 virtual machines (50 GB average size)


• 6% daily change rate

• Incremental forever backup strategy

• Three virtual vStorage backup servers (Proxy)
• One Tivoli Storage Manager server
• Estimated disk storage space required is based on the following policy:

Instead, consider the implementation of an appliance, such as IBM ProtecTIER® solutions, to offload the deduplication process out of the Tivoli Storage Manager servers. Also, consider the implementation of a physical proxy with which you can use storage area network (SAN) and LAN-free transport to move the data from the datastore to virtual tapes (ProtecTIER). Figure 4 shows the possible design (including a physical or virtual vStorage backup server) and the deduplication implication.

Figure 4. Tivoli Storage Manager: Big environment overview

• Virtual machine to be managed separately (for example, multiple entities within the same office)


• ESXi clusters to be managed separately (for example, one cluster per entity)

• Multiple vCenter servers

• Depending on your environment, you might need to consider the implementation of Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environment components as shared resources, for example, between different entities.
• In a shared environment, two of the challenges are the security for connecting the VMware infrastructure and the capability to access the data after it is stored in the Tivoli Storage Manager server. Some configuration can be done on the data mover node (the one that is accessing the VMware data and datastores) and on the data center node (the one that is managing the data after it is backed up to the Tivoli Storage Manager server).

• Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Storage Manager Extended Editions - The Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Storage Manager Extended Edition products offer the core components for automated and centralized backup and restore operations. The server and backup-archive client provide basic functions, such as backup and restore operations, and archive and retrieve operations for files, directories, and disk images.
• Tivoli Storage Manager space management products - These products provide space management for disks. The Tivoli Storage Manager space management products can help you move seldom-used files automatically to Tivoli Storage Manager server storage.
• Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager - This product protects data with integrated, application-aware snapshot backup and restore capabilities.
• Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager - These products provide data protection that is tailored for applications.
• Tivoli Storage Manager for Storage Area Networks - This product works with servers and client computers to transfer data over a SAN instead of a LAN.
• Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS Media - You can use storage that is managed by Tivoli Storage Manager for z/OS® Media for Tivoli Storage Manager servers that run on IBM AIX® or Linux on IBM System z® systems.
• Tivoli Storage Manager Suite for Unified Recovery - This product is a bundle of Tivoli Storage Manager products that can satisfy a wide range of data protection and recovery requirements. Licensing is based on the amount of data that is being managed.
• System Storage Archive Manager - This product is a software solution that provides long-term, retention protection when you archive business records, files, or data. The product can help you to comply with regulations for data retention.

• Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments - Data Protection for VMware Deployment Guide, REDP-4991:

• IBM Knowledge Center for Tivoli Storage Manager V7.1:

http://bit.ly/1sqiANh
• IBM Offering Information page (to search on announcement letters, sales manuals, or both):

http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/index.wss?request_locale=en

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