Changes to NetWorker VMware Protection

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Changes to NetWorker VMware Protection

NetWorker 9.1.x and 9.2 releases feature a vProxy appliance, or NVP, for virtual machine protection. NetWorker 8.2.x and 9.0.x releases feature a VMware Backup appliance, or VBA, for virtual machine protection. Similar to VBA in NetWorker 9.0.1, NVP in NetWorker 9.1 features the integration of VMware Protection Policies within the main policy workflow of NMC, an interface for the EMC Data Protection Restore Client for file-level restore, and the use of a plug-in within the vSphere Web Client to run virtual machine backup and recovery.

NetWorker 8.2.x

Upon deployment of the VMware Backup Appliance in NetWorker 8.2 SP1 and earlier, two resources appear in the left pane of the Configuration window in NMC:

  • A default protection policy, which is created after NetWorker registers the first VMware Backup Appliance.
  • A default device, which is based on the media type AFTD, to backup to the VMware Backup Appliance’s internal storage.

NetWorker 9.0.x

In NetWorker 9.0.x, further integration of VMware protection policies within the data protection policy framework of NMC means that you no longer require a separate window to run policies for the VMware Backup Appliance. Access to the same functionality is available in the NMC Administration window, under the Protection window. Expanding Policies in the left pane of the Protection window displays all existing protection policies. You can protect virtual machines and VMDKs at the group level by specifying the group type as VMware, and associate the group with a workflow and policy.

To view the available VMware Backup Appliances, select the Devices window. When you select VMware Backup Appliances, the deployed appliances appear in the right pane, which also allows you to monitor the state of the appliance.

VMware View remains the same, as well as the visual representation, which are now provided in the Protection window.

The new interface for the EMC Data Protection Restore Client allows you to perform file-level recoveries in two modes:

  • User, which allows a local user to restore folders or files to the original virtual machine.
  • Admin, which allows an administrator to restore folders or files from a different virtual machine to any available destination client.

NetWorker 9.1

NetWorker VMware Protection with the vProxy appliance (NVP) is a new solution available in NetWorker 9.1 and later releases for virtual machine backup and recovery. With NVP, NetWorker directly manages the vProxy appliances without the use of an external node for proxy management. New installations of NetWorker 9.1 and later use NVP.

NVP has the following benefits:

  • Uses standalone data mover proxy appliances, or vProxy appliances to backup and restore virtual machines that run in a virtualizated infrastructure.
  • NetWorker directly manages the vProxy appliances without the use of an external node for proxy management and load balancing.
  • Stores the virtual machine backups as raw VMDKs on the Data Domain device, which reduces overhead. NetWorker does not convert the backup to any backup streaming formats.
  • Provides the ability to clone virtual machine backups. When you use streaming devices such as tape, NetWorker converts the save set directories format (SSDF) to Common Data Storage Format (CDSF) during a clone operation, and converts back to SSDF on Data Domain for recovery from streaming devices.
  • Provides user interfaces to perform image-level recovery by using the NMC Recovery wizard or the VM Backup and Recovery plug-in within the vSphere Web Client, and file-level recovery by using the NMC Recovery wizard or the EMC Data Protection Restore Client.
Note: If upgrading from a NetWorker 9.0 and earlier release to NetWorker 9.1 and later, you can choose to migrate VBA policies and workflows to the NVP solution, or you can continue to use the VMware Backup appliance to run existing VBA protection policies and recover from VBA backups. Note, however, you will not be able to create any new policies using the VMware Backup Appliance, and you cannot recover backups performed with the VMware Backup appliance by using the vProxy appliance.

NetWorker 9.2

NetWorker 9.2 features the addition of advanced application-consistent data protection for the purposes of backup and recovery of SQL databases, instances, and transaction logs as part of a NetWorker VMware Protection workflow.

For SQL application-consistent data protection, a separate policy is created within NMC, where the Policy Action wizard allows you to select the advanced application- consistent backup option, as well as enabling transaction log backups.

NetWorker 18.2

NetWorker 18.2 supports IPv6 only network stack in vProxy virtual appliances, with same features that are available in an IPv4 only environment. NetWorker VMware Protection Solution is compliant with federal mandate to use IPv6 networks and protects virtual machines in IPv6 environment.

From NetWorker 18.2 and later, image level recoveries of legacy VBA backup are performed using vProxy. You can perform the image level recovery by using either the Revert or New Virtual Machine option.