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  1. Home
  3. NetBackup™ for VMware Administrator's Guide
  5. Protecting VMs using hardware snapshots and replication
  7. Operations supported with hardware snapshot
NetBackup™ for VMware Administrator's Guide

Operations supported with hardware snapshot

Table: Virtual machine operations with hardware snapshot

Operation

Description and notes

Create array-based snapshots of virtual machines on the NFS datastore.

Configure a storage lifecycle policy (SLP) and a backup policy to create array snapshots of virtual machines. The snapshots remain on the array or filer and are not backed up to a NetBackup media server storage unit.

Note:

  • The snapshots are created on the NFS datastores only.

  • The virtual machine or its individual files can be restored directly from the snapshots on the storage array. The snapshots can also be replicated to other locations.

  • For fast browsing of files to restore, include the Index From Snapshot option in the SLP. This option, catalogs the metadata of the virtual machine.

Back up quiesce virtual machines from a snapshot (or snapshot replica) which resides on the NFS datastore.

Configure SLP and backup policy to make a backup image from the virtual machine snapshot. NetBackup backs up only the virtual machines quiesce before the snapshot occurs.

The backup image is written to NetBackup storage unit. The image is retained according to the policy's retention period.

Note:

The Application consistent snapshot option in the policy must be enabled (Under Options > Snapshot Client Options).

Restore a virtual machine from a snapshot (or snapshot replica) that is on the NFS datastore or from the backup image written to NetBackup storage unit.

Use the NetBackup web UI interface to restore the virtual machine. Supported restore destinations are the original (NFS) datastore or an alternate datastore (NFS or non-NFS).

Restore individual files and VMDK from a snapshot (or snapshot replica) that is on the NFS datastore or from the backup image written to NetBackup storage unit.

Use the Backup, Archive, and Restore interface to restore the files.

Note:

  • To restore files from a replica of the snapshot, the replica must exist in the same NetBackup domain as the snapshot.

  • To restore files to the original virtual machine, a NetBackup client must be installed on the original virtual machine.

Index from Snapshot

The Index From Snapshot operation catalogs the metadata of the virtual machine. This allows fast browsing of files to restore.

Use Index From Snapshot option in the SLP to use this feature.

Live Browse of snapshot

The live-browse function allows you to browse the content of VM snapshot that resides on the storage array.

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Prerequisites for hardware snapshot and replication

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Configuring a VMware policy to use hardware snapshots

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