Dell PowerProtect 19.5 Data Manager Administration And User Guide PDF

PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User Guide

Version 19.5

June 2020 Rev. 01

Notes, cautions, and warnings

NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.

CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the

problem.

WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.

2016 - 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Preface......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Chapter 1: Getting Started............................................................................................................. 12 Introducing PowerProtect Data Manager software........................................................................................................ 12 References............................................................................................................................................................................ 13 Terminology...........................................................................................................................................................................13 Accessing the PowerProtect Data Manager UI............................................................................................................... 14

Getting Started window................................................................................................................................................ 14 UI tools and options ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

Chapter 2: Managing Users............................................................................................................ 17 Managing user roles and privileges ................................................................................................................................... 17

Managing users...............................................................................................................................................................17 Default admin user......................................................................................................................................................... 18 Roles.................................................................................................................................................................................19 Privileges..........................................................................................................................................................................21

Chapter 3: Managing Storage.........................................................................................................26 Add protection storage ......................................................................................................................................................26 Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager cloud tier..................................................................................................... 27

Chapter 4: Using the PowerProtect Search Engine.......................................................................... 28 Introducing the PowerProtect Search Engine.................................................................................................................28 Setting up and managing indexing.................................................................................................................................... 28 Performing a search............................................................................................................................................................29 Restoring from search........................................................................................................................................................ 29 Troubleshooting Search Engine issues............................................................................................................................. 30

Chapter 5: Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems..................................................... 34 About the Storage Direct agent........................................................................................................................................ 34 Storage Direct agent prerequisites................................................................................................................................... 34 Upgrading an existing Storage Direct agent....................................................................................................................35

Configuration file requirements................................................................................................................................... 35 Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for new environments.........................................................36 Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for existing environments................................................... 37 Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct..............................................................................................................................39

Install the Storage Direct agent on Linux................................................................................................................... 39 Upgrade the Storage Direct agent on Linux.............................................................................................................. 40 Install or upgrade the Storage Direct agent on Windows ........................................................................................ 41 Silent installation of the Storage Direct agent............................................................................................................41 Uninstall the Storage Direct agent on Linux............................................................................................................... 41 Uninstall the Storage Direct agent on Windows........................................................................................................42

Manage the Storage Direct agent.....................................................................................................................................42 Storage Direct agent limitations and troubleshooting.................................................................................................... 42

Contents

Contents 3

Chapter 6: Managing Assets.......................................................................................................... 46 About asset sources, assets, and storage........................................................................................................................46 About Kubernetes cluster asset sources and namespace assets................................................................................. 46 About vCenter Server asset sources and virtual assets.................................................................................................47 Prerequisites for discovering asset sources.....................................................................................................................48 Adding a vCenter Server asset source.............................................................................................................................48

Add a VMware vCenter Server................................................................................................................................... 48 Creating a dedicated vCenter user account.............................................................................................................. 49

VM Direct protection engine overview.............................................................................................................................52 Add a VM Direct Engine............................................................................................................................................... 52 Additional VM Direct actions........................................................................................................................................53

Discover a Storage Direct agent host.............................................................................................................................. 54 Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent.................................................................................54 Adding a Kubernetes cluster asset source.......................................................................................................................55

Prerequisites to Kubernetes cluster discovery.......................................................................................................... 55 Add a Kubernetes cluster............................................................................................................................................. 56

Chapter 7: Managing Protection Policies.........................................................................................58 Protection policies...............................................................................................................................................................58

PowerProtect DD protection considerations.............................................................................................................58 Before you create a protection policy.............................................................................................................................. 59 Add a protection policy for a virtual machine.................................................................................................................. 60

More options for managing virtual machine backups............................................................................................... 64 Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct................................................................................................64 Add a Centralized Protection Policy for Storage Direct.................................................................................................67 Add a protection policy for Kubernetes namespace protection....................................................................................70 Add a Cloud Tier schedule to a protection policy............................................................................................................ 72

Managing Cloud Tier asset copies............................................................................................................................... 73 Manual backups of protected assets................................................................................................................................ 73 On-demand cloud tiering of protected assets................................................................................................................. 74 Edit a protection policy....................................................................................................................................................... 74

Add or remove assets in a protection policy.............................................................................................................. 75 Removing expired backup copies...................................................................................................................................... 75 Export protection ............................................................................................................................................................... 76 Delete a protection policy...................................................................................................................................................76 Add a Service Level Agreement.........................................................................................................................................77 Export Asset Compliance................................................................................................................................................... 79 Protection Rules ................................................................................................................................................................. 79

Creating virtual machine tags in the vSphere Client.................................................................................................80 Add a Protection Rule...................................................................................................................................................80 Run a Protection Rule on demand............................................................................................................................... 81 Edit or delete a Protection Rule .................................................................................................................................. 81 Change the priority of an existing Protection Rule .................................................................................................. 82 Configure the behavior of Protection Rules...............................................................................................................82

Chapter 8: Restoring Data and Assets.............................................................................................83 View backup copies available for restore......................................................................................................................... 83 Restore a virtual machine or VMDK..................................................................................................................................83

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Prerequisites to restore a virtual machine..................................................................................................................84 Restore and Overwrite original virtual machine.........................................................................................................84 Restore individual virtual disks..................................................................................................................................... 86 Restore to new virtual machine...................................................................................................................................86 Instant access virtual machine restore....................................................................................................................... 88 File level restore to original virtual machine................................................................................................................ 91 File level restore to alternate virtual machine............................................................................................................ 92 Direct restore to ESXi................................................................................................................................................... 93

Restore an application-aware virtual machine backup................................................................................................... 94 Restoring a Storage Direct VMAX storage group...........................................................................................................94

Restore a VMAX storage group backup to the original location............................................................................. 94 Restore a VMAX storage group backup to an alternate location........................................................................... 95 Instant Access Restore of a VMAX storage group backup..................................................................................... 96

Restoring a Kubernetes namespace................................................................................................................................. 97 Restore to the original namespace..............................................................................................................................97 Restore to a new namespace...................................................................................................................................... 98 Restore to an existing namespace.............................................................................................................................. 98

Self-service restore of Kubernetes namespaces............................................................................................................ 99 Restore the PowerProtect Data Manager server ........................................................................................................ 100 Restore Cloud Tier backups to the DD system...............................................................................................................101

Recall and restore from Cloud tier..............................................................................................................................101 Troubleshooting virtual machine restore issues............................................................................................................. 102

Troubleshooting instant access restore failures.......................................................................................................103 FLR Agent for virtual machine file-level restore...................................................................................................... 103 Supported platform and OS versions for virtual machine file-level restore......................................................... 104 File-level restore and SQL restore limitations...........................................................................................................105

Chapter 9: Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster................................................................ 107 Managing system backups................................................................................................................................................107 Manage PowerProtect Data Manager backups for disaster recovery....................................................................... 107 Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager Cloud Disaster Recovery.........................................................................108 Prepare the DD system recovery target.........................................................................................................................108 Configure backups for disaster recovery........................................................................................................................109 Configure PowerProtect Data Manager server disaster recovery backups.............................................................. 109 Record settings for disaster recovery.............................................................................................................................109 Restore PowerProtect Data Manager from an external DD system........................................................................... 110 Recovering a Search cluster from a DR backup..............................................................................................................111 Troubleshooting backup configuration issues................................................................................................................. 112 Troubleshoot recovery of PowerProtect Data Manager...............................................................................................112 Recover a failed PowerProtect Data Manager backup................................................................................................. 113

Chapter 10: Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks................................................................................ 114 Configure Alert Notifications.............................................................................................................................................114 View and manage System Alerts...................................................................................................................................... 114 View and manage Audit Logs............................................................................................................................................115 Monitor and view jobs........................................................................................................................................................ 115 Monitor and view tasks......................................................................................................................................................115 Restart a job or task manually........................................................................................................................................... 116 Restart a job or task automatically................................................................................................................................... 116

Contents 5

Cancel a job or task............................................................................................................................................................ 117 Export logs for a job or task.............................................................................................................................................. 118

Chapter 11: Modifying the System Settings.................................................................................... 119 System settings.................................................................................................................................................................. 119

Modify the network settings....................................................................................................................................... 119 Synchronize time on PowerProtect Data Manager and other systems................................................................ 119 Modify the appliance time zone................................................................................................................................. 120 Change the system root user password................................................................................................................... 120 Enable replication encryption......................................................................................................................................120 License types.................................................................................................................................................................121 PowerProtect Data Manager licenses....................................................................................................................... 121

System Support................................................................................................................................................................. 122 Register the Secure Remote Services gateway...................................................................................................... 122 Callhome .......................................................................................................................................................................123 Configure PowerProtect Central reporting.............................................................................................................. 124 Set up the email server................................................................................................................................................124 Add Auto Support........................................................................................................................................................ 125 Enable automatic upgrade package downloads....................................................................................................... 125 Add a log bundle........................................................................................................................................................... 125 Monitor system state and system health..................................................................................................................126 Access the open source software package information.........................................................................................126

Modifying the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine disk settings................................................................126 Modify the virtual machine memory configuration.................................................................................................. 126 Modify the data disk size.............................................................................................................................................127 Modify the system disk size........................................................................................................................................128

Configure the DD system..................................................................................................................................................128

Chapter 12: Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in................................................... 129 Introducing the PowerProtect plug-in for the vSphere Client.....................................................................................129 Prerequisites for enabling the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in......................................................................... 130 Monitor PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection copies.................................................................. 131 On-demand PowerProtect policy backup in the vSphere Client..................................................................................131 Image-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client....................................................................... 132 File-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client............................................................................ 133

Chapter 13: Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services.................................................... 135 PowerProtect Data Manager image backup and recovery for VMware Cloud on AWS..........................................135 Configure the VMware Cloud on AWS web portal console......................................................................................... 135 Amazon AWS web portal requirements.......................................................................................................................... 136 Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features.................................................................................. 136 vCenter server inventory requirements.......................................................................................................................... 136 VMware Cloud on AWS configuration best practices...................................................................................................137 Add a VM Direct Engine.................................................................................................................................................... 137 Protection and recovery operations................................................................................................................................ 138 Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features.................................................................................. 138 Unsupported operations in VMware Cloud on AWS .................................................................................................... 138 Troubleshooting VMware Cloud on AWS ...................................................................................................................... 138

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Chapter 14: Upgrading the PowerProtect software.........................................................................139 Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.5 and later............................................................................139

Run a manual precheck............................................................................................................................................... 140 Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.4 and later.............................................................................141 Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.2 and 19.3.............................................................................142 Upgrade the software from PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1..................................................................... 143

Chapter 15: Configuring and Managing the PowerProtect Agent Service ......................................... 145 About the PowerProtect agent service.......................................................................................................................... 145 Start, stop, or obtain the status of the PowerProtect agent service.........................................................................146 Register the PowerProtect agent service to a different server address................................................................... 146 Recovering the PowerProtect agent service from a disaster......................................................................................147

Restore the PowerProtect Data Manager agent service datastore......................................................................147

Chapter 16: Backup and Recovery of the vCenter Server................................................................. 149 Backup and recovery of the vCenter server.................................................................................................................. 149 vCenter deployments overview....................................................................................................................................... 149 Protecting an embedded PSC..........................................................................................................................................149

Direct restore to ESXi................................................................................................................................................. 150 Protecting external deployment models.......................................................................................................................... 151

vCenter server appliance(s) with one external PSC where PSC fails................................................................... 151 vCenter server appliance is lost but the PSC remains............................................................................................ 152 vCenter server appliance with multiple PSCs where one PSC is lost, one remains............................................152 vCenter server appliance remains but all PSCs fail................................................................................................. 152 vCenter server appliance remains but multiple PSCs fail....................................................................................... 152 vCenter server appliance fails.................................................................................................................................... 153

vCenter server restore workflow.....................................................................................................................................154 Platform Services Controller restore workfow.............................................................................................................. 155 Additional considerations.................................................................................................................................................. 155 Command reference..........................................................................................................................................................156

Chapter 17: Best Practices and Troubleshooting............................................................................. 157 Best practices for VM Direct Engines............................................................................................................................. 157

Software and hardware requirements.......................................................................................................................158 PowerProtect Data Manager resource requirements in a VMware environment...............................................159 Configuration checklist for common issues..............................................................................................................159 VM Direct Engine performance and scalability........................................................................................................ 159 Changing the limit of instant access sessions.......................................................................................................... 160 Enabling or disabling Changed Block Tracking..........................................................................................................161 Configure a backup to support vSAN datastores.....................................................................................................161 Disable vCenter SSL certificate validation.................................................................................................................161

Recommendations and considerations when using a Kubernetes cluster..................................................................162 Best practices for vCenter Server backup and restore................................................................................................ 163 Viewing the DD Boost storage unit password............................................................................................................... 163 Change the DD Boost storage unit password................................................................................................................164 Replacing expired or changed certificate on an external server..................................................................................165 Base 10 standard used for size calculations in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI................................................ 167 Troubleshooting network setup issues............................................................................................................................167

Contents 7

Troubleshooting virtual machine backup issues............................................................................................................. 167 VM Direct Engine limitations and unsupported features.........................................................................................167 Deleting vCenter asset sources or moving ESXi to another vCenter................................................................... 169 Managing command execution for VM Direct Agent operations on Linux...........................................................170 SQL Server application-consistent backups fail with error "Unable to find VSS metadata files in directory".170 SQL Server application-aware backup displays an error about disk.EnableUUID variable.................................. 171 Failed to lock Virtual Machine for backup: Another EMC VM Direct operation 'Backup' is active on VM ...... 171 Backup fails when names include special characters .............................................................................................. 171 Lock placed on virtual machine during backup and recovery operations continues for 24 hours if VM

Direct appliance fails................................................................................................................................................. 171 Trailing spaces not supported in SQL database names...........................................................................................172 SQL databases skipped during virtual machine transaction log backup............................................................... 172 Accessing Knowledge Base Articles.......................................................................................................................... 172

Troubleshooting protection policy for DD storage unit................................................................................................. 173 Troubleshoot the PowerProtect agent service operations.......................................................................................... 173 Troubleshooting Kubernetes cluster issues.................................................................................................................... 173

Removing PowerProtect Data Manager components from a Kubernetes cluster..............................................175 Troubleshooting a PowerProtect Data Manager software upgrade........................................................................... 176

Managing certificates after upgrading from versions earlier than PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1..............................................................................................................................................................................176

Appendix A: Application-Consistent Database Backups in Kubernetes.............................................. 177 About application-consistent database backups in Kubernetes...................................................................................177

Supported database applications............................................................................................................................... 177 Prerequisites..................................................................................................................................................................177

Obtain and deploy the CLI package................................................................................................................................. 178 About application templates............................................................................................................................................. 178

YAML configuration files............................................................................................................................................. 179 Application actions....................................................................................................................................................... 180 Pod actions................................................................................................................................................................... 180 Selectors....................................................................................................................................................................... 180

Deploy application templates.............................................................................................................................................181 Perform application-consistent backups........................................................................................................................ 182 Verify application-consistent backups.............................................................................................................................182 Disaster recovery considerations..................................................................................................................................... 183 Granular-level recovery considerations........................................................................................................................... 183 Log truncation considerations.......................................................................................................................................... 183

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Preface As part of an effort to improve product lines, periodic revisions of software and hardware are released. Therefore, all versions of the software or hardware currently in use might not support some functions that are described in this document. The product release notes provide the most up-to-date information on product features.

If a product does not function correctly or does not function as described in this document, contact a technical support professional.

NOTE: This document was accurate at publication time. To ensure that you are using the latest version of this

document, go to the Support website https://www.dell.com/support.

Data Domain is now PowerProtect DD. References to Data Domain or DD systems in this documentation, in the UI, and

elsewhere in the product include PowerProtect DD systems and older Data Domain systems. In many cases the UI has

not yet been updated to reflect this change.

Purpose This document describes how to configure and administer the PowerProtect Data Manager software.

Audience This document is intended for the host system administrator who is involved in managing, protecting, and reusing data across the enterprise by deploying PowerProtect Data Manager software.

Revision history The following table presents the revision history of this document.

Table 1. Revision history

Revision Date Description

01 June 30, 2020 GA release of this document for PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.5

Compatibility information Software compatibility information for the PowerProtect Data Manager software is provided in the eLab Navigator, available at https:// elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/modernHomeDataProtection.

Related documentation The following publications are available on Dell EMC Online Support and provide additional information:

PowerProtect Data Manager Administration and User GuideDescribes how to configure the software. PowerProtect Data Manager Deployment GuideDescribes how to deploy the software. PowerProtect Data Manager Release NotesContains information on new features, known limitations, environment, and system

requirements for the software. PowerProtect Data Manager Security Configuration GuideContains security information. PowerProtect Data Manager AWS Deployment GuideDescribes how to deploy the software in an AWS environment. PowerProtect Data Manager Cloud Disaster Recovery Administration and User GuideDescribes how to deploy Cloud DR, protect

VMs in the AWS or Azure cloud, and run recovery operations. PowerProtect Data Manager for Cyber Recovery User GuideDescribes how to install, upgrade, patch, and uninstall the Dell EMC

PowerProtect Cyber Recovery software. PowerProtect Data Manager for File System Agent User GuideDescribes how to configure and use the software with the File

System agent for file system data protection. PowerProtect Data Manager for Microsoft Application Agent Exchange Server User GuideDescribes how to configure and use the

software in a Microsoft Exchange Server environment.

Preface 9

PowerProtect Data Manager for Microsoft Application Agent SQL Server User GuideDescribes how to configure and use the software in a Microsoft SQL Server environment.

PowerProtect Data Manager for Oracle RMAN Agent User GuideDescribes how to configure and use the software in an Oracle Server environment.

PowerProtect Data Manager for SAP HANA Agent User GuideDescribes how to configure and use the software in an SAP HANA Server environment.

PowerProtect Data Manager API documentation: https://developer.dellemc.comContains the PowerProtect Data Manager APIs and includes tutorials to guide to you in their use.

Typographical conventions The following type style conventions are used in this document:

Table 2. Style conventions

Bold Used for interface elements that a user specifically selects or clicks, for example, names of buttons, fields, tab names, and menu paths. Also used for the name of a dialog box, page, pane, screen area with title, table label, and window.

Italic Used for full titles of publications that are referenced in text.

Monospace Used for:

System code System output, such as an error message or script Pathnames, file names, file name extensions, prompts, and syntax Commands and options

Monospace italic Used for variables.

Monospace bold Used for user input.

[ ] Square brackets enclose optional values.

| Vertical line indicates alternate selections. The vertical line means or for the alternate selections.

{ } Braces enclose content that the user must specify, such as x, y, or z.

... Ellipses indicate non-essential information that is omitted from the example.

You can use the following resources to find more information about this product, obtain support, and provide feedback.

Where to find product documentation https://www.dell.com/support https://www.dell.com/community

Where to get support The Support website https://www.dell.com/support provides access to product licensing, documentation, advisories, downloads, and how-to and troubleshooting information. The information can enable you to resolve a product issue before you contact Support.

To access a product-specific page:

1. Go to https://www.dell.com/support. 2. In the search box, type a product name, and then from the list that appears, select the product.

Knowledgebase The Knowledgebase contains applicable solutions that you can search for either by solution number (for example, KB000xxxxxx) or by keyword.

To search the Knowledgebase:

1. Go to https://www.dell.com/support.

10 Preface

2. On the Support tab, click Knowledge Base. 3. In the search box, type either the solution number or keywords. Optionally, you can limit the search to specific products by typing a

product name in the search box, and then selecting the product from the list that appears.

Live chat To participate in a live interactive chat with a support agent:

1. Go to https://www.dell.com/support. 2. On the Support tab, click Contact Support. 3. On the Contact Information page, click the relevant support, and then proceed.

Service requests To obtain in-depth help from Licensing, submit a service request. To submit a service request:

1. Go to https://www.dell.com/support. 2. On the Support tab, click Service Requests.

NOTE: To create a service request, you must have a valid support agreement. For details about either an account or

obtaining a valid support agreement, contact a sales representative. To find the details of a service request, in the

Service Request Number field, type the service request number, and then click the right arrow.

To review an open service request:

1. Go to https://www.dell.com/support. 2. On the Support tab, click Service Requests. 3. On the Service Requests page, under Manage Your Service Requests, click View All Dell Service Requests.

Online communities For peer contacts, conversations, and content on product support and solutions, go to the Community Network https://www.dell.com/ community. Interactively engage with customers, partners, and certified professionals online.

How to provide feedback Feedback helps to improve the accuracy, organization, and overall quality of publications. You can send feedback to DPAD.Doc.Feedback@emc.com.

Preface 11

Getting Started

Topics:

Introducing PowerProtect Data Manager software References Terminology Accessing the PowerProtect Data Manager UI

Introducing PowerProtect Data Manager software PowerProtect Data Manager software is an enterprise solution that provides software-defined data protection, deduplication, operational agility, self-service, and IT governance.

PowerProtect Data Manager enables the transformation from traditional centralized protection to an IT-as-a-service model based on a self-service design. This design ensures that you can enforce compliance and other business rules, even when backup responsibilities are decentralized to individual database administrators and application administrators.

PowerProtect Data Manager key features include:

Software-defined data protection with integrated deduplication, replication, and reuse Data backup and recovery self-service operations from native applications that are combined with central IT governance Multicloud optimization with integrated cloud tiering SaaS-based monitoring and reporting Modern services-based architecture for ease of deployment, scaling, and upgrading

PowerProtect Data Manager integrates multiple data protection products within the Dell EMC Data Protection portfolio to enable data protection as a service, providing the following benefits:

Enables the data protection team to create data paths with provisioning, automation, and scheduling to embed protection engines into the infrastructure for high-performance backup and recovery.

Enables backup administrators of large-scale environments to schedule backups for the following asset types from a central location on the PowerProtect Data Manager server:

VMware Virtual Machines File Systems VMAX Storage Groups Kubernetes clusters Microsoft Exchange and SQL databases Oracle databases SAP HANA databases

Uses an agent-based approach to discover the protected and unprotected databases on an application server. Enables governed self-service and centralized protection by:

Monitoring and enforcing Service Level Objectives (SLOs) Identifying violations of Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) Applying retention locks on backups for all asset types.

Supports deploying an external VM Direct appliance to move data with the VM Direct Engine. The PowerProtect Data Manager software comes prebundled with an embedded VM Direct engine, which is automatically used as a fallback proxy for performing backup and restore operations when the added external proxies fail or are disabled. Dell EMC recommends that you always deploy external proxies, because the embedded proxy has limited capacity for performing parallel backups.

Supports the vRealize Automation DP extension, which enables provisioning of virtual machines with PowerProtect Data Manager protection, on-demand backup, and restore to the original or a new location. The vRealize Automation Data Protection Extension for PowerProtect Data Manager Installation and Administration Guide provides more information.

Supports integration of Cloud Disaster Recovery (Cloud DR), including workflows for Cloud DR deployment, protection, and recovery operations in the AWS or Azure cloud.

1

12 Getting Started

Supports PowerProtect Search, which enables backup administrators to quickly search for and restore VM file copies. The Search Service can be enabled by adding a search node to the configurable Search Engine that is autodeployed during the PowerProtect Data Manager installation.

Provides a RESTful interface that allows the user to monitor, configure, and orchestrate PowerProtect Data Manager. Customers can use the APIs to integrate their own automation framework or quickly write new scripts with the help of easy-to-follow tutorials.

References Some procedures in this document reference other publications for detailed procedures.

The following publications, available on Dell EMC Online Support, provide additional information:

PowerProtect Data Manager Security Configuration Guide PowerProtect Database Application Agent Installation and Administration Guide PowerProtect Microsoft Application Agent Exchange Server User Guide PowerProtect Microsoft Application Agent Installation Guide PowerProtect Microsoft Application Agent SQL Server User Guide PowerProtect Oracle RMAN Agent Administration Guide PowerProtect Storage Direct Agent Installation and Administration Guide PowerProtect Storage Direct Primary and Protection Storage Configuration Guide PowerProtect Storage Direct Solutions Guide

Terminology Familiarize yourself with the terminology that is used in the PowerProtect Data Manager user interface and documentation.

The following table provides more information about names and terms you should know to use PowerProtect Data Manager:

Term Description

Application Agent Application Agents are installed on application or database host servers to manage protection using PowerProtect Data Manager. These Agents are commonly known as DDBoost Enterprise Agents (DDBEA) for databases and applications.

Application Aware Virtual machine protection policy that includes additional application-aware data protection for Microsoft SQL Servers. An application-aware virtual machine protection policy provides the ability to quiesce the application during virtual machine image backup to perform a full backup of SQL databases. You can also schedule SQL server log backups for the virtual machines in the policy.

Asset Assets are objects in PowerProtect Data Manager for which you want to manage protection, including VMs, databases, and file systems.

Asset Source Assets that PowerProtect Data Manager protects reside within Asset Sources, which include vCenter Servers, application or database hosts, and file servers.

Cloud Tier Storage Cloud Tier storage can be added to an external DD system to expand the DD deduplication storage capacity onto less expensive object storage in public or private object storage clouds, including Dell EMC secure Elastic Cloud Storage appliances.

Copy A PowerProtect Data Manager copy is a point-in-time backup copy of an Asset.

Copy Map The PowerProtect Data Manager Copy Map is a visual representation of backup copy locations on your Protection Storage and is available for all protected Assets that have copies.

Discovery Discovery is an internal process that scans Asset Sources to find new assets to protect and scans infrastructure components to monitor their health and status.

Instant Access PowerProtect Data Manager VM backup copies can be accessed, mounted, and booted directly from the Protection Storage targets as running VMs. Copies can also be moved to a production VMware datastore using vMotion.

PowerProtect Data Manager VM application-aware backup copies can be mounted directly from the Protection Storage targets as running SQL databases, which includes the ability to roll forward log backups. These SQL database disks can also be moved to a production VMware datastore using vMotion.

Getting Started 13

Term Description

Power Protect Data Manager Agent

An agent that is included in PowerProtect Data Manager and installed on each application agent host server so that you can monitor and manage the application agent through PowerProtect Data Manager.

Protection Policy Protection Policies configure and manage the entire life cycle of backup data, which includes backup type, assets, backup start/stop time, backup device, and backup retention.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) An optional policy that you can layer on top of a Protection Policy. An SLA performs additional checks on protection activities to ensure that protection goals meet the standards that your organization requires. SLAs are made up of one or more Service Level Objectives.

Service Level Objectives (SLO) Definable rules that set the criteria for Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), encryption, and locations of backups according to your company requirements.

Accessing the PowerProtect Data Manager UI PowerProtect Data Manager provides a web-based UI that you can use to manage and monitor system features and settings from any location over a network.

Steps

1. From a host that has network access to the virtual appliance, use Google Chrome to connect to the appliance:

https://appliance_hostname NOTE: You can specify the hostname or the IP address of the appliance.

2. Log in with your user name and password.

If this is the first time you are accessing the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, an unsigned certificate warning might appear in the web browser.

The security certificate that encrypts communication between the PowerProtect Data Manager UI and the web browser is self- signed. A self-signed certificate has been signed by the web server that hosts the secure web page being viewed by a web browser. There is nothing wrong with this certificate. This certificate is sufficient to establish an encrypted channel between the web browser and the server. However, it has not been signed by a trusted authority.

The Getting Started page appears.

The left pane provides links to the available menu items. Expand a menu item for more options. The icons in the PowerProtect Data Manager banner provide additional options.

Getting Started window The Getting Started window provides configuration options that are required when the system is first deployed.

This window appears upon first deployment of PowerProtect Data Manager and opens to this page by default until you click Skip This.

You can access the Getting Started page at any time by selecting System Settings > Getting Started.

Table 3. PowerProtect Data Manager Getting Started menu items

Options Description

Support View and configure Secure Remote Services (SRS), Email Setup, Auto Support, Logs, System Health.

Disaster Recovery Backup Configure and manage backups for disaster recovery.

VMware vCenter Opens the Infrastructure > Asset Sources page where you can add a vCenter instance as an asset source so that it can be added to a protection policy.

Protect Assets Opens the Protection Policies page where you can manage Protection Life Cycle workflows for all asset types.

14 Getting Started

UI tools and options Learn about the available tools in the UI.

PowerProtect Data Manager UI tools

Table 4. PowerProtect Data Manager tools

Menu item Description

Dashboard

Provides a high-level view of the overall state the PowerProtect Data Manager system and includes the following information:

AlertsSystem alerts ProtectionDetails about protection policies JobsStatus of all Jobs that are filtered by a selected time period or status type. Select the

status in the Jobs pane to open the Jobs window, where you can manage jobs, search, and view details.

PolicyDetails include number of successes, failures, and excluded assets for each asset type Protection StorageProtection storage usage statistics RecoveryRecovery statistics HealthDetails about the health of the system, including services, licenses, support, protection

engines, server backups, and uptime

PowerProtect Data Manager refreshes the data hourly unless you run an ad hoc discovery.

Infrastructure

Click Infrastructure to:

View and manage all assets:

VMware Virtual Machines File Systems VMAX Storage Groups Kubernetes clusters Microsoft Exchange and SQL databases Oracle databases SAP HANA databases

Add vCenter and Application and File System Host asset sources. View and manage Integrated Storage. Add a VM Direct appliance with the VM Direct protection engine for virtual machine data

protection. Manage registration of Oracle RMAN agent, Microsoft application agent, SAP HANA agent, and

File System agent. View and manage Cloud Disaster Recovery. Create and manage a Search Cluster.

Protection

Click Protection to:

Add protection policies to back up assets. Manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Add, edit, and delete protection rules for asset inclusion in policies.

Recovery

Click Recovery to:

View asset copy location details and initiate a Restore operation. Manage Instant Access Sessions. Use the File Search feature to find and restore virtual machine file copies.

Alerts

Click Alerts to:

View and acknowledge alerts and events. View and examine Audit logs. Export audit logs to CSV files. Set audit log boundaries.

Getting Started 15

Table 4. PowerProtect Data Manager tools (continued)

Menu item Description

Administration

Click Administration to:

Configure users and roles. Set password credentials and manage key chains. View certificates. Configure alert notifications. Add LDAP Identity Sources.

Jobs

Click Jobs to manage jobs, view by completed or running, filter, and view details.

Reporting

Click Reporting to log in to PowerProtect Central.

Banner UI options The following table describes the icons that are located in the PowerProtect Data Manager banner.

Table 5. Banner UI options

Option Description

Click to enter search criteria to find assets, jobs, logs, and alerts.

Click to see recent alerts.

Click to configure and manage PowerProtect Data Manager system network, time zone, and NTP settings, DR backups, security, licenses, upgrades, authentication, agent downloads, and support, and to access the Getting Started page.

Click to log out, and log in as a different user.

Click to see PowerProtect Data Manager version information.

Click to obtain more information about PowerProtect Data Manager, access Dell EMC Support, or view the REST API documentation.

16 Getting Started

Managing Users

Topics:

Managing user roles and privileges

Managing user roles and privileges Users can be defined as either local or LDAP/Active Directory. Users and LDAP groups can access all protection policies and assets within the PowerProtect Data Manager environment.

The role that is assigned to a user defines the privileges that are associated with the user and determines the tasks that the user can perform.

Managing users Only the Admin role can manage users.

The following roles can view users, roles, identity sources, and user groups:

Admin User Export and Recovery Admin

Users can see only their own role within their own account.

NOTE: User authorization grants or denies users access to PowerProtect Data Manager resources. Authorization is the

same for locally authorized users and Microsoft Windows Active Directory/LDAP users.

You can create local users to perform management tasks. When you create a local user account, you must assign a role to the user.

Add a user Only the Admin role can add a user.

Steps

1. Select Administration > Users.

The Users window appears.

2. Click Add.

3. In the New User window, provide the following information:

User first name User last name Username Email Address Password Retype to confirm password Force Password ChangeEnabled by default. Requires the user to update the password at first login. Role

4. Click Save.

Results

The newly added user appears in the Users window.

2

Managing Users 17

Edit or delete a user Only the Admin role can edit or delete a user.

Steps

1. Select Administration > Users.

The Users window displays the following information:

Username User first name User last name User email address User role Date the user was created

2. Select the user you want to edit or delete. 3. Do one of the following:

To delete the user, click Delete. To edit the user, click Edit, modify the user fields, and then click Save.

Results

The changes appear in the Users window.

Reset a password Local users can reset a forgotten password using this procedure.

Prerequisites

The user must be a local user. A mail server must be configured on PowerProtect Data Manager. LDAP and Windows Active Directory users cannot reset their password using this procedure. Contact the system administrator to

reset your password.

About this task

Local users can receive an email with a link to reset their password. The reset password link in the email expires in 20 minutes, after which time they must request another link.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager login page, click Forgot Password. 2. In the Forgot Password dialog box, type your user name, click Send Link, and click OK to dismiss the informational dialog box.

The system sends a message to the email address associated with your user name. 3. Open the email and click the link. 4. In the Reset Password dialog box, type a new password in the New Password and Confirm New Password fields, and click Save.

The PowerProtect Data Manager login page appears. 5. Log in with your user name and new password.

Default admin user The default admin user is preassigned the Admin role during PowerProtect Data Manager installation.

The default admin user has super user control over PowerProtect Data Manager and cannot be deleted. However, you can modify the attributes of the default admin user.

18 Managing Users

Roles A role defines the privileges and permissions that a user has to perform a group of tasks. When a user is assigned a role, you grant the user all of the privileges that are defined by the role. Only one role can be associated to a user account.

Admin role

Admin

The Admin role is responsible for setup, configuration, and all PowerProtect Data Manager management functions. The Admin role provides systemwide access to all functionality across all organizations. One default Admin role is assigned at PowerProtect Data Manager deployment and installation. You can add and assign additional Admin roles to users in your organization who require full access to the system.

This table outlines the privileges and tasks that are associated with the Admin role.

Table 6. Admin role privileges and tasks

Privileges Tasks

Activity Management Manage Discovery Jobs Manage Tasks Workflow Execution

Asset Management View Data Source Assets Manage Data Source Assets View Protection Storage Targets Manage Protection Storage Targets

Monitoring Monitor Events Manage Events View Historical Data View Tasks and Activities

Recovery and Reuse Management View Host Manage Host Rollback to Production Recovery to New Location Export for Reuse

Service Plan Management View Plans Manage Plans Assign Data Source to Plan

Security and System Audit Monitor Security/System Audit Manage Security/System Audit

Storage Management View Storage Array Manage Storage Array View Inventory Sources Manage Inventory Sources

Support Assistance and Log Management

View Diagnostic Logs Manage Diagnostic Logs

System Management View System Settings Manage System Settings

User/Security Management Manage User Security View User Security

Managing Users 19

User role

User

The User role is responsible for monitoring the PowerProtect Data Manager Dashboard, Activity Monitor, and Notifications. The User role provides read-only access to monitor activities and operations. Assign the User role to users in your organization who monitor Dashboard activities, Activity Monitor, and Notifications but do not require the ability to configure the system.

This table outlines the privileges and tasks that are associated with the User role.

Table 7. User role privileges and tasks

Privileges Tasks

Activity Management Workflow Execution

Asset Management View Data Source Assets View Protection Storage Targets

Monitoring Monitor Events View Historical Data View Tasks and Activities

Recovery and Reuse Management View Host

Service Plan Management View Plans

Security and System Audit Monitor Security/System Audit

Storage Management View Storage Array View Inventory Sources

Support Assistance and Log Management

View Diagnostic Logs

System Management View System Settings

User/Security Management View User Security

Export and Recovery Admin role

Export and Recovery Admin

The Export and Recovery Admin role is defined for a dedicated set of users who are solely responsible for PowerProtect Data Manager setup, configuration, and execution of data management tasks such as copy export and recovery operations. The Export and Recovery Admin role provides access only to those functions required for data export and recovery operations. This role and its operations are intended for a limited set of users whose actions are solely focused on data management, export, and recovery; and whose actions are audited routinely for security purposes. Assign the Export and Recovery Admin role to a user in your organization who requires access to data only to make it available to others in the organization and thereby maintain a chain of custody record.

This table outlines the privileges and tasks that are associated with the Export and Recovery Admin role.

Table 8. Export and Recovery Admin role privileges and tasks

Privileges Tasks

Activity Management None

Asset Management View Data Source Assets View Protection Storage Targets

Monitoring Monitor Events

20 Managing Users

Table 8. Export and Recovery Admin role privileges and tasks (continued)

Privileges Tasks

View Historical Data View Tasks and Activities

Recovery and Reuse Management View Host Manage Host Rollback to Production Recovery to New Location Export for Reuse

Service Plan Management None

Security and System Audit None

Storage Management View Storage Array

Support Assistance and Log Management

View Diagnostic Logs Add Logs Export Logs

System Management View System Settings

User/Security Management View User Security

Privileges PowerProtect Data Manager privileges define the tasks that a user can perform and these privileges are assigned to roles.

Activity Management Privileges This table defines the Activity Management Privileges.

Table 9. Activity Management Privileges

Privilege Task

Manage Discovery Jobs Create discovery jobs. View discovery jobs. Edit discovery jobs. Delete discovery jobs.

Manage Task Create task resources. View task resources. Edit task resources.

Workflow Execution Start workflow execution. Cancel workflow execution. View the status of workflow execution.

Asset Management Privileges This table defines the Asset Management Privileges.

Table 10. Asset Management Privileges

Privilege Task

Manage Data Source Assets Create, read, edit, and delete a data source.

Managing Users 21

Table 10. Asset Management Privileges (continued)

Privilege Task

Create, view, edit, and delete the policy in the protection group resource. Create, view, edit, and delete asset group resources. Create, view, edit, patch, and delete tag category resources.

Manage Protection Storage Targets Create, view, edit, and delete a data target. Create, view, edit, and delete asset group resources of protection storage targets.

View Data Source Assets View a data source. View asset group resources. View the policy of the protection group resource. View tag category resources.

View Protection Storage Targets View a data target.

Monitoring Privileges This table defines the Monitoring Privileges.

Table 11. Monitoring Privileges

Privilege Task

View Tasks or Activities View task resources.

View Historical Data View historical data that relates to plans, arrays, data targets, data sources, and capacity data.

Monitor Events View alerts. View external notifications.

Manage Events Acknowledge alerts and add notes. Create, modify, and delete external notifications.

Service Policy Management Privileges This table defines the Policy Management Privileges.

Table 12. Policy Management Privileges

Privilege Task

Assign Data Source to Policy Assign a data source to a protection policy resource.

Manage Policies Create, view, edit, and delete the policy for a protection policy resource. Create, view, edit, and delete a policy definition resource. Create, view, edit, and delete schedule resources. Create, view, edit, and delete an objective definition resource. Create, read, edit, and delete an action definition.

View Policies View the policy for a protection policy resource. View schedule. View a protection policy definition. View objective definition. View services. View service resources. View assets that are assigned to a protection policy.

22 Managing Users

Table 12. Policy Management Privileges (continued)

Privilege Task

View action definitions. View asset group resources.

Recovery and Reuse Management Privileges This table defines the Recovery and Reuse Management Privileges.

Table 13. Recovery and Reuse Management Privileges

Privilege Task

Export for Reuse Create, view, edit, and start export and reuse operations.

Roll back to Production Create, view, edit, and start rollback to production operations.

Recovery to Alternate Location Create, view, edit, and start recovery to alternate location operations.

Manage Host Create, view, edit and delete a host.

View Host View a host.

Storage Management Privileges This table defines the Storage Management Privileges.

Table 14. Storage Management Privileges

Privilege Task

View Inventory Sources View a management interface. Read storage manager resources such as exported, deleted, and restored copies.

View Storage Array View a storage array.

Manage Storage Array Create, view, edit, and delete a storage array.

Manage Inventory Sources Create storage manager resources and run creation-related storage array operations. Create exported and restored copies and run restore-related storage array operations. Create expunged copies and run deletion-related storage array operations. Create, view, edit, and delete a management interface.

Security Management Privileges This table defines the Security Management Privileges.

Table 15. Security Management Privileges

Privilege Task

Manage User Security Create, view, edit, and delete users View roles Create, view, edit, and delete identity sources Create, view, edit, and delete user groups Create, view, edit, and delete white lists

View User Security View users and roles View identity sources and user groups

Managing Users 23

Table 15. Security Management Privileges (continued)

Privilege Task

View white lists

System Management Privileges This table defines the System Management Privileges.

Table 16. System Management Privileges

Privilege Task

View System Settings View SRS information View Server Disaster Recovery artifacts View Maintenance Mode View License information View Server Disaster Recovery Status View node, Configuration EULA, OS User, Upgrade Package, Component, Configuration Status,

Configuration Logs, Time Zone, and State resources View NTP information

Manage System Settings Manage Server Disaster Recovery activities Manage SRS Gateway connection and other Telemetry communications View and edit Node State resource Update the license for the appliance View Component, Configuration Status, Configuration Logs, Time Zone, and State resources View and edit node, Configuration EULA, OS User, and Lockbox resources Create, view, edit, and delete the Upgrade Package resource Update time zone Update NTP information

Support Assistance and Log Management Privileges This table defines the Support Assistance and Log Management Privileges.

Table 17. Support Assistance and Log Management Privileges

Privilege Task

View Diagnostic Logs View Log bundle resources. View Log information resources. View the LogSource resource. View logs.

Manage Diagnostic Logs Manage Log bundle resources. Retrieve Log information resources. Retrieve or edit the LogSource resource. Export logs.

Security and System Audit Privileges This table defines the Security and System Audit Privileges.

Table 18. Security and System Audit Privileges

Privilege Task

Monitor Security/System Audit View Security Auditrelated events and activities.

24 Managing Users

Table 18. Security and System Audit Privileges (continued)

Privilege Task

Manage Security/System Audit Acknowledge Security Auditrelated events and activities. Export Audit/Change Log of events and activities.

Managing Users 25

Managing Storage

Topics:

Add protection storage Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager cloud tier

Add protection storage About this task

The PowerProtect Data Manager UI enables users with administrator credentials to add the following storage types:

DD Management Center External DD system

NOTE: The most up-to-date software compatibility information for PowerProtect Data Manager is provided in the eLab

Navigator.

When a DD Management Center is added, PowerProtect Data Manager discovers all the supported DD systems that are managed by the DD Management Center. The PowerProtect Data Manager UI displays the discovered DD systems on the Protection Storage tab of the Infrastructure > Storage window. The DD systems that are managed by the DD Management Center are not displayed until discovery is complete. It might take a few minutes for the DD systems to appear in the Storage window.

For each DD system, the DD Management Center that manages the DD system is indicated in the Managed By column in the table.

If a DD system is added directly to PowerProtect Data Manager, the name that was provided for the DD system when it was added to the PowerProtect Data Manager system is displayed in the Managed By column.

NOTE: Data Domain is now PowerProtect DD. References to Data Domain or DD systems in this documentation, in the

UI, and elsewhere in the product include PowerProtect DD systems and older Data Domain systems. In many cases the

UI has not yet been updated to reflect this change.

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Storage.

The Storage window appears.

2. In the Protection Storage tab, click Add. 3. In the Add Storage dialog box, select a storage system (DD System, DD Management Center).

NOTE: If using the Storage Direct agent to move snapshot backups from a VMAX storage array to a DD system, you

do not need to add a DD Management Center.

4. Specify the storage system attributes:

a. In the Name field, specify a storage name. b. In the Address field, specify the hostname, fully qualified domain name (FQDN), or the IP address. c. In the Port field, specify the port for SSL communication. Default is 3009.

5. Under Host Credentials click Add, if you have already configured DD credentials that are common across DD systems, select an existing password. Alternatively, you can add new credentials, and then click Save .

6. If a trusted certificate does not exist on the storage system, a dialog box appears requesting certificate approval. Click Verify to review the certificate, and then click Accept.

7. Click Save to exit the Add Storage dialog and initiate the discovery of the storage system.

A dialog box appears to indicate that the request to add storage has been initiated.

8. In the Storage window, click Discover to refresh the window with any newly discovered storage systems. When a discovery completes successfully, the Status column updates to OK.

9. To modify a storage system location, complete the following steps:

3

26 Managing Storage

A storage system location is a label that is applied to a storage system. If you want to store your copies in a specific location, the label helps you select the correct storage system during policy creation.

a. In the Storage window, select the storage system from the table. b. Click Set Location.

The Set Location window appears. c. Click Add in the Location list.

The Add Location window appears. d. In the Name field, type a location name for the asset, and click Save.

10. To manage MTrees in the Storage window, select the storage system from the table and click View storage units.

Results

PowerProtect Data Manager displays External DD systems only in the Storage window Name column. PowerProtect Data Manager displays DD Management Center storage types in the Managed By column.

Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager cloud tier The PowerProtect Data Manager cloud tier feature works in tandem with the Cloud Tier feature of DD systems to move PowerProtect Data Manager backups to the cloud. This provides long-term storage of PowerProtect Data Manager backups by seamlessly and securely tiering data to the cloud.

From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you configure cloud tier to move PowerProtect Data Manager backups from DD systems to the cloud, and you can perform seamless recovery of these backups.

DD cloud storage units must be pre-configured on the DD system before they are configured for cloud tier in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. The DD Operating System Administration Guide provides further information.

Managing Storage 27

Using the PowerProtect Search Engine

Topics:

Introducing the PowerProtect Search Engine Setting up and managing indexing Performing a search Restoring from search Troubleshooting Search Engine issues

Introducing the PowerProtect Search Engine When you install PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.3 or later, the PowerProtect Search Engine is installed by default.

The PowerProtect Search Engine indexes virtual machine file metadata to enable searches based on configurable parameters. To use this feature, add at least one search engine node to the Search Engine to form a search cluster, and then enable the indexing feature.

You can enable the indexing option when creating protection policies so that the assets are indexed while they are backed up. Recovering indexes from a disaster is a manual process. Recovering a Search cluster from a DR backup on page 111 provides instructions. The indexing recovery process will be automated in a future release.

When a DR backup is run, scheduled, or manually triggered, the search cluster backup workflow backs up the cluster index data. A backup task is created, and you can view the individual status of the Search Component backup under Details.

NOTE: Scheduled backups with Search cluster integration appear in the Jobs pane as two identical jobs: an initialization

job, which runs immediately, and the backup job, which runs both ServerDR and Search cluster backups.

Limitations PowerProtect Search is an optional feature that can be enabled, set up, and configured for virtual machine backups and protection policies. When you enable this feature, a backup of the search Engine is taken as part of the server backup process. As of this release, you cannot disable these backups. Therefore, when Search is enabled, you must white-list the Search Engine virtual machine on the DD system that contains the ServerBackup MTree: Add the search node IP address or hostname to the client list for the NFS export.

Setting up and managing indexing Set up an external search node and configure indexing.

Prerequisites

Ensure that:

A vCenter datastore has been configured. Add a VMware vCenter Server on page 48 provides detailed steps for adding a vCenter Server as an asset source.

PowerProtect Data Manager has discovered the networks for the vCenter Server.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Search Engine and click Add Node. 2. In the Add Search Engine Node dialog box, provide the required parameters. 3. Click Save. 4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to deploy the node.

The new search node is deployed, and details are displayed in the lower panel. 5. (Optional) Repeat the previous steps to deploy additional search nodes to the search cluster.

NOTE: Ensure that the previous search node has successfully deployed before you add another search node.

4

28 Using the PowerProtect Search Engine

6. In the Configure Search Engine dialog box, enable or disable Search Indexing, accept or change the expiration period, and then click OK.

NOTE:

When the index cluster reaches 70 percent, an alert is generated. When it reaches 90 percent, an alert is

generated and indexing is suspended. Specify a global index expiry interval to periodically clean up indexes, which

frees up space.

To turn off or modify indexing, select Infrastructure > Search Engine, select the cluster, and click Configure

Cluster. From the Configure Search Cluster dialog box, you can enable/disable the service or change the number

of expiration days.

Indexes expire according to the global setting or when the associated copies expire, whichever occurs first.

To stop indexing assets that have been added to a protected protection policy, disable the indexing option during

protection policy configuration.

Performing a search When the PowerProtect Search Engine is installed and configured, you can use the Search Engine to find protected folders and files in the environment using key parameters.

Prerequisites

Ensure that:

A Search Engine node is set up. Search Indexing is enabled.

About this task

When asset types are set up for index searching, the File Search button appears in the Infrastructure and Recovery menus for the configured asset types.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Assets and select the file type. 2. Click File Search. 3. In the File Search Criteria dialog box, enter any information that you know about the file, and then click Search.

The files matching your criteria appear in the results window. You can filter further using the Search Criteria fields.

Restoring from search You can use the search engine to find backup copies and restore them to the original or alternate virtual machine at the same or a different location on the virtual machine.

About this task

You can search across all indexed data, but you can restore only from a single asset and single copy at a time.

You can restore virtual machine files in this release. More restore options will be available in future releases, including file systems, VMAX storage groups, and Kubernetes.

Steps

1. From the PPDM UI, select Recovery > Assets, select the type of file you want to search for, and then click File Search. 2. In the File Search Criteria dialog box, enter as much information as you know to narrow down the search results, and then click

Search. 3. In the File Search results, you can further filter the results using the Search Criteria fields and you can view details by clicking the

Details icon to the left of the file/folder name.

4. Select the files that you want to recover, and click Recover.

The rest of the steps are the same as for recovery of the file type you want to recover. See Restoring Data and Assets on page 83 for details.

Using the PowerProtect Search Engine 29

Troubleshooting Search Engine issues This section lists troubleshooting and Search Engine issues.

Node failed Not able to deploy search-node.com. Another session " " is already configured with the same hostname. Would you like to redeploy search node or delete the node? Delete the node, and try again. If you choose to edit, delete the node and the new mode modal appears with your previous input. The input that caused the error is marked as critical.

Certificate issues Issues with indexing backups and/or performing search queries might result when certificates that were deployed on the search node were corrupted.

Perform one of the following tests to determine certificate issues:

Use the log bundle download utility in PowerProtect Data Manager to examine the Backup VM logs in VM Direct, and look for a log entry like the following:

ERROR: Failed to Upload File: /opt/emc/vproxy/runtime/tmp/vproxyd/ plugin/search/e6c356a1-fbaf-4231-9f6f-a0166b74909a/

-e081fdea-3599-4a6c-abc4-1b5487cb9a32-e523a94c-2d01-5234-ab3c- 7771cfab3c58-7f16bcbb72d7b49ea073356f0d7388ac08461827.db.zip to https:// :14251/upload, Error sending data chunk. Post https:// :14251/upload: x509: certificate signed by unknown authority (possibly because of "crypto/rsa: verification error" while trying to verify candidate authority certificate "PPDM Root CA ID-d5ec56b8-69ec-4183-9c94-7c0230408765"

Examine the rest-engine logs in the search node (/opt/emc/search/logs/rest-engine/*.log), and look for certificate verification errors.

Run a search either through the UI or through the API /api/v2/file-instances and look for a certification verification error.

Examine the certificate files in the node(s) to investigate further. If necessary, regenerate the certificate files.

Accessing the Search Node Use the following steps to discover the admin and root passwords for all deployed search nodes:

1. SSH into PowerProtect Data Manager: Log in with UI admin credentials, and then su to become root. 2. Change directory to /opt/emc/vmdirect.

3. Source unit/vmdirect.env.

4. Run bin/infranodemgmt get -secret.

Verifying certificates Use this procedure to verify that certificates are valid and uncorrupted:

1. Verify that the rootca.pem file is the same in all the relevant nodes (search node, PowerProtect Data Manager, and VM Direct node).

NOTE: The rootca.pem file name is different on each node:

PowerProtect Data Manager /etc/ssl/certificates/rootca/rootca.pem Search node /var/lib/dellemc/vmboot/trust/thumbprint VM Direct /var/lib/dellemc/vmboot/trust/thumbprint

2. Run the following openssl command to find out whether the root certificate file is corrupt or invalid: openssl verify

30 Using the PowerProtect Search Engine

Response:

/var/lib/dellemc/vmboot/trust/thumbprint: C = US, O = DELL Corporation, CN = PPDM Root CA ID-4c9de850-24ab-42ec-a9a7-6080849d0d24

error 18 at 0 depth lookup:self signed certificate

OK

Ensure that the CN values match.

Certificate verification fails If the troubleshooting verification steps described above fail, you must re-create the certificates on the Search Node or VM Direct node:

1. SSH into PowerProtect Data Manager: Log in with UI admin credentials, and then su to become root. 2. Use the Get command in the infranodemgmt utility to determine the search node FQDN.

3. Run /usr/local/brs/puppet/scripts/generate_certificates.sh -n -c -b

A properties file is created in the /root directory called .properties.

4. Open this file to determine the location of the generated certificates. They should be located in /etc/ssl/certificates/

.

5. From a separate terminal, SSH into the search node using the password that was revealed with the infranodemgmt Get call in step 2.

6. Change directory to /var/lib/dellemc/vmboot/trust and move the key, cert, and thumbprint files over.

7. Copy the certificate files that were generated in PowerProtect Data Manager as follows:

otca.pem to thumbprint

key.pem to key .pem to cert

8. Paste the files to /var/lib/dellemc/vmboot/trust.

9. Set the permissions for the key, cert, and thumbprint files to 0644, and then set the ownership of these files to root:app 10. Restart the rest-engine daemon or the vproxyd daemon) to pick up the new certificates: systemctl restart search-rest-

engine.

11. Check the rest-engine log file (/opt/emc/search/logs/rest-engine/rest-engine-daemon- .log) to verify that the service started successfully.

Ensure that the following message appears:

A valid Root CA certificate of backup server was provided during deployment Result: Backup with indexing executes successfully and search service is functional.

Search cluster is full If the search cluster is full, you can deploy additional nodes by following the steps in Setting up and managing indexing on page 28.

If the search cluster runs out of space and you do not want to deploy an additional node, you have the following options:

Disable the service Shorten the expiration time to remove indexes sooner Remove indexes manually

To disable the service, complete the following steps:

1. Select Infrastructure > Search Engine. 2. Select the cluster, and then click Configure Cluster. 3. In the Configure Search Cluster dialog box, switch the Search Indexing button to turn it off, and then click Save.

NOTE: This setting applies to all indexes in all protection policies in the Search Cluster.

To shorten the expiration time to remove indexes sooner, complete the following steps:

1. Select Infrastructure > Search Engine.

Using the PowerProtect Search Engine 31

2. Select the cluster, and then click Configure Cluster. 3. In the Configure Search Cluster dialog box, modify the Search Index Expiration and click Save. A recommended formula to

determine the expiration time is: Delete Index when Today = Backup-Date + Expiration Days + 1 day. That is, one day after the backup expires.

NOTE: This setting applies to all indexes in all protection policies in the Search Cluster.

To remove indexes manually, complete the following steps:

1. Use SSH to log in to the Search virtual machine. 2. Create a snapshot of the Search cluster using the following format:

{ Command: "APP_SNAPSHOT", Title: "Initiate Index/Search Cluster Snapshot Process", AsyncCmd: false, Properties: { "Name": { Description: "Used to uniquely identify a particular snapshot", Type: STRING }, "Action": { Description: "Action to perform, 'Create', 'Delete', 'Restore' or 'Canc el' a Snapshot", Type: STRING }, "NFSHost": { Description: "NFS Host serving snapshot backup area.", Type: STRING }, "NFSExport": { Description: "NFS Export path to mount too.", Type: STRING }, "NFSDirPath": { Description: "NFS directory path to write too.", Type: STRING } } }

For example:

{ "Command": "APP_SNAPSHOT", "Title": "", "AsyncCmd": false, "Properties": { "Action": { "Description": "", "Required": false, "Type": "string", "IsArray": false, "Value": "Create", "Default": null }, "Name": { "Description": "", "Required": false, "Type": "string", "IsArray": false, "Value": "PPDM_Catalog_Cluster_snapshot_2019-10-16-12-57-16", "Default": null }, "NFSHost": { "Value": "10.25.87.88" }, "NFSExport": { "Value": "/mnt/shared" }, "NFSDirPath": { "Value": ""

32 Using the PowerProtect Search Engine

} } }

3. You can delete indexes by protection policy or by asset. If the JSON command is stored at /home/admin/remove-plc.json, run the command, ./searchmgmt -I /home/admin/remove-plc.json.

Use the following format to delete indexes by protection policy:

{ "Command": "APP_REMOVE_ITEMS", "AsyncCmd": false, "Properties": { "Action": { "Description": "Action to perform, 'AssetDelete', 'PLCDelete'", "Required": true, "Value": "PLCDelete", } "PLCID": { "Description": "PLC ID of item(s) to delete.", "Required": true, "Value": "7676d753-b57e-a572-6daf-33689933456d", } } }

Use the following format to delete indexes by asset type:

{ "Command": "APP_REMOVE_ITEMS", "AsyncCmd": false, "Properties": { "Action": { "Description": "Action to perform, 'AssetDelete', 'PLCDelete'", "Required": true, "Value": "AssetDelete", }, "AssetID": { "Description": "Optional, Asset ID of item(s) to delete.", "Required": false, "Value": "503dd753-b57e-a572-6daf-44680033755f", }, "PLCID": { "Description": "PLC ID of item(s) to delete.", "Required": true, "Value": "7676d753-b57e-a572-6daf-33689933456d", } } }

NOTE:

The time to complete the execution of these procedures depends on the number of backup copy asset indexes

being deleted.

This procedure does not impact regular operation of the cluster.

Using the PowerProtect Search Engine 33

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

Topics:

About the Storage Direct agent Storage Direct agent prerequisites Upgrading an existing Storage Direct agent Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for new environments Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for existing environments Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct Manage the Storage Direct agent Storage Direct agent limitations and troubleshooting

About the Storage Direct agent Storage Direct uses snapshot backup technology to protect data on VMAX storage arrays by moving storage group data from the VMAX array to a DD system.

PowerProtect Data Manager enables application administrators to configure the Storage Direct agent and create centralized or self- service protection policies to set up backups for new environments and import existing environments into PowerProtect Data Manager.

PowerProtect Data Manager also enables you to restore the snapshot backup data with the following options:

Restore from replica backups (restore to original, restore to an alternate location on the same storage system, and restore to a different storage system).

Instant access to Storage Direct backups on any host.

You can use the installation wizard to install the Storage Direct agent on the host that you plan to protect. Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct on page 39 provides instructions.

When you install and configure the agent, Storage Direct creates a snapshot of the data on VMAX storage groups and transfers the data to a DD system. Using FTS technology, the host running your applications accesses the source LUNs from the VMAX system where the storage group data resides. A link is established between FTS devices on the VMAX system and the destination DD system, which enables you to create a virtual disk (vDisk), vDisk pool, and MTree on the DD system.

After the Storage Direct agent is approved and registered in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI and the DD system and the SMIS server are added and discovered, the Storage Direct agent is enabled for use. PowerProtect Data Manager can discover the storage groups in the VMAX system and you can assign unprotected storage groups to a protection policy.

The eLab Navigator provides software compatibility information for the PowerProtect Data Manager software and the Storage Direct agent.

Storage Direct agent prerequisites Before you enable the Storage Direct agent and discover VMAX storage groups, ensure that your system meets the requirements.

Only Windows and Linux platforms are supported through the PowerProtect Data Manager server.

Ensure that:

The vDisk user is an administrator. The LUNs of the storage groups to be protected are masked to the host. The host is a 64-bit system. PowerProtect Data Manager supports only 64-bit hosts. The host is running a supported operating system version. The eLab Navigator provides software compatibility information for

PowerProtect Data Manager. All clocks on both the host and PowerProtect Data Manager are time-synced to the local NTP server to ensure discovery of the

backups.

5

34 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

The host and the PowerProtect Data Manager network can see and resolve each other. For replication, add a secondary DD system.

After DD discovery, ensure that the vDisk Pool and DD Boost storage units are available: In PowerProtect Data Manager select Infrastructure > Storage, select the DD system, and then select Manage Storage Units.

Upgrading an existing Storage Direct agent To upgrade an existing Storage Direct agent for a new release of PowerProtect Data Manager, ensure that your configuration is compatible.

Review the following setup requirements to upgrade an existing Storage Direct agent to the latest release of PowerProtect Data Manager.

During the upgrade:

On the Configure Installation Options page, click PowerProtect Data Manager registration, and then provide the PowerProtect Data Manager server IP address so that the Storage Direct agent can register with the PowerProtect Data Manager server.

On the Configuration File Input page, click Select the Configuration Files, browse to the location of your configuration file(s), and for each configuration file, click Add.

Configuration file requirements When you create a VMAX Storage Group protection policy, a configuration file is automatically created in the C:\Program Files \DPSAPPS\ppfsagent\config directory. This configuration file contains information about the VMAX and DD system attributes and the storage groups protected by the policy. This file is required for self-service backup and restore procedures.

To ensure that PowerProtect Data Manager can use your existing configuration files, review the files and ensure that the contents and your environment satisfy the following requirements:

To import a single configuration file, all backup vDisks on the DD system must belong to the same pool.

You can create more than one device group. For example, for two source storage groups (SG1 and SG2), you can create one device group for the backup vDisks of SG1 and another device group for the backup vDisks of SG2.

To import multiple configuration files per host, vDisks can belong to different pools. The file must contain only storage groups. It must not contain IDs of the source LUNs or details about the secondary DD system. The file must contain the Ddboost and DdVdiskUser with their corresponding passwords in the lockbox.

The Devicepath cannot start with a forward slash (/).

Additionally, the file must be in one of the following formats:

One restore device group and one restore storage group Multiple restore device groups and multiple restore storage groups with one to one mapping between each restore device group and

restore storage group

One restore device group and one restore storage group In this format:

One entry exists for RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG for all Source Storage Groups. All Storage Groups map to a single RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG. Only one of the RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP or VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG attributes is used. Enclose the one not in use in a

comment. For RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP, the corresponding pool information for RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL must be provided and the

attribute must not be enclosed in a comment. For VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG, enclose the RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL attributes in a

comment.

Example:

[PRIMARY_SYSTEM] DDBOOST_USER = DEVICE_HOST = DEVICE_PATH = DDVDISK_USER = # RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL =

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 35

# RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = # DD_BOOST_FC = # DD_PORT = VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = # SELECT_VISIBLE_RESTORE_DEVICES = | | | [BACKUP_SOURCE_DEVICES] # SRC_DEVICE1 = 000196700638:00F1A # SRC_DEVICEn = SRC_GROUP1 = SRC_GROUP2 = SRC_GROUP3 = # SRC_GROUPn =

Multiple restore device groups and restore storage groups In this format:

Each source storage group has a corresponding restore storage group and restore device group. The number of source storage groups is in a 1:1 mapping, which should be maintained. The same number of entries must exist for

RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG. For example, the first RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG entry should correspond to SRC_GROUP1. The second RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG entry should correspond to SRC_GROUP2.

Only one entry of RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP and VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG should exist. Enclose other entries in a comment.

Example:

[PRIMARY_SYSTEM] DDBOOST_USER = DEVICE_HOST = DEVICE_PATH = DDVDISK_USER = # RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL = # RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = # RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = # RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = # DD_BOOST_FC = # DD_PORT = VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = # VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = # VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = # SELECT_VISIBLE_RESTORE_DEVICES = | | | [BACKUP_SOURCE_DEVICES] # SRC_DEVICE1 = 000196700638:00F1A # SRC_DEVICEn = SRC_GROUP1 = SRC_GROUP2 = SRC_GROUP3 = # SRC_GROUPn =

Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for new environments For new Storage Direct agent environments, the following roadmap provides the steps required to configure protection of the Storage Direct agent in PowerProtect Data Manager to facilitate movement of snapshot backups from the VMAX storage area to the DD system.

Prerequisites

Review the prerequisites and limitations in the following sections:

Storage Direct agent prerequisites on page 34 Configuration file requirements on page 35 Storage Direct agent limitations and troubleshooting on page 42

36 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

Steps

1. Set up the SMIS server in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Add the SMIS server. b. Initiate a discovery of the SMIS server. c. Verify that the discovery completed successfully.

Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides information.

2. Set up the DD system in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Add a primary DD system. b. (Optional) If using replication, add a secondary DD system. c. Initiate a discovery of the DD systems. d. Verify that the discovery completed successfully.

Add protection storage on page 26 provides information. NOTE: If you use the Storage Direct agent to move snapshot backups from a VMAX storage array to a DD system,

the DD Management Center is not required.

3. Install the Storage Direct agent on the Storage Direct host system.

Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct on page 39 provides information.

4. Approve the Storage Direct agent in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI on each Storage Direct host system.

Manage the Storage Direct agent on page 42 provides information.

5. Ensure that the Storage Direct agent has been discovered.

Discover a Storage Direct agent host on page 54 provides information.

6. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, verify that the VMAX assets (storage groups) have been discovered, and that the host name appears next to these assets.

Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides information about how to verify that these assets have been discovered, and Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provides information about adding assets to a protection policy.

7. Create a centralized or self-service protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI by selecting the Storage Group policy type and choosing the I want PPDM to automatically provision and manage all storage needed to achieve this objective option.

Add a Centralized Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 67 and Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provide information.

8. If you plan to perform self-service backup and restore, review the configuration file that is automatically generated upon the successful configuration of the Storage Direct agent in PowerProtect Data Manager to ensure that the file contains the information identified in Configuration file requirements on page 35.

Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provides information about the type of information that the configuration file contains and how this file is used when executing the backup command.

NOTE: Do not make any changes to this configuration file.

9. For self-service backups, run the protectpoint snapbackup create command with the configuration file name specified in order to perform the self-service backup.

The Storage Direct Agent Installation and Administration Guide, and the After you finish section of Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64, provide information about running this command with the configuration file.

Roadmap for protection with the Storage Direct agent for existing environments For existing Storage Direct agent environments, the following roadmap provides the steps required to configure protection of the Storage Direct agent in PowerProtect Data Manager to facilitate movement of snapshot backups from the VMAX storage area to the DD system.

Prerequisites

Review any prerequisites in the section Storage Direct agent prerequisites on page 34 and Configuration file requirements on page 35, and make note of any limitations in the section Storage Direct agent limitations and troubleshooting on page 42.

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 37

Steps

1. Set up the SMIS server in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Add the SMIS server. b. Initiate a discovery of the SMIS server. c. Verify that the discovery completed successfully.

Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides information.

2. Set up the DD system in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Add a primary DD system. b. (Optional) If using replication, add a secondary DD system. c. Initiate a discovery of the DD systems. d. Verify that the discovery completed successfully.

Add protection storage on page 26 provides information. NOTE: If using the Storage Direct agent to move snapshot backups from a VMAX storage array to a DD system, you

do not need to add a DD Management Center.

3. Modify your existing configuration file(s) to ensure that the file contains the information required by PowerProtect Data Manager to run the VMAX Storage Group policy, and to ensure the file is in an acceptable format, as described in the section Configuration file requirements on page 35.

4. Upgrade the Storage Direct agent on the Storage Direct host system.

Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct on page 39 provides information.

5. Approve the Storage Direct agent in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI on each Storage Direct/ProtectPoint host system.

Manage the Storage Direct agent on page 42 provides information.

6. Ensure that the Storage Direct agent has been discovered.

Discover a Storage Direct agent host on page 54 provides information.

7. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, verify that the VMAX assets (storage groups) have been discovered, and that the host name appears next to these assets.

Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides information about how to verify that these assets have been discovered, and Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provides information about adding assets to a protection policy.

8. Create a centralized or self-service protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI by selecting the Storage Group policy type and choosing the I will provision and manage my own storage option.

Add a Centralized Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 67 and Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provide information.

9. If you plan to perform self-service backup and restore, review the configuration file that is automatically generated upon the successful configuration of the Storage Direct agent in PowerProtect Data Manager to ensure that the file contains the information identified in Configuration file requirements on page 35. This configuration file will be used going forward instead of your previous configuration file(s) to perform self-service backup and restore.

Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64 provides information about the type of information that the configuration file contains, and how this file is used when executing the backup command for the initial snapshot.

NOTE: Do not make any changes to this configuration file.

10. For self-service backups, run the protectpoint snapbackup create command with the configuration file name specified in order to perform the self-service backup.

The Storage Direct Agent Installation and Administration Guide, and the After you finish section of Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct on page 64, provide information about running this command with the configuration file.

38 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

Installing or Upgrading Storage Direct Learn how to install or upgrade the Storage Direct agent for Linux or Windows.

Install the Storage Direct agent on Linux Learn how to install the standalone Storage Direct agent for PowerProtect Data Manager on supported Linux systems.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you review the prerequisites provided in Storage Direct agent prerequisites on page 34. Download the Storage Direct agent software package to the Linux host.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Select Agent Downloads from the System Settings menu. b. Select the Storage Direct agent download package for Linux, storagedirectagent19x_linux_x86_64.tar.gz.

c. Download the package to the location where you want to install the Storage Direct agent. 2. Unpack the Storage Direct software package:

a. Run the following command:

gunzip storagedirectagent19x_ .tar.gz

b. Run the following command:

tar -xvf storagedirectagent19x_ .tar

c. Run the following command:

rpm -import RPM_KEY

3. Provide "Execute" +x permissions on the install.sh file.

4. Install the Storage Direct software as the root user by running the installation script:

install.sh

NOTE: During the installation, you are prompted for the hostname or IP address of the PowerProtect Data Manager.

As an alternative, you can include the --server option when you run the install.sh installation script, as in the

following:

install.sh --server=

To obtain a list of all the available command options for the install.sh command, run the command install.sh --help or install.sh -h. The command also supports the --debug or -d option for debugging purposes.

The product is installed in the /opt/dpsapps/ppfsagent directory. Two RPM files are installed as part of the installation script:

storagedirectagent-19.x.x.x86_64.rpm powerprotect-agentsvc-19.x.x.x86_64

To view the status of the PowerProtect agent service, go to the /opt/dpsapps/agentsvc directory and execute the ./ register.sh --status command.

Next steps

Complete the host registration with the PowerProtect Data Manager server. Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides more information.

Approve the pending Storage Direct agent request so that you can discover the VMAX assets, also known as storage groups. Manage the Storage Direct agent on page 42 provides more information.

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 39

Upgrade the Storage Direct agent on Linux Learn how to upgrade to the standalone Storage Direct agent for PowerProtect Data Manager on supported Linux systems.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you review the prerequisites provided in Storage Direct agent prerequisites on page 34, and the Upgrade requirements section in Configuration file requirements on page 35.

Download the Storage Direct agent software package to the Linux host.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Select Agent Downloads from the System Settings menu. b. Select the Storage Direct agent download package for Linux, storagedirectagent19x_linux_x86_64.tar.gz.

c. Download the package to the location where you want to install the Storage Direct agent. 2. Unpack the Storage Direct software package:

a. Run the following command:

gunzip storagedirectagent19x_ .tar.gz

b. Run the following command:

tar -xvf storagedirectagent19x_ .tar

c. Run the following command:

rpm -import RPM_KEY

3. Provide "Execute" +x permissions on the install.sh file.

4. Upgrade the Storage Direct software as the root user by running the installation script with the -u option, as in the following:

install.sh -u

NOTE: Later in the upgrade, you are prompted for the hostname or IP address of the PowerProtect Data Manager.

As an alternative, you can include the --server option when you run the install.sh -u command, as in the

following:

install.sh -u --server=

The product is upgraded in the /opt/dpsapps/ppfsagent directory. Two rpms are installed as part of the installation script:

storagedirectagent-19.x.x.x86_64.rpm powerprotect-agentsvc-19.x.x.x86_64

5. For Do you wish to give existing config file path?, type y, and then provide the path to the configuration files. A prompt appears requesting if you have additional configuration files. If you have more than one existing configuration file, type y, and provide the additional path.

6. For Do you wish to upgrade adm-agent?, type y.

7. If you did not specify the PowerProtect Data Manager server name when running the install.sh -u command, a prompt appears requesting if you want to register Storage Direct with the PowerProtect Data Manager server. Type y, and then type the PowerProtect Data Manager server FQDN or IP address.

Next steps

Complete the host registration with the PowerProtect Data Manager server. Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides more information.

Approve the pending Storage Direct agent request so that you can discover the VMAX assets, also known as storage groups. Manage the Storage Direct agent on page 42 provides more information.

40 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

Install or upgrade the Storage Direct agent on Windows Learn how to install or upgrade to the standalone Storage Direct agent for PowerProtect Data Manager on supported Windows systems.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you review the prerequisites provided in Storage Direct agent prerequisites on page 34, and the Upgrade requirements section in Configuration file requirements on page 35.

Download the Storage Direct agent software package to the Windows host.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

a. Select Agent Downloads from the System Settings menu. b. Select the Storage Direct agent download package for Windows, for example, storagedirectagent19x_win_x64.zip.

c. Download the package in the location that you want to install the Storage Direct agent. 2. To launch the installer, unzip the storagedirectagent19x_win_x64.zip file and then run the

storagedirectagent19x_win_x64.exe program. The installation wizard opens.

3. Click Next. 4. Select I accept the terms in the License Agreement, and then click Next. 5. On the Configure Installation Options page, click PowerProtect Data Manager registration, and then and type the

PowerProtect Data Manager server hostname or IP address in the Appliance hostname or IP address text box so that the Storage Direct agent can register with the PowerProtect Data Manager server.

6. If upgrading, on the Configuration File Input page, click Select the Configuration Files, browse to the location of your configuration file(s), and for each configuration file, click Add.

7. When completed, click Install. 8. Click Finish to exit the installation wizard.

Next steps

Complete the host registration with the PowerProtect Data Manager server. Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent on page 54 provides more information. For upgrades, if the installed product is already registered with any PowerProtect Data Manager server, then this information will appear automatically in the UI.

Approve the pending Storage Direct agent request so that you can discover the VMAX assets, also known as storage groups. Manage the Storage Direct agent on page 42 provides more information.

Silent installation of the Storage Direct agent You can perform a silent installation of the Storage Direct agent on Linux or Windows.

Silent installation commands To perform the silent installation to the default path:

On Linux, run install.sh -- server PPDM server name On Windows, run storagedirectagent-19.x.x.exe /s PPDMHostName=

NOTE: PPDMHostName is a mandatory option in the command line. If a value is not provided, the product is installed

without PowerProtect registration, and no backups can be initiated from the application host. Specifying

ProductInstallPath is optional, but if used, the value cannot be empty.

Uninstall the Storage Direct agent on Linux You can uninstall the Storage Direct agent by using the uninstall.sh script, which is included when you untar the installer.

Steps

1. Run uninstall.sh.

2. Type y to confirm that you want to uninstall the agent.

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 41

If you have the powerprotect agentsvc installed as well, a message appears indicating Other application agents might be using powerprotect-agentsvc... Do you wish to uninstall powerprotect-agentsvc[y/n]:

3. Type y or n for the powerprotect agentsvc uninstall. The Storage Direct agent uninstall starts.

Uninstall the Storage Direct agent on Windows You can uninstall the Storage Direct agent by using the setup file.

Steps

1. Launch storagedirectagent-19.x.x.exe.

2. On the Install Modification page, select Remove, and then click Next. 3. On the Complete the Setup page, click Finish. 4. After the uninstall completes, remove the working directory located at C:\Program Files\DPSAPPS\ppfsagent.

Manage the Storage Direct agent After the Storage Direct installation completes, an entry with the agent host name appears in the Infrastructure > Application Agents window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. From this window, you can approve or reject a pending Storage Direct agent request, and edit and delete existing agents.

About this task

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Application Agents. 2. In the Application Agents window, select the entry that contains the host name, and click Approve.

The status changes from Awaiting Approval to Registered. NOTE: The Auto whitelist option, which enables you to pre-approve application agents automatically, is disabled

by default. When you enable this option, the Storage Direct agent registration is approved automatically.

Storage Direct agent limitations and troubleshooting Review the following limitations that apply to PowerProtect Data Manager support for the Storage Direct agent.

Coexistence of the Storage Direct agent with other application agents is not supported PowerProtect Data Manager does not support the coexistence of the Storage Direct agent with other application agents, such as the Oracle, SAP HANA, or SQL application agent in PowerProtect Data Manager.

Configuration Change Management not supported for existing Storage Direct users The Configuration Change Management feature is not supported for existing Storage Direct users updating to the Storage Direct agent for PowerProtect Data Manager.

42 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

SDFSA install/upgrade fails on trying to install using absolute path An SDFSA installation or upgrade fails when performed using the absolute path. For example:

Installation using absolute path

[root@xxxxx /]# /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_36/install.sh 2019/09/18 23:18:42 adm-agent rpm not found in current working directory... Upgrade using absolute path

[root@xxxxx sd_cfs]# /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_40/install.sh -u 2019/09/17 01:49:35 storagedirectagent rpm not found in current working directory... /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_40/install.sh: line 595: [: -gt: unary operator expected /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_40/install.sh: line 597: [: -gt: unary operator expected /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_40/install.sh: line 599: [: -gt: unary operator expected /Softwares/builds/sdfsa_19.x_40/install.sh: line 601: [: -gt: unary operator expected 2019/09/17 01:49:35 storagedirectagent rpm not found in current working directory... rpm -U --quiet --test rpm: no packages given for install 2019/09/17 01:49:35 storagedirectagent upgrade failed... 2019/09/17 01:49:35 storagedirectagent upgrade failed...

To work around this issue, change the directory to the location of install.sh and run ./install.sh.

Encapsulation fails during policy creation if a retention lock exists on VMAX or SMIS services that are not running When a protection policy is created, a process that is called encapsulation occurs, which creates backup and restore FTS devices on the VMAX system and links the DD vDisk with FTS. If a retention lock exists on the VMAX system, or if the SMIS services are not running, encapsulation fails.

To ensure that there is no retention lock on the VMAX system, run the following command as the root user from the SMIS server:

symcfg list -lockn all The output is similar to the following:

S Y M M E T R I X L O C K S

Lock Lock Lock Time SymmID Attachment Status Number Usage Held (Sec)

000196700638 Local Locked 15 Config Change 13572 -> Almost 4 hours 000192604348 Remote N/A N/A N/A N/A 000297000476 Remote N/A N/A N/A N/A

If SMIS services are not running, an exception appears in the logs indicating that the storsvd service is not available and a connection to SMIS cannot be established using the SYMAPI calls. If this exception occurs:

1. Run the following command as the root user from the SMIS server to verify the status of storsvd:

./stordaemon show storsrvd If the service is unavailable, the message *** Daemon storsrvd is not currently running appears.

2. Restart the service by running ./stordaemon start storsrvd.

3. Run the ./stordaemon show storsrvd command again to verify that the status is now Running.

4. To view the remote server details, run ./stordaemon action storsrvd -cmd show server.

5. To view the network configuration, run ./stordaemon action storsrvd -cmd show -netinfo.

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 43

Restart of encapsulation fails When an encapsulation job for the Storage Direct agent does not complete successfully, a restart of the job in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI fails with the message error: Data Domain vDisk pool not provided remediation: null.

Encapsulation fails with error "SYMAPI_C_NET_HANDSHAKE_FAILED" If the encapsulation of a device fails with the error

SYMAPI_C_NET_HANDSHAKE_FAILED:

1. Ensure that proper name resolution can occur by verifying that the PowerProtect Data Manager server/SMIS server and SDA host are resolvable by either DNS or the hosts file.

2. Perform the following steps to ensure that the PowerProtect Data Manager server can obtain all the necessary information from the SMIS server:

Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager as an administrator. Go to the /usr/emc/API/symapi/config/netcnfg directory.

Verify that the server entry exists. For example, - TCPIP 2707 - .

Verify whether the Solutions Enabler base daemon is running. For example:

admin@xxxxx:~> stordaemon list -all Available Daemons ('[*]': Currently Running, '[NI]': Not Installed): [*] storapid EMC Solutions Enabler Base Daemon storgnsd EMC Solutions Enabler GNS Daemon storrdfd EMC Solutions Enabler RDF Daemon storevntd EMC Solutions Enabler Event Daemon [*] storwatchd EMC Solutions Enabler Watchdog Daemon storsrmd EMC Solutions Enabler SRM Daemon

Export the environment variables SYMCLI_CONNECT_TYPE=REMOTE and SYMCLI_CONNECT= .

Run symcfg list. The command output should display all VMAX and PowerMax systems that have been added to the SMIS server.

Configuration file validation fails when multiple storage group assets are selected for policy inclusion if the configuration file is not formatted correctly When you select multiple storage group assets as part of a VMAX Storage Group protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager, validation fails if the configuration file is not formatted correctly. For example, a configuration file with the following format might be pushed to the host:

DDBOOST_USER = 148_78-xxxxx-932c9 DEVICE_HOST = IP address DEVICE_PATH = /148_78-xxxxx-932c9-SU DDVDISK_USER = 148_78-xxxxx-932c9 #RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL = 148_78-xxxxx-932c9 #RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = R-sdm_xxxxx_SG7-0638 #RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP = R-sdm_xxxxx_SG8-0638 # DD_BOOST_FC = # DD_PORT = VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = R-sdm_xxxxx_SG7-0638 #VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG = R-sdm_xxxxx_SG8-0638

To work around this issue, enclose VMAX_FASTX_RESTORE_SG in a comment and remove RESTORE_DEVICE_POOL and one of the entries for RESTORE_DEVICE_GROUP from the comment.

44 Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems

MTree replication fails when adding replication stage for multiple protection policies if assets have the same user/ vDisk pool If an existing Storage Direct user has upgraded to the Storage Direct agent for PowerProtect Data Manager and uses the same user/ vDisk pool for protected assets to create multiple protection policies with a replication stage, an MTree replication job fails with an error similar to the following: Unable to create DataDomain user xxxx, User xxxx already exists. To work around this issue, manually add the secondary DD system details in the configuration file.

Replication not supported for assets in a Storage Group policy for existing Storage Direct users if replication is already configured for stand-alone agent The addition of a replication stage as part of a Storage Group protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager is not supported for existing Storage Direct user assets if replication has already been configured on the stand-alone Storage Direct (ProtectPoint) agent.

To upgrade the Storage Direct agent, remove the secondary DD system details from the configuration file before importing it.

Enabling the Storage Direct Agent for VMAX Systems 45

Managing Assets

Topics:

About asset sources, assets, and storage About Kubernetes cluster asset sources and namespace assets About vCenter Server asset sources and virtual assets Prerequisites for discovering asset sources Adding a vCenter Server asset source VM Direct protection engine overview Discover a Storage Direct agent host Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent Adding a Kubernetes cluster asset source

About asset sources, assets, and storage In PowerProtect Data Manager, assets are the basic unit that PowerProtect Data Manager protects. Asset sources are the mechanism that PowerProtect Data Manager uses to communicate with and manage the storage and assets. Storage is where PowerProtect Data Manager adds and stores copies and protection.

PowerProtect Data Manager supports DD Management Center (DDMC) as the storage and programmatic interface for controlling the DD systems, and external DD systems.

Assets can be virtual machines, SQL databases, Oracle databases, SAP HANA databases, File systems, Kubernetes clusters, or VMAX storage groups.

PowerProtect Data Manager supports backing up assets and adding the asset sources either through a PowerProtect Application Agent for DD Boost backups, or by connecting to vCenter and performing virtual machine backups.

About Kubernetes cluster asset sources and namespace assets Kubernetes clusters and containers play an important role in the speed and efficiency of deploying and developing applications, and also in reducing downtime when a change to application scaling is required. PowerProtect Data Manager enables you to protect the Kubernetes environment by adding a Kubernetes cluster as an asset source, and discovering namespaces as assets for data protection operations.

In a traditional application, an environment might consist of a web server, application server, and database server, with the web server servicing requests in front of a load balancer. Scaling this application, for example, by increasing the web layer by adding servers, requires the involvement of many resources to manually change the configuration. In a Kubernetes cluster, however, once you develop the code and write a YAML file that indicates the required systems and configuration details, Kubernetes deploys these containers and the application can be started quickly. Also, a change to the scale of the application only requires you to change the YAML file and post the updated file to the cluster.

A typical Kubernetes cluster can contain several physical and virtual systems. Once the clusters are running, the applications, binaries, and a framework are bundled into a container, which is then wrapped in a pod. Before you can run the pod in a Kubernetes cluster, the cluster must be divided into namespaces. A namespace is a pool of resources that are divided logically in the cluster. It is these namespaces that are protected as assets within the PowerProtect Data Manager UI for the purposes of backup and recovery.

However, because pods only last for a short time, to persist state information Kubernetes uses Persistent Volumes. You can create Persistent Volumes on external storage and then attach to a particular pod using PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs). PVCs can then be included along with other namespaces in PowerProtect Data Manager backup and recovery operations.

NOTE: Kubernetes versions 1.13 to 1.16 support alpha CSI volume snapshots. However, only beta CSI volume snapshots

are supported in Kubernetes versions 1.17 and later. The article "Kubernetes 1.17 Feature: Kubernetes Volume Snapshot

Moves to Beta" at https://kubernetes.io/blog/2019/12/09/kubernetes-1-17-feature-cis-volume-snapshot-beta/

provides instructions on how to deploy support for Beta snapshots in a Kubernetes cluster.

6

46 Managing Assets

Optimized data path and First Class Disks When the Kubernetes cluster is running on vSphere and using vSphere CNS storage, backup and recovery operations utilize the optimized data path, where persistent volumes on vSphere-managed storage are backed up by VMDKs called improvised virtual disks, or First Class Disks (FCDs). These FCDs are created on the back-end and assigned a globally unique UUID whenever persistent volumes are dynamically provisioned by vSphere CSI in Kubernetes. Since FCDs are not associated with any particular virtual machine, they can be managed independently.

PowerProtect Data Manager detects whether a persistent volume is backed by an FCD when the storageclass of the persistent volume has the provisioner as csi.vsphere.vmware.com. When this occurs, PowerProtect Data Manager switches to using the optimized data path.

Optimized data path differs from CSI management in primarily two ways:

FCD uses the VMware VADP API to take the snapshot instead of using the CSI driver. Supports both incremental and full backups, making use of changed block tracking (CBT).

The following configuration changes are required prior to running the Kubernetes protection policy in order to make use of optimized data path:

FCD CSI support requires a minimum version of vCenter 6.7 U3. Enable CBT on the Kubernetes worker node virtual machines before the pods (application) start using dynamically provisioned PVCs.

To enable CBT on the nodes, run the command source /opt/emc/vproxy/unit/vproxy.env on the PowerProtect Data Manager host, and then run the following command for each node:

/opt/emc/vproxy/bin/vmconfig -u vCenter user with administrator privileges -p user password - v vCenter host FQDN or IP -l ip -k Kubernetes node IP -c enable-cbt" If your Kubernetes cluster nodes do not have VMWare Tools installed, you might not be able to use the IP address as one of the inputs to the tool. In this case, use the VM Moref as the identifier of the VMs:

/opt/emc/vproxy/bin/vmconfig -u vCenter user with administrator privileges -p user password - v vCenter host FQDN or IP -l moref -k Kubernetes VM node moref -c enable-cbt"

The PowerProtect Data Manager proxy pods use NBD protocol to read the contents of the FCD-based persistent volumes in order to back up these volumes. Ensure that the NBD default port 902 is open on all of the Kubernetes nodes, and that the worker nodes are able to reach the vCenter Server.

You can verify that a Kubernetes protection policy backup or restore is using optimized data path by viewing the details for the operation in the Jobs window. Additionally, the Recent Tasks pane of the vSphere Client displays the message Create a virtual disk object when a new PVC is added.

About vCenter Server asset sources and virtual assets After you add a vCenter Server as an asset source in PowerProtect Data Manager, an automatic discovery of VMware entity information from the vCenter Server is initiated.

The virtual assets for the vCenter Server appear in the Assets window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI under the Virtual Machines tab.

The initial vCenter Server discovery identifies all ESXi clusters, hosts, and virtual machines within the vCenter Server. Subsequent discoveries are performed automatically, according to a fixed interval, to identify any additional or changed VMware entities since the last discovery operation. You can also manually initiate a discovery of VMware entities at any time from the vCenter tab of the Asset Sources window by selecting a vCenter Server and clicking Discover.

Upon vCenter Server and virtual asset discovery, the PowerProtect Data Manager VM Direct protection engine facilitates the management of virtual assets as PowerProtect Data Manager resources for the purposes of backup and recovery. Dell EMC recommends that you also add an external VM Direct Engine in the Protection Engines window. You can protect virtual machine assets by manually adding the assets to a virtual machine protection policy, or by creating and applying protection rules to determine which assets are included in a protection policy based on rule definitions.

Managing Assets 47

Prerequisites for discovering asset sources Perform these tasks before you discover the asset sources.

Ensure that the PowerProtect Data Manager is deployed and configured in the environment. The PowerProtect Data Manager Deployment Guide provides information.

Log in with administrative rights. Configure all asset sources with an NTP server. Before you register an SQL application, ensure that the DD system has been discovered successfully. For discovery of App/File System asset sources:

Ensure that all clocks on both the App/File System host and PowerProtect Data Manager are time-synced to the local NTP server to ensure discovery of the backups.

Ensure that the App/File System host and the PowerProtect Data Manager network can see/resolve each other. Ensure that port 7000 is open on the App/File System host.

Adding a vCenter Server asset source After you register a vCenter Server with PowerProtect Data Manager, you can use the Asset Sources window in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a vCenter Server asset source to the PowerProtect Data Manager environment.

About this task

Adding a vCenter Server asset source is required if you want to schedule a backup through PowerProtect Data Manager.

Add a VMware vCenter Server Perform the following steps to add a vCenter Server as an asset source in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI:

Prerequisites

You must have Administrator privileges. By default, PowerProtect Data Manager enforces SSL certificates during communication with vCenter Server. If a certificate appears

and you trust the certificate, click Verify.

Note, however, that a requirement of SSL certificate enforcement is that the common name (cn) of the x509 certificate on the vCenter Server must match the hostname of the vCenter URL. The common name of the x509 certificate is typically the vCenter server fully qualified domain name (FQDN), but it could be the vCenter server IP address. You can inspect the vCenter server SSL certificate to determine whether the x509 common name is a FQDN or an IP. When creating an asset source resource, in order to pass SSL certificate enforcement, the asset source resource hostname must match the common name of the x509 certificate on the vCenter server.

NOTE: It is highly recommended that you do not disable certificate enforcement. If disabling the certificate is

required, carefully review the instructions in the section Disable vCenter SSL certificate validation on page 161.

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

The Asset Sources window appears.

2. Select the vCenter tab. 3. Click Add.

The Add vCenter dialog displays. 4. Specify the source attributes:

a. In the Name field, specify the vCenter Server name. b. In the Address field, specify the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or the IP address.

NOTE: For a vCenter Server, it is recommended that you use the FQDN instead of the IP address.

c. In the Port field, specify the port for communication if you are not using the default port, 443. 5. Under Host Credentials, choose an existing entry from the list to use for the vCenter user credentials. Alternatively, you can click

Add from this list to add new credentials, and then click Save.

48 Managing Assets

NOTE: Ensure that you specify the credentials for a user whose role is defined at the vCenter level, as opposed to

being restricted to a lower-level container object in the vSphere object hierarchy.

6. If you want to make a subset of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI functionality available within the vSphere Client, move the vSphere Plugin slider to the right.

Available functionality includes:

The monitoring of active virtual machine/VMDK protection policies, and Restore options such as Restore to Original, Restore to New, and Instant Access.

NOTE: You can unregister the vSphere plug-in at any time by moving the slider to the left.

7. By default, the vCenter discovery occurs automatically after adding the vCenter, and subsequent discoveries are incremental. If you want to schedule a full discovery at a certain time every day, select the Schedule Discovery check box, and then specify a time.

8. If the vCenter server SSL certificate cannot be trusted automatically, a dialog box appears requesting certificate approval. Review the certificate, and then click Verify.

9. Click Save.

The vCenter Server information that you entered now appears as an entry in a table on the Asset Sources window.

NOTE: Although PowerProtect Data Manager automatically synchronizes with the vCenter server under most

circumstances, certain conditions might require you to initiate a manual discovery.

After discovery, PowerProtect Data Manager starts an incremental discovery in the background periodically to keep updating PowerProtect Data Manager with vCenter changes. You can always do an on-demand discovery.

10. Optionally, you can set warning and failure thresholds for the available space on the datastore. Setting these thresholds enables you to check if enough storage space is available in the datastore to save the snapshot of the virtual machine during the backup process. The backup completes with a warning in the logs if the available free space in the datastore is less than or equal to the percentage indicated in the Datastore Free Space Warning Threshold. The backup fails if the available free space in the datastore is less than or equal to the percentage indicated in the Datastore Free Space Failure Threshold. To add Datastore Free Space Warning and Failure Thresholds:

a. Click the gear icon to open the vCenter Settings dialog. b. Type a percentage value to indicate when a warning message should display due to low datastore free space. c. Type a percentage value to indicate when a virtual machine backup failure should occur due to low datastore free space. d. Click Save.

NOTE: Datastore free space thresholds are disabled by default.

11. Select Infrastructure > Assets.

The Assets window appears.

12. If not already selected, click the Virtual Machines tab. Upon a successful discovery, the virtual machine assets that are discovered in the vCenter appear. Discovery time is based on networking bandwidth. The resources that are discovered and the resources that are performing the discovery impact performance each time that you initiate a discovery process. It might appear that PowerProtect Data Manager is not updating the Asset Sources data while the discovery is in progress.

Next steps

Upon successful discovery of the vCenter virtual machine assets, you can add a VM Direct appliance to facilitate data movement, and then create virtual machine protection policies to back up these assets. The PowerProtect Data Manager software comes bundled with an embedded VM Direct Engine, which is automatically used as a fallback proxy for performing backups and restores when the added external proxies fail or are disabled. It is recommended that external proxies should always be deployed since the embedded proxy has limited capacity for performing parallel backups. To add a VM Direct Engine, go to Infrastructure > Protection Engines.

Creating a dedicated vCenter user account Dell EMC strongly recommends that you set up a separate vCenter user account at the root level of the vCenter that is strictly dedicated for use with PowerProtect Data Manager and the VM Direct protection engine.

Use of a generic user account such as Administrator could make future troubleshooting efforts difficult as it might not be clear which Administrator actions are actually interfacing or communicating with PowerProtect Data Manager. Using a separate vCenter user account ensures maximum clarity if it becomes necessary to examine vCenter logs.

Managing Assets 49

You can specify the credentials for a vCenter user account when you add the vCenter as an asset source in the UI. When you add the vCenter, ensure that you specify a user whose role is defined at the vCenter level and not restricted to a lower level container object in the vSphere object hierarchy.

Specify the required privileges for a dedicated vCenter user account You can use the vSphere Client to specify the required privileges for the dedicated vCenter user account, or you can use the PowerCLI, which is an interface for managing vSphere. The following table includes the privileges required for this user.

About this task

Table 19. Minimum required vCenter user account privileges

Setting vCenter 6.0 and later required privileges PowerCLI equivalent required privileges

Alarms Create alarm Modify alarm

$privileges = @( 'System.Anonymous', 'System.View', 'System.Read', 'Global.ManageCustomFields', 'Global.SetCustomField', 'Global.LogEvent', 'Global.CancelTask', 'Global.Licenses', 'Global.Settings', 'Global.DisableMethods', 'Global.EnableMethods', 'Folder.Create', 'Datastore.Rename', 'Datastore.Move', 'Datastore.Delete', 'Datastore.Browse', 'Datastore.DeleteFile', 'Datastore.FileManagement', 'Datastore.AllocateSpace', 'Datastore.Config', 'Network.Config', 'Network.Assign', 'Host.Config.Storage', 'VirtualMachine.Inventory.Create', 'VirtualMachine.Inventory.Register', 'VirtualMachine.Inventory.Delete', 'VirtualMachine.Inventory.Unregister', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOn', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.PowerOff', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.Reset', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.ConsoleInteract', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.DeviceConnection', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.SetCDMedia', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.ToolsInstall', 'VirtualMachine.Interact.GuestControl', 'VirtualMachine.GuestOperations.Query', 'VirtualMachine.GuestOperations.Modify', 'VirtualMachine.GuestOperations.Execute', 'VirtualMachine.Config.Rename', 'VirtualMachine.Config.Annotation', 'VirtualMachine.Config.AddExistingDisk', 'VirtualMachine.Config.AddNewDisk', 'VirtualMachine.Config.RemoveDisk', 'VirtualMachine.Config.RawDevice', 'VirtualMachine.Config.HostUSBDevice', 'VirtualMachine.Config.CPUCount', 'VirtualMachine.Config.Memory', 'VirtualMachine.Config.AddRemoveDevice', 'VirtualMachine.Config.EditDevice', 'VirtualMachine.Config.Settings', 'VirtualMachine.Config.Resource', 'VirtualMachine.Config.UpgradeVirtualHardwa re', 'VirtualMachine.Config.ResetGuestInfo',

Datastore Allocate space Browse datastore Configure datastore Low-level file operations Move datastore Remove datastore Remove file Rename datastore

Extension Register extension Unregister extension Update extension

Folder Create folder

Global Cancel task Disable methods Enable methods Licenses Log event Manage custom attributes Settings Set custom attribute

Host Configuration > Storage partition configuration

Network Assign network Configure

Resource Assign virtual machine to resource pool Migrate powered off virtual machine Migrate powered on virtual machine

Sessions Validate session

Tasks Create task Update task

vApp Export Import vApp application configuration

50 Managing Assets

Table 19. Minimum required vCenter user account privileges (continued)

Setting vCenter 6.0 and later required privileges PowerCLI equivalent required privileges

Virtual Machine 'VirtualMachine.Config.AdvancedConfig', 'VirtualMachine.Config.DiskLease', 'VirtualMachine.Config.SwapPlacement', 'VirtualMachine.Config.DiskExtend', 'VirtualMachine.Config.ChangeTracking', 'VirtualMachine.Config.ReloadFromPath', 'VirtualMachine.Config.ManagedBy', 'VirtualMachine.State.CreateSnapshot', 'VirtualMachine.State.RevertToSnapshot', 'VirtualMachine.State.RemoveSnapshot', 'VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate ', 'VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomAcce ss', 'VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomRead ', 'VirtualMachine.Provisioning.PutVmFiles', 'Resource.AssignVMToPool', 'Resource.HotMigrate', 'Resource.ColdMigrate', 'Alarm.Create', 'Alarm.Edit', 'Task.Create', 'Task.Update', 'Sessions.ValidateSession', 'Extension.Register', 'Extension.Update', 'Extension.Unregister', 'VApp.ApplicationConfig', 'VApp.Export', 'VApp.Import' )

New-VIRole -Name 'PowerProtect' -Privilege (Get-VIPrivilege -Id $privileges)

Configuration Add existing disk Add new disk Add or remove device Advanced Change CPU count Change resource Configure managed by Disk change tracking Disk Lease Extend virtual disk Host USB device Memory Modify device settings Raw device Reload from path Remove disk Rename Reset guest information Set annotation Settings Swapfile placement Upgrade virtual machine compatibility

Cryptographic Permissions

Add disk Direct access Register VM

Guest Operations Guest operation modifications Guest operation program execution Guest operation queries

Interactions Configure CD media Console interaction Device Connection Guest operating system management by VIX

API Power off Power on Reset VMware Tools install

Inventory Create new Register Remove Unregister

Provisioning Allow disk access Allow read-only disk access Allow virtual machine download Mark as Template

Snapshot Management

Create snapshot

Managing Assets 51

Table 19. Minimum required vCenter user account privileges (continued)

Setting vCenter 6.0 and later required privileges PowerCLI equivalent required privileges

Remove Snapshot Revert to snapshot

VM Direct protection engine overview The VM Direct protection engine is the virtual machine data protection solution within PowerProtect Data Manager. This solution enables you to deploy a VM Direct Engine in the vSphere environment to perform virtual machine snapshot backups, moving the data to a DD system.

The VM Direct protection engine is enabled after you add a vCenter Server in the Asset Sources window, which enables you to collect VMware entity information from the vCenter server and save the virtual machines as PowerProtect Data Manager resources for the purposes of backup and recovery.

To view statistics for the VM Direct engine, manage and monitor VM Direct engines, and add an external VM Direct engine to facilitate data movement, go to Infrastructure > Protection Engines. Add a VM Direct Engine on page 52 provides more information.

NOTE: In the VM Direct Engines pane, VMs Protected refers to the number of assets protected by PowerProtect Data

Manager. This count does not indicate that all of the virtual machines have been protected successfully. To determine

the success or failure of asset protection, use the Jobs window.

When you add an external VM Direct Engine, the VM Direct Engines pane provides the following information:

The VM Direct Engine IP address, name, gateway, DNS, network, and build version. This information is useful for troubleshooting network issues.

The vCenter and ESXi hostname. The VM Direct Engine status (green check mark if the VM Direct Engine is ready, red x if the VM Direct Engine is not fully

operational). The status includes a short explanation to help you determine why a VM Direct Engine is not in a fully operational state. The transport mode that you selected when adding the VM Direct Engine (Hot Add, Network Block Device, or the default setting Hot

Add, Failback to Network Block Device).

Add a VM Direct Engine In the Protection Engines window, perform the following steps to deploy a VM Direct Engine to facilitate data movement with the VM Direct protection engine.

About this task

The PowerProtect Data Manager software comes bundled with an embedded VM Direct Engine, which is automatically used as a fallback proxy for performing backups and restores when the added external proxies fail or are disabled. Dell EMC recommends that you deploy external proxies because the embedded proxy has limited capacity for performing parallel backups.

Steps

1. In the VM Direct Engines pane of the Protection Engines window, click Add. 2. In the Add VM Direct Engines dialog box, complete the required fields, which are marked with an asterisk.

Consider the following:

Only IPv4 addresses are supported for the Gateway, IP Address, Netmask, and Primary DNS. If you have added multiple vCenter Server instances, the vCenter to Deploy list enables you to select the vCenter on which to

deploy the VM Direct Engine.

NOTE: Do NOT select the internal vCenter in this step.

The ESX Host/Cluster list enables you to select on which cluster or ESXi host you want to deploy the additional VM Direct Engine.

The Network list shows all the networks that are available under the selected ESXi Host/Cluster. The Data Store list shows all datastores that are accessible to the selected ESXi Host/Cluster based on ranking (whether the

datastores are shared, local, or NFS), and available capacity (the datastore with the most capacity appearing at the top of the list). You can choose the specific datastore on which the VM Direct Engine will reside or leave the default selection of to

enable PowerProtect Data Manager to determine the best location to host the VM Direct Engine.

52 Managing Assets

The Transport Mode list enables you to select either Hot Add or Network Block Device (NBD) transport mode or to default to Hot Add mode and fail back to NBD only if Hot Add cannot be used.

NOTE: When configuring the VM Direct Engine in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment, ensure that you select

the transport mode as Hot Add. VMware Cloud on AWS does not support the NBD transport mode.

3. Click Save. The VM Direct Engine is added to the VM Direct Engines pane. Note that it can take several minutes before the new VM Direct Engine is registered in PowerProtect Data Manager. The VM Direct Engine appears in the vSphere Client window.

Results

When an external VM Direct Engine is deployed and registered, it is used by PowerProtect Data Manager instead of the embedded VM Direct for any data protection operations involving virtual machine protection policies, unless all added VM Direct Engines are unavailable. If no added VM Direct Engine is available, the embedded VM Direct Engine is used as a fallback to perform limited scale backups and restores. If you do not want to use an added VM Direct Engine, you can disable that proxy. Additional VM Direct actions on page 53 provides more information.

Next steps

If the VM Direct Engine deployment fails, review the network configuration of PowerProtect Data Manager in the System Settings window to correct any inconsistencies in network properties. After successfully completing the network reconfiguration, you must delete the failed VM Direct Engine and then add the VM Direct Engine in the Protection Engines window.

When configuring the VM Direct Engine in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment, if the VM Direct Engine is deployed to the root of the cluster instead of inside the Compute-ResourcePool, you must move the VM Direct Engine inside the Compute-ResourcePool.

Additional VM Direct actions For additional VM Direct actions, such as enabling, disabling, redeploying or deleting the VM Direct Engine, use the Protection Engines window.

Disable a VM Direct Engine You can disable an added VM Direct Engine that you do not currently require for virtual machine backup and recovery. To disable a VM Direct Engine:

1. On the Protection Engines window, select the VM Direct Engine that you want to disable from the table in the VM Direct Engines pane.

2. In the far right of the VM Direct Engines pane, click the three vertical dots. 3. From the menu, select Disable.

NOTE: A disabled VM Direct Engine is not used for any new protection activities, and is not automatically upgraded

during a PowerProtect Data Manager upgrade.

Delete a VM Direct Engine When you disable a VM Direct Engine, the Delete button is enabled. If you no longer require the VM Direct Engine, perform the following steps to delete the engine:

1. Select the VM Direct Engine that you want to remove from the table in the VM Direct Engines pane. 2. In the far right of the VM Direct Engines pane, click the three vertical dots. 3. From the menu, select Disable. 4. Click Delete.

Enable a disabled VM Direct Engine When you want to make a disabled VM Direct Engine available again for running new protection activities, perform the following steps to re-enable the VM Direct Engine.

1. Select the VM Direct Engine that you want to re-enable from the table in the VM Direct Engines pane. 2. In the far right of the VM Direct Engines pane, click the three vertical dots. 3. From the menu, select Enable.

Managing Assets 53

NOTE: If a PowerProtect Data Manager version upgrade occurred while the VM Direct Engine was disabled, a manual

redeployment of the VM Direct Engine is also required.

Redeploy a VM Direct Engine If a PowerProtect Data Manager software update occurred while a VM Direct Engine was disabled, or an automatic upgrade of the VM Direct Engine did not occur due to network inaccessibility or an environment error, the Redeploy option enables you to manually update the VM Direct Engine to the version currently in use with the PowerProtect Data Manager software. Perform the following steps to manually redeploy the VM Direct Engine.

1. Select the VM Direct Engine that you want to redeploy from the table in the VM Direct Engines pane. 2. In the far right of the VM Direct Engines pane, click the three vertical dots. 3. If the VM Direct Engine is not yet enabled, select Enable from the menu. 4. When the VM Direct Engine is enabled, select Redeploy from the menu.

The VM Direct Engine is redeployed with its previous configuration details.

Discover a Storage Direct agent host By default, discovery of the Storage Direct agent host occurs automatically upon approval of the agent in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. If the Storage Direct agent storage group assets have not yet been discovered, or if you added a storage group after approving the Storage Direct agent, perform the following steps to initiate a manual discovery of the Storage Direct agent host.

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

The Asset Sources window appears.

2. Select the App/File System Host tab. Available agents display in the table with their host name. If an agent has not yet been successfully discovered, the Discovery Status displays as Failed or Unknown.

3. Select the Storage Direct agent host and click Discover.

The Discover dialog appears with an option to set the discovery schedule.

4. From the Discovery Schedule list, select the time of day to initiate the discovery, or select Manual to disable scheduled discovery. You can also select the Discover Now checkbox to perform the discovery upon completion of this procedure.

NOTE: From the App/File System Host tab, you can click Discover at any time if any additions or other changes to

your Asset Sources have taken place outside of the PowerProtect Data Manager environment. Asset discovery is

also initiated by default after registration of the host to PowerProtect Data Manager and at hourly intervals.

Discovery time is based on networking bandwidth. Note that each time that you initiate a discovery process, the

resources that are discovered and those that are handling the discovery impact system performance.

5. Click Save.

Results

If the Storage Direct agent is properly configured, the storage group assets can now be added to a PowerProtect Data Manager Storage Group protection policy.

Add and discover the SMIS server for the Storage Direct agent In order to enable protection of data with the Storage Direct agent in PowerProtect Data Manager, the addition of an SMIS server is required. The SMIS server facilitates the discovery of LUNs for the storage groups configured in the VMAX. Perform the following steps to discover the SMIS server as an asset source in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

The Asset Sources window appears.

2. Select the SMIS server tab.

54 Managing Assets

3. Click Add. The Add SMIS Server dialog box appears.

4. Provide the name, IP address, and port number of the SMIS server. 5. Under Host Credentials, choose an existing entry from the list to use for the SMIS server user credentials, or click Add from this list

to add new credentials. 6. Click Verify to check that the trusted certificate is valid for the specified host. 7. Click Save.

An entry appears for SMIS in the table on the Asset Sources window. NOTE: A message does not appear if credential verification for this host was unsuccessful. If the credentials are

invalid, the status of the SMIS server entry in the SMIS Server tab of the Infrastructure > Asset Sources window will

indicate Failed.

8. Select the checkbox next to the entry and click Discover to initiate discovery of the assets, or storage groups, in the VMAX.

NOTE: Asset discovery is also initiated by default after registration of the host to PowerProtect Data Manager, and

at daily intervals. Discovery time is based on networking bandwidth. Note that each time that you initiate a discovery

process, the resources that are discovered and those that are handling the discovery impact system performance.

When the discovery completes successfully, the Discovery Status column updates to OK.

Next steps

PowerProtect Data Manager initiates the automatic discovery of the assets (storage groups) within the VMAX. To verify the discovery of storage groups, go to the Infrastructure > Assets window and select the VMAX Storage Groups tab. Upon host registration with the PowerProtect Data Manager server, all of the assets for the host (both those currently protected and unprotected) display in the Assets window along with the host name.

NOTE: Ensure that you run a Discover of the SMIS server each time that you add a LUN to a storage group.

Adding a Kubernetes cluster asset source Adding a Kubernetes cluster as an asset source in PowerProtect Data Manager enables you to protect namespaces and Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs) within the cluster. You can use the Asset Sources window in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a Kubernetes cluster asset source to the PowerProtect Data Manager environment.

Prerequisites to Kubernetes cluster discovery After a successful discovery of the Kubernetes cluster asset source, PowerProtect Data Manager deploys the following images on the Kubernetes cluster:

dellemc/powerprotect-k8s-controller dellemc/powerprotect-cproxy, which is pulled during the first backup

dellemc/powerprotect-velero-dd velero/velero vsphereveleroplugin/velero-plugin-for-vsphere (for Kubernetes clusters on vSphere that use VMware CSI)

By default, these images are pulled from Docker Hub at https://hub.docker.com/. However, if a Kubernetes cluster cannot access Docker Hub due to firewall or other restrictions, you can pull images to a local registry that the cluster can access. Ensure that you keep the image names and version tags the same in the local registry as they appear in Docker Hub.

After pulling the images to a local registry, perform the following steps before a Kubernetes cluster discovery to configure PowerProtect Data Manager to use the local registry when creating deployment resources:

1. Create an application.properties file /usr/local/brs/lib/cndm/config/application.properties on the PowerProtect Data Manager appliance with the following contents:

k8s.docker.registry=registry fqdn:port. For example, artifacts.example.com:8446 k8s.image.pullsecrets=secret resource name. Specify this entry only if you require an image pull secret.

2. Run cndm restart to apply the properties.

You can now add the Kubernetes asset source in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. If you already added the Kubernetes cluster as an asset source, perform these steps and then initiate a manual discovery of the Kubernetes cluster asset source to update the cluster. The configmap and deployment resources in the powerprotect namespace, and the deployment resource in the velero-ppdm namespace, automatically update to use the new images upon successful discovery.

Managing Assets 55

Add a Kubernetes cluster You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a Kubernetes cluster as an asset source. When added, PowerProtect Data Manager automatically deploys resources on the cluster that enable the backup and recovery of namespaces.

Prerequisites

You must have Administrator privileges. If your environment has firewall or other restrictions that might prevent pulling of the required images from Docker Hub, review the

procedure in the section Prerequisites to Kubernetes cluster discovery on page 55.

About this task

NOTE: Discovery of a Kubernetes cluster discovers namespaces that contain volumes from both container storage

interface (CSI) and non-CSI based storage. However, backup and recovery are supported only from CSI-based storage.

Also, only Persistent Volumes with the VolumeMode Filesystem are supported.

Steps

1. Select Infrastructure > Asset Sources. 2. In the Asset Sources window, select the Kubernetes cluster tab. 3. Click Add. 4. In the Add Kubernetes cluster dialog box, specify the source attributes:

a. Namethe cluster name b. Addressthe fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or the IP address.

NOTE: It is recommended that you use the FQDN instead of the IP address.

c. Port specify the port to use for communication when not using the default port, 443.

NOTE: The use of any port other than 443 or 6443 requires you to open the port on PowerProtect Data Manager

first to enable outgoing communication. The procedure that is described in Recommendations and considerations

when using a Kubernetes cluster on page 162 provides more information.

5. Under Host Credentials, click Add to add the service account token for the Kubernetes cluster, and then click Save.

The service account must have the following privileges:

Get/Create/Update/List CustomResourceDefinitions Get/Create/Update ClusterRoleBinding for 'cluster-admin' role Create/Update 'powerprotect' namespace Get/List/Create/Update/Delete all kinds of resources inside 'powerprotect' namespace Get/List/Watch all namespaces in the cluster as well as PV, PVC and pods in all these

namespaces NOTE: The admin-user service account in the kube-system namespace contains all these privileges. You can

provide the token of this account, or an existing similar service account. Alternatively, create a service account that

is bound to a cluster role that contains these privileges, and then provide the token of this service account.

6. Click Verify to review the certificate and token information, and then click Accept. Upon successful validation, the status for the new credentials updates to indicate Accepted.

7. Click Save.

The Kubernetes cluster information that you entered now appears as an entry on the Asset Sources window, with a Discovery status of Unknown.

NOTE: Although PowerProtect Data Manager automatically synchronizes with the Kubernetes cluster to perform the

initial discovery under most circumstances, certain conditions might require you to initiate a manual discovery.

8. (Optional) If you want to initiate a manual discovery, select the Kubernetes cluster, and then click Discover. Incremental discovery for a Kubernetes cluster in PowerProtect Data Manager is not supported. You can perform an on-demand (ad hoc) discovery at any time or set a scheduled discovery to update with changes in the Kubernetes cluster.

NOTE: Discovery time is based on networking bandwidth. The resources that are involved in the discovery process

impact performance each time you initiate a discovery. It might appear that PowerProtect Data Manager is not

updating the Asset Sources data while the discovery is in progress.

56 Managing Assets

9. Verify that the Discovery Status column indicates OK, and then go to the Assets window.

Results

The namespaces in the Kubernetes cluster appear in the Kubernetes tab of the Assets window. To view more details, click the magnifying glass icon next to an entry. Also, if a namespace has associated PVCs that you want to exclude from a policy, you can click the link in the PVCs Exclusion column.

NOTE: If namespace assets are not discovered after adding a Kubernetes cluster asset source, ensure that the bearer

token that is provided for the Kubernetes asset source belongs to a service account that has the privileges as specified

in step 5.

Next steps

Create Kubernetes protection policies to back up namespaces and PVCs.

Managing Assets 57

Managing Protection Policies

Topics:

Protection policies Before you create a protection policy Add a protection policy for a virtual machine Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct Add a Centralized Protection Policy for Storage Direct Add a protection policy for Kubernetes namespace protection Add a Cloud Tier schedule to a protection policy Manual backups of protected assets On-demand cloud tiering of protected assets Edit a protection policy Removing expired backup copies Export protection Delete a protection policy Add a Service Level Agreement Export Asset Compliance Protection Rules

Protection policies Protection policies define sets of objectives that apply to specific periods of time. These objectives drive configuration, active protection, and copy-data-management operations that satisfy the business requirements for the specified data. Each plan type has its own set of user objectives.

Users with the System Admin role can create protection policies.

You can create protection policies for:

VMware virtual machines Microsoft Exchange and SQL databases Oracle databases SAP HANA databases File systems Kubernetes clusters VMAX storage groups

PowerProtect DD protection considerations PowerProtect DD protection policies in PowerProtect Data Manager have certain restrictions and best practices.

Be aware of the following considerations:

The Storage Units that were created in PowerProtect Data Manager must not be changed by the DD administrator to set up Storage Units replication.

The Storage Units that were created in PowerProtect Data Manager must not be configured for cloud tiering. When you create a protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager creates a DD Boost storage unit and assigns a DD Boost user to it.

The following limitations apply to the number of supported PowerProtect Data Manager protection policies on the supported DD model to the number of active DD Storage Units.

7

58 Managing Protection Policies

Table 20. Supported PowerProtect Data Manager protection policies and Storage Units for DD OS versions

PowerProtect DD System DD OS Version Storage Units Supported

Supported configurable concurrently active Storage Units /supported number of PowerProtect Data Manager protection policies

DD9800 6.0 and later 256 256

DD9500 5.7 and later 256 256

DD6800, DD9300 6.0 and later 128 128

DD6300 6.0 and later 100 32

DD990, DD4200, DD4500, DD7200

5.7 and later 128 128

All other DD systems 5.7 and later 100 Up to 32 based on the model

DD9500 5.6 100 64

DD990, DD890 5.3 and later 100 Up to 32 based on the model

DD7200, DD4500, DD4200 5.4 and later 100 Up to 32 based on the model

All other DD systems 5.2 and later 100 Up to 14 based on the model

Table 21. Supported Storage Units in DDVE by TB

Number TBs in DDVE Maximum Number of Storage Units

Supported configurable concurrently active Storage Units / supported number of PowerProtect Data Manager protection policies

4

6

8

100 6

32

48

100 14

64

96

100 32

Before you create a protection policy Consider the following best practices before creating a protection policy.

An asset can be protected by only one policy at a time. Assets can be moved from one policy to another policy based on the priority of protection rules.

NOTE: If a SQL Server is hosted on a virtual machine, you can protect the SQL database with an application-

consistent backup without interfering with the SQL agent-based backup.

When creating a policy, limit the number of database assets within the policy to under 500 and stagger the start time of replication policies to avoid potential replication failures.

Before adding replication to a protection policy, ensure that you add a remote DD system as the replication location. Add Protection Storage provides detailed instructions about adding a remote DD system.

Managing backup frequency To avoid high CPU usage that can lead to failure issues, do not schedule backups more often than recommended in the following table:

Backup type Minimum frequency recommendation

Archive Log 30 minutes

Differential 6 hours

Managing Protection Policies 59

Backup type Minimum frequency recommendation

Incremental Cumulative 12 hours

Full Daily

Add a protection policy for a virtual machine A protection policy enables you to select a specific group of assets that you want to back up. Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to create a virtual machine protection policy.

Prerequisites

It is recommended that you distribute virtual machine asset protection workloads over multiple ESXi hosts so that you do not exceed the ESXi NBD session limit. If the limit is reached, you can manage the workload by deploying an external VM Direct Engine on the host/ cluster using Hot Add transport mode.

To create Application Aware protection policies for virtual machines, ensure that:

You manually update the vmx configuration parameter disk.EnableUUID to True by using the vSphere Web Client. The vSphere version that you are running uses a supported version of VMware Tools. Software compatibility information for the

PowerProtect Data Manager software is provided in the eLab Navigator, available at https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/ modernHomeDataProtection.

The virtual machine has direct access to the DD client. The virtual machine uses SCSI disks only, and the number of available SCSI slots matches at least the number of disks. The Windows account that is used for the protection policy is limited to the local system Administrator or the domain Administrator.

This user requires both Microsoft Windows administrative rights and Microsoft SQL Server login and sysadmin rights. SQL configuration support is limited to Microsoft SQL Server stand-alone instances and a Microsoft SQL Server Always On availability

group (AAG) configured with file share witness. Unsupported configurations include Microsoft SQL Server failover cluster instances that are configured with shared drives, and Microsoft SQL Server cluster-less AAG configurations.

For Microsoft SQL Server AAG configurations, the database administrator specifies the AAG backup preferences for backup in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). These preferences control which AAG node is selected as the preferred node when you perform a transaction log backup of AAG databases.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policies. 2. In the Protection Policies window, click Add.

The Add Policy wizard appears.

3. On the Type page, specify the following fields, and then click Next:

NameType a descriptive name for the protection policy. DescriptionType a description for the policy. TypeSelect Virtual Machine, which includes protection for SQL application-aware virtual machines.

4. On the Purpose page, select from the following options to indicate the purpose of the new protection policy group, and then click Next:

Crash ConsistentSelect this type for point-in-time backup of virtual machines.

By default, quiescing is automatically performed for the guest file system on the virtual machine. Quiescing ensures that the data within the guest file system is in a state that is suitable for backups. If the file system cannot be quiesced on the first attempt, then the snapshot and backup are performed without quiescing.

VMware Tools is used to quiesce the file system in the guest operating system. The VMware documentation provides more information.

Application AwareFor virtual machines with a SQL application installed, select this type to quiesce the application to perform the SQL database and transaction log backup. When you select this type, you must provide Windows account credentials for the virtual machine. You can provide the credentials at the protection policy level and/or the virtual machine asset level. When you provide the credentials at both levels, the virtual machine asset credentials override the policy credentials.

ExclusionSelect this type if there are virtual machine assets within the protection policy that you plan to exclude from data protection operations.

5. On the Assets page, select one of the following options from the list:

60 Managing Protection Policies

View by HostThis option enables you to view all assets within a specific host, and then select individual assets or a group of assets at a host or container level for policy inclusion. For example:

Select a standalone host to include all assets under this host. NOTE: If you select a host in a cluster, no assets will be selected. For a host in a cluster, ensure that you

select the cluster or other containers (for example, a resource pool or vApp) under the cluster host.

Expand the tree and select a container level in the vCenter hierarchy (for example, the datacenter, cluster, host, or resource pool) to include all assets under that level. If assets at any level are already protected by another policy, a label with the name of that policy appears next to the level.

NOTE: When you select a container level in the View by Host view, a protection rule is automatically created

to ensure that these container level selections will be retained, even if changes occur from movements within

the vSphere environment or the names of resource pools or folders change. This rule is managed by the

PowerProtect Data Manager system, and cannot be modified. The rule will also be updated automatically if

you make changes to container selections when editing the policy, or when assets are moved into or out of a

selected container.

To view this rule after policy creation, go to Protection > Protection Rules. The name in the Protection Rule

Name column for this new rule will match the policy name.

If this new rule results in an overlap of protection with an existing rule, you can resolve these conflicts by

changing the policy protection rule priority in the Selection Overlap page. Step 7 on page 61 provides more

information.

NOTE: The behavior of automatic rule creation that allows assets to move into or out of policies can only be

modified in the REST API. After upgrading from a previous release, if View by Host is not visible you can

enable this view by manually changing the /api/v2/common-settings/DYNAMIC_FILTER_SETTING. The

API documentation at https://developer.dellemc.com provides instructions.

Expand the tree and select individual assets within containers. NOTE: When you select individual assets within this view, these selections are considered static, and no

protection rule is automatically created.

View Asset TableThis option enables you to view all unprotected assets in the vCenter within a table, and then select individual unprotected assets that you want to back up as part of this protection policy.

NOTE: When you select a virtual machine asset in this view, a dialog displays indicating that you can exclude

virtual disks (VMDKs) from protection of these assets. To dismiss the dialog for other selections, select the

check box and click OK.

If the virtual machines that you want to protect are not listed, use the Search box to search by asset name.

NOTE: When you configure a virtual machine application-aware protection policy to protect a Microsoft SQL Server

Always On availability group (AAG), you must add all the virtual machines for that AAG to the same policy, to ensure

proper protection. Failure to do so might result in missed transaction log backups.

For the virtual machine application-aware case, the Assets page displays a warning about the AAG policy configuration requirement.

6. Optionally, if you want to exclude non-production VMDKs such as network shares or test disks from a protection policy:

a. Select the virtual machine asset from the list, and then click Manage Exclusions in the Disk Excluded column.

The Exclude Disks dialog box appears. By default, the slider next to each VMDK is set to Included.

b. For each disk that you want to exclude, move the slider to the right. The status updates to Excluded.

NOTE: For PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.3, a virtual machine with disk exclusion and Cloud Disaster

Recovery (DR) cannot coexist in the same protection policy. If you exclude disks from a virtual machine

protection policy, Cloud DR is not supported.

c. Click Save. The Assets page updates to indicate the number of disks for that particular asset that will be excluded from the protection policy.

7. Click Next.

If any virtual objects or assets selected in the previous page overlap with assets that are already protected by another policy, the Selection Overlap page appears. Overlap can occur, for example, when two policies (the new policy and an existing policy) use the View by Host view for asset selection by container level.

a. To switch protection of any virtual objects listed in the Protection Priority Overlap table from an existing policy, update the Policy Priority field to a level equal to or higher than the other policy currently protecting these objects. The lower the value, the

Managing Protection Policies 61

higher the priority. For example, 1 is the highest priority. When you change this value, the priority of the rule associated with this policy will also be changed.

b. To switch protection of any assets listed in the Asset Protection Overlap table to this policy, select the checkbox next to the asset(s). Note that selecting these assets for inclusion in this policy will remove the assets from the other policy.

NOTE: When you make changes to the priority or the selected assets, the protection rule is updated automatically.

8. Click Next. The Schedule page appears.

9. On the Schedule page, click + Backup to create a schedule. The Add Primary Backup dialog appears.

10. On the Add Primary Backup dialog, specify the backup schedule fields, and then click OK:

RecurrenceSpecify how often backups occur. Create CopySpecify how often to create a synthetic full backup. A synthetic full backs up only the changed blocks since the

last backup to create a new full backup. Transaction Log EveryFor application-aware protection policies, specify the interval in minutes for log generation.

NOTE: For SQL Server AAG configurations, the database administrator can specify the AAG backup preferences

for a transaction log backup in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

Keep ForSpecify the retention period for the backup.

You can extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy by adding a promotion backup. For example, your regular schedule for daily backups can use a retention period of 30 days, but you can apply promotion backups to keep the full backups taken on Mondays for 10 weeks. Step 11 on page 62 provides instructions.

NOTE: For database backups, PowerProtect Data Manager chains the dependent backups together. For example,

the synthetic full or transaction log backups are chained to their base full backup. The backups do not expire until

the last backup in the chain expires. This ensures that all synthetic full and transaction log backups are

recoverable until they have all expired.

Start TimeSpecify the time of day to start initiating backups. End TimeSpecify the time of day to stop initiating backups.

NOTE: Any backups started before the End Time occurs continue until completion.

Create FullSelect this option if you want to periodically force a full (level 0) backup, and then specify how often to create these backups. When you select this option, the backup chain is reset.

The Schedule page updates with the added backup schedule. NOTE: After completing a backup schedule, you can change any schedule details by selecting the check box next to

the added schedule and clicking Edit.

11. To extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy, add a promotion backup:

a. Select the checkbox next to the added schedule and click + Backup. b. In the Add Promotion Backup dialog box, specify a weekly or monthly recurrence for the promotion backup schedule, a retention

period for the backup, and then click OK. 12. To replicate these backups to a remote DD system:

a. Select the checkbox next to the primary backup schedule and click Replicate.

NOTE: You cannot replicate a promotion backup. When you select a promotion backup schedule, the Replicate

button is disabled.

b. Complete the schedule details in the Add Primary Replication dialog box, and then click OK.

NOTE: To enable replication, ensure that you add a remote DD system as the replication location.

13. Optionally, to add a Cloud stage for the purpose of moving backups from DD storage to Cloud Tier, select the check box next to the primary, replication, or promotion schedule, and then select Cloud Tier. Add a Cloud Tier schedule to a protection policy on page 72 provides more information.

NOTE: In order to move a backup or replica to Cloud Tier, schedules must have a weekly or monthly recurrence and a

retention time of 14 days or more. Also, discovery of a DD system configured with a Cloud unit is required.

14. From the SLA list, select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule, or select Add to create an SLA within the Add Backup Service Level Agreement window.

Add a Service Level Agreement on page 77 provides instructions.

15. From the Storage Name list:

62 Managing Protection Policies

Select the backup destination from the list of existing DD systems. To add a system, select Add, and complete the details in the Storage Target window.

When you select the destination storage, the Space field updates with the available capacity on the system. 16. Click Set Storage Quotas to set storage space restrictions for a DD MTree or Storage Unit to prevent the consumption of excess

space. There are two kinds of quota limitshard limits and soft limits. You can set either a soft or hard limit or both a soft and hard limit. Both values must be integers, and the soft value must be less than the hard value.

NOTE: When you set a soft limit and the limit is reached, an alert is generated but data can still be written to the DD

system. When you set a hard limit and the limit is reached, data cannot be written to the MTree. All data protection

operations fail until data is deleted from the MTree. The DD Operating System Administration Guide provides more

information about MTree quota configuration.

a. Capacity QuotaControls the total size of precompression data that is written to the DD system. b. Stream QuotaThe number of concurrent streams allowed on the system during data protection operations. Setting a Stream

Quota limit can help ensure that system performance is not impacted negatively when a data protection operation is consuming too many system resources.

17. Select the Retention Lock check box to enable retention locking for these backups on the selected system. PowerProtect Data Manager uses Governance mode for retention locking, which means that the lock can be reverted at any time if necessary.

NOTE: Primary backups are assigned a default retention lock period of 14 days. Replicated backups, however, are not

assigned a default retention lock period. If you select this check box for a replicated backup, ensure that you set the

Keep For field in the Add Primary Replicate backup schedule dialog to a minimum number of 14 days so that the

replicated backup does not expire before the primary backup.

18. From the Network interface list, select a network adapter, if applicable. 19. Click Next.

The Options page appears. 20. On the Options page:

a. Select from one of the following backup optimization modes:

Performance Optimize for backup and replication speed. Selecting this mode will result in more storage consumption. Previous versions of PowerProtect Data Manager used this option by default.

Capacity Optimize for backup size. Selecting this mode will result in less storage consumption, but backups will take longer to complete.

NOTE: Changing the optimization mode after the first backup of the protection policy will force the next backup

to be a full backup, and result in increased storage capacity usage due to differences in how each mode uses data

deduplication. This increase will continue until all backups performed using the previous optimization mode

expire and have been deleted.

b. Exclude swap files from backupSelect to exclude the C:\swapfile.sys, C:\pagefile.sys, and C:\hiberfil.sys swap and memory files of Microsoft Windows virtual machines, in the virtual machine backup. Default is unselected.

NOTE: Including swap and memory files in a backup unnecessarily increases the size of the backup and the time

to RTO during recovery. These files are not required for recovery, as they are rebuilt by the Microsoft Windows

operating system upon restart.

c. Enable indexing for file search and restoreSelect to enable indexing. This option is visible only upon activating the search cluster node.

d. Enable guest file system quiescingSelect to enable VMware Tools to quiesce the file system during crash consistent virtual machine backups.

21. Click Next. The Summary page appears.

22. Review the protection policy group configuration details. Except for the protection policy type, you can click Edit next to any details to change the protection policy information. When satisfied with the details, click Finish. An informational message appears to confirm that PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.

When the new protection policy is created and assets are added to the protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager performs backups according to the backup schedule.

For virtual machines, if you have not yet added a VM Direct Engine, the backup is performed using the embedded VM Direct Engine. Subsequent backups are performed according to the schedule specified.

Managing Protection Policies 63

NOTE: If the target virtual machine datastore for backup is running low on free space and the datastore free space

threshold is configured in vCenter Settings, a warning message or backup failure will occur. When the Datastore

Free Space Warning Threshold is reached, the backup proceeds with a warning message in the logs. When the

Datastore Free Space Failure Threshold is reached, the backup fails.

To check the warning and failure threshold values, go to Infrastructure > Asset Sources and click the vCenter tab.

Click the gear icon to open the vCenter Settings dialog.

23. Click OK to exit the window, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the backup of the new protection policy group.

More options for managing virtual machine backups After you create a virtual machine protection policy, additional options become available for virtual machine assets that are backed up as part of the policy.

To access these options:

1. Select Infrastructure > Assets. 2. From the Assets window, select the Virtual Machines tab. If a policy has been assigned, the table lists the virtual machine assets

that have been discovered in the vCenter, along with the associated protection policy. NOTE: You can click the link in the Disk Excluded column next to a virtual machine asset to view VMDKs that have

been excluded from the protection policy. You cannot, however, edit disk inclusion or exclusion from this window. To

change the disks that are excluded for a protected asset, select the policy from the Protection Policies window and

click Edit.

3. Select a protected asset from the table, and then click View Copies. The Copy Locations pane identifies where the backups are stored.

4. In the left pane, click the storage icon to the right of the VM icon, for example, DD. The table in the right pane lists the backup copies.

Depending on whether the asset is retention locked, you can perform the following functions from this window:

Edit the retention period for a backup copySelect a backup copy from the table and click Edit Retention. Delete a backup copyIf you no longer require a copy and the retention lock is not enabled, select the copy from the table and click

Delete.

Add a Self-service Protection Policy for Storage Direct Select a self-service protection policy if you want your backup application to manage the local protection stage, and PowerProtect Data Manager to handle the additional stage by backing up selected assets within a policy. You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a self-service protection policy for Storage Direct data protection.

Prerequisites

Review the prerequisites. If you have added a LUN to a storage group since the last SMIS server discovery, run a Discover of the SMIS server. Ensure that there is no lock on the VMAX.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policies.

The Protection Policy window appears.

2. Click Add.

The Add Policy window appears.

3. In the Type page, specify the new protection policy fields.

a. In the Name field, specify the name of the protection policy. For example, Storage Direct VMAX Policy NOTE: The name that you specify here becomes part of the DD MTree entry.

b. In the Description field, specify a short description of the protection policy. For example, Storage Direct VMAX Policy Daily Backups.

c. In the Type field, select Storage Group.

64 Managing Protection Policies

d. Click Next. The Purpose page appears.

4. In the Purpose page:

a. Select Self-service Protection. PowerProtect Data Manager. b. Select one of the following options:

If this is a new Storage Direct environment, select PowerProtect Data Manager will automatically provision and manage all storage required to meet this objective.

When selected, PowerProtect Data Manager will perform the provisioning of the Storage Direct environment and create the required configuration on both the VMAX storage and the DD system. For example, a backup device group and restore device group are created on the DD system, and a backup storage group that is linked with the source storage group, and a restore storage group, are created on the VMAX.

If this is an existing Storage Direct environment, select PowerProtect Data Manager will not provision and manage my storage.

When selected, no additional configuration is performed since this configuration was already completed during setup of the standalone Storage Direct environment. The configuration will be read from the configuration file and stored in the PowerProtect Data Manager database.

c. Click Next. The Assets page appears.

5. Select the unprotected storage groups that you want to add to the backup of this protection policy group. Within this page, you can filter by host or asset name to locate the required assets. Ensure that any assets you add to the policy have a hostname entry in the Host column. The Assets page displays the storage groups that are attached to the host that are unprotected (storage groups that have not been assigned to a protection policy).

NOTE: If the assets that you want to protect do not display, cancel the policy creation and run the Storage Direct

host discovery again:

a. Go to Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

b. Select the App/File System Host tab.

c. Select the Storage Direct agent host, and then click Discover.

d. Go back to Protection > Protection Policies to re-create the protection policy.

6. Click Next. The Schedule page appears.

7. Click + Backup. The Add Primary Backup dialog box appears.

8. On the Add Primary Backup dialog box, specify the following:

a. Keep ForSpecify the retention period for the backup.

You can extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy by adding a promotion backup. For example, your regular schedule for daily backups can use a retention period of 30 days, but you can apply promotion backups to keep the full backups taken on Mondays for 10 weeks. Step 14 on page 66 provides instructions.

b. If you want to create an application-consistent policy, specify a Pre Snapshot Script and a Post Snapshot Script. For example, specify preSnap.sh and postSnap.sh, which are the names of the provided files.

Application consistency ensures that before the snapshot is taken on the VMAX and the data is moved to DD system, the database is quiesced and there is no current activity on the database that would result in the snapshot being in an inconsistent state. The preSnap.sh script is executed before the snapshot is taken, and the postSnap.sh script is executed after the snapshot completes.

If the pre-snapshot script fails, then the backup fails immediately. If the pre-snapshot script executes successfully but the post- snapshot script fails, the backup continues unless you have specified a return code of -1, which forces the backup to fail if the post-snapshot script fails.

NOTE: The provided pre-snapshot and post-snapshot script files should be located under scripts folder of the

Storage Direct standalone agent installer on the host. If the files are not currently in the scripts folder, ensure

that you manually copy the files to this folder, otherwise the backup will fail.

c. Click OK to exit the dialog and return to the Schedule page.

The Schedule page updates with the new details. You can change this information by selecting the check box next to the added schedule and clicking Edit.

9. Select the check box next to the added schedule for the primary backup.

Managing Protection Policies 65

If you are a new Storage Direct user, the Storage Name and Network interface lists and the Retention Lock check box are enabled for selection. If you are an existing Storage Direct user, the DD system destination is selected automatically and you cannot modify the selection. Also, the Retention Lock check box is not selected.

10. From the Storage Name list:

For the primary backup, select a destination from the list of existing DD systems. For the replicated backup, select a second destination from the list of existing DD systems.

When you select the destination storage, the Space field updates with the available capacity on the system. 11. From the Network interface list, select a network interface card (NIC), if applicable. 12. Select the Retention Lock check box to enable retention locking for these backups on the selected system. PowerProtect Data

Manager uses Governance mode for retention locking, which means that the lock can be reverted at any time if necessary.

Primary backups are assigned a default retention lock period of 14 days, so the backup is locked for 14 days or until expiry of the retention period specified in the Keep For field, whichever is less.

13. Click Set Storage Quotas to set storage space restrictions for a DD MTree or Storage Unit to prevent the consumption of excess space. There are two kinds of quota limitshard limits and soft limits. You can set either a soft or hard limit or both a soft and hard limit. Both values must be integers, and the soft value must be less than the hard value.

NOTE: When you set a soft limit and the limit is reached, an alert is generated but data can still be written to the DD

system. When you set a hard limit and the limit is reached, data cannot be written to the MTree. All data protection

operations fail until data is deleted from the MTree. The DD Operating System Administration Guide provides more

information about MTree quota configuration.

a. Capacity QuotaControls the total size of precompression data that is written to the DD system. b. Stream QuotaThe number of concurrent streams allowed on the system during data protection operations. Setting a Stream

Quota limit can help ensure that system performance is not impacted negatively when a data protection operation consumes too many system resources.

14. To extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy, add a promotion backup:

a. Select the checkbox next to the added schedule and click + Backup. b. In the Add Promotion Backup dialog box, specify a weekly or monthly recurrence for the promotion backup schedule, a retention

period for the backup, and then click OK. 15. To replicate the primary backup to a secondary DD system:

a. Select the checkbox next to the primary backup schedule and click Replicate. The Add Primary Replication dialog box appears, indicating that MTree replication will be added for replication of the backup to a secondary DD system.

NOTE: You cannot replicate a promotion backup. When you select a promotion backup schedule, the Replicate

button is disabled.

NOTE: The retention period that is used will be the same Keep For value that you specified for the backup

schedule.

b. Click OK.

NOTE: To enable replication, ensure that you add a second DD system for use as the replication location. Add

Protection Storage provides detailed instructions about adding a secondary or remote DD system.

16. Click Next. The Summary page appears.

17. Review the protection policy configuration details. You can click Edit next to any details to make changes. When completed, click Finish. An informational message appears to confirm that PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.

When the new protection policy is created and assets are added to the protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager performs backups according to the backup schedule.

18. Click OK to exit the window, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the backup of the new protection policy group.

The Jobs window breaks down the Storage Group protection by VMAX storage group. Click the link next to the storage group to open the Details pane, where you can view more specific information about the job tasks, such as:

Creation of vDisks in the DD system and creation of backup and recovery storage groups. Encapsulation, which involves creating backup and restore FTS devices on the VMAX and linking the DD vDisk with FTS. Creation of the initial snapshot backup, and linking of the snapshot to the protection storage group. Notification that a new configuration file has been pushed to the host. If replication was selected, notification that a job for MTree replication was also initiated.

66 Managing Protection Policies

Job tasks vary depending on whether you are a new user or an existing Storage Direct user.

Next steps

Run the protectpoint snapbackup create command to perform the self-service backup. This command uses the configuration file that is created automatically upon the addition of storage groups to a Storage Group protection policy. The configuration file provides information about the VMAX and DD system attributes and the storage groups protected by this policy.

You can access the configuration file, for example, VMAXPolicy1.config, by going to the C:\Program Files\DPSAPPS \ppfsagent\config directory. The file name contains the name that you provided for the Storage Group policy.

NOTE: Do not modify this configuration file.

Before running the backup command, run the following command for the host to verify that snapshots will be created for each storage group in the protection policy, and to ensure that a successful relationship has been established between the source device and the backup FTS device for movement of data from the VMAX to DD system.

symsnapvx - sid xxx -sg storage group name list An X in the Flags section of this output, as shown in the following, indicates that the relationship has been established without any issues.

Figure 1. Storage group list command output

Once the snapshots and relationship are verified, you can run the following command to perform the self-service backup. This command example is from a Windows system.

C:\Program Files\DPSAPPS\ppfsagent\config>protectpoint snapbackup create description "Backup using sdm configuration" VMAX policy name.config Upon successful completion of the backup, output similar to the following displays:

Figure 2. Snapbackup command output

Add a Centralized Protection Policy for Storage Direct Select the centralized protection policy for Storage Direct if you want PowerProtect Data Manager to centrally manage all stages of the protection policy. You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add a centralized protection policy for Storage Direct data protection.

Prerequisites

Review the prerequisites. If you have added a LUN to a storage group since the last SMIS server discovery, run a Discover of the SMIS server.

Managing Protection Policies 67

Ensure that there is no lock on the VMAX.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policies.

The Protection Policy window appears.

2. Click Add.

The Add Policy window appears.

3. In the Type page, specify the new protection policy fields.

a. In the Name field, specify the name of the protection policy. For example, Storage Direct VMAX Policy NOTE: The name that you specify here becomes part of the DD MTree entry.

b. In the Description field, specify a short description of the protection policy. For example, Storage Direct VMAX Policy Daily Backups.

c. In the Type field, select Storage Group. d. Click Next.

The Purpose page appears. 4. In the Purpose page:

a. Select Centralized Protection. b. Select one of the following options:

If this is a new Storage Direct environment, select PowerProtect Data Manager will automatically provision and manage all storage required to meet this objective.

When selected, PowerProtect Data Manager will perform the provisioning of the Storage Direct environment and create the required configuration on both the VMAX storage and the DD system. For example, a backup device group and restore device group are created on the DD system, and a backup storage group that is linked with the source storage group, and a restore storage group, are created on the VMAX.

If this is an existing Storage Direct environment, select PowerProtect Data Manager will not provision and manage my storage.

When selected, no additional configuration is performed since this configuration was already completed during setup of the standalone Storage Direct environment. The configuration will be read from the configuration file and stored in the PowerProtect Data Manager database.

Keep ForSpecify the retention period for the backup. Start TimeSpecify the time of day to start initiating backups. End TimeSpecify the time of day to stop initiating backups.

NOTE: Any backups started before the End Time occurs continue until completion.

c. Click Next. The Assets page appears.

5. Select the unprotected storage groups that you want to add to the backup of this protection policy group. Within this page, you can filter by host or asset name to locate the required assets. Ensure that any assets you add to the policy have a hostname entry in the Host column. The Assets page displays the storage groups that are attached to the host that are unprotected (storage groups that have not been assigned to a protection policy).

NOTE: If the assets that you want to protect do not display, cancel the policy creation and run the Storage Direct

host discovery again:

a. Go to Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

b. Select the App/File System Host tab.

c. Select the Storage Direct agent host, and then click Discover.

d. Go back to Protection > Protection Policies to re-create the protection policy.

6. Click Next. The Schedule page appears.

7. Click + Backup. The Add Primary Backup dialog box appears.

8. On the Add Primary Backup dialog box, specify the following:

a. Create CopySpecify how often to create a synthetic full backup. A synthetic full backs up only the changed blocks since the last backup to create a new full backup.

68 Managing Protection Policies

b. Keep ForSpecify the retention period for the backup.

You can extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy by adding a promotion backup. For example, your regular schedule for daily backups can use a retention period of 30 days, but you can apply promotion backups to keep the full backups taken on Mondays for 10 weeks. Step 14 on page 69 provides instructions.

c. Start TimeSpecify the time of day to start initiating backups. d. End TimeSpecify the time of day to stop initiating backups.

NOTE: Any backups started before the End Time occurs continue until completion.

e. If you want to create an application-consistent policy, specify a Pre Snapshot Script and a Post Snapshot Script. For example, specify preSnap.sh and postSnap.sh, which are the names of the provided files. The preSnap.sh script is executed before the snapshot is taken, and the postSnap.sh script is executed after the snapshot completes.

Application consistency ensures that before the snapshot is taken on the VMAX and the data is moved to the DD system, the database is quiesced and there is no current activity on the database that would result in the snapshot being in an inconsistent state.

If the pre-snapshot script fails, then the backup fails immediately. If the pre-snapshot script executes successfully but the post- snapshot script fails, the backup continues unless you have specified a return code of -1 which forces the backup to fail if the post- snapshot script fails.

NOTE: The provided pre-snapshot and post-snapshot script files should be located under scripts folder of the

Storage Direct standalone agent installer on the host. If the files are not currently in the scripts folder, ensure

that you manually copy the files to this folder, otherwise the backup will fail.

f. Click OK to exit the dialog and return to the Schedule page.

The Schedule page updates with the new details. You can change this information by selecting the check box next to the added schedule and clicking Edit.

9. Select the check box next to the added schedule for the primary backup. If you are a new Storage Direct user, the Storage Name and Network interface lists and the Retention Lock check box are enabled for selection. If you are an existing Storage Direct user, the DD system destination is selected automatically and you cannot modify the selection. Also, the Retention Lock check box is not selected.

10. From the Storage Name list:

For the primary backup, select a destination from the list of existing DD systems. For the replicated backup, select a second destination from the list of existing DD systems.

When you select the destination storage, the Space field updates with the available capacity on the system. 11. From the Network interface list, select a network interface card (NIC), if applicable. 12. Select the Retention Lock check box to enable retention locking for these backups on the selected system. PowerProtect Data

Manager uses Governance mode for retention locking, which means that the lock can be reverted at any time if necessary.

Primary backups are assigned a default retention lock period of 14 days, so the backup is locked for 14 days or until expiry of the retention period specified in the Keep For field, whichever is less.

13. Click Set Storage Quotas to set storage space restrictions for a DD MTree or Storage Unit to prevent the consumption of excess space. There are two kinds of quota limitshard limits and soft limits. You can set either a soft or hard limit or both a soft and hard limit. Both values must be integers, and the soft value must be less than the hard value.

NOTE: When you set a soft limit and the limit is reached, an alert is generated but data can still be written to the DD

system. When you set a hard limit and the limit is reached, data cannot be written to the MTree. All data protection

operations fail until data is deleted from the MTree. The DD Operating System Administration Guide provides more

information about MTree quota configuration.

a. Capacity QuotaControls the total size of precompression data that is written to the DD system. b. Stream QuotaThe number of concurrent streams allowed on the system during data protection operations. Setting a Stream

Quota limit can help ensure that system performance is not impacted negatively when a data protection operation consumes too many system resources.

14. To extend the retention period for the latest primary backup copy, add a promotion backup:

a. Select the checkbox next to the added schedule and click + Backup. b. In the Add Promotion Backup dialog box, specify a weekly or monthly recurrence for the promotion backup schedule, a retention

period for the backup, and then click OK. 15. To replicate the primary backup to a secondary DD system:

a. Select the checkbox next to the primary backup schedule and click Replicate. The Add Primary Replication dialog box appears, indicating that MTree replication will be added for replication of the backup to a secondary DD system.

Managing Protection Policies 69

NOTE: You cannot replicate a promotion backup. When you select a promotion backup schedule, the Replicate

button is disabled.

NOTE: The retention period that is used will be the same Keep For value that you specified for the backup

schedule.

b. Click OK.

NOTE: To enable replication, ensure that you add a second DD system for use as the replication location. Add

Protection Storage provides detailed instructions about adding a secondary or remote DD system.

16. Click Next. The Summary page appears.

17. Review the protection policy configuration details. You can click Edit next to any details to make changes. When completed, click Finish. An informational message appears to confirm that PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.

When the new protection policy is created and assets are added to the protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager performs backups according to the backup schedule.

18. Click OK to exit the window, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the configuration of the new protection policy group.

When configuration is in progress, the job entry indicates Configuring Storage Groups - storage group name. Any job that specifies Auto Full, for example, Protecting Storage Groups - storage group name - Auto Full, indicates that a scheduled centralized Storage Direct policy backup has been started.

The Jobs window breaks down the Storage Group protection by VMAX storage group. Click the link next to the storage group to open the Details pane, where you can view more specific information about the job tasks, such as:

Creation of vDisks in the DD system and creation of backup and recovery storage groups. Encapsulation, which involves creating backup and restore FTS devices on the VMAX and linking the DD vDisk with FTS. Creation of the initial snapshot backup, and linking of the snapshot to the protection storage group. Notification that a new configuration file has been pushed to the host. If replication was selected, notification that a job for MTree replication was also initiated.

Job tasks vary depending on whether you are a new user or an existing Storage Direct user.

Add a protection policy for Kubernetes namespace protection A Kubernetes protection policy enables you to select a namespace that you want to back up. Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to create a Kubernetes namespace protection policy.

Prerequisites

In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can only perform protection policy backups of namespaces from CSI-based storage.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policies. 2. In the Protection Policies window, click Add.

The Add Policy wizard appears.

3. On the Type page, specify the following fields, and then click Next:

NameType a descriptive name for the protection policy. DescriptionType a description for the policy. TypeFor the policy type, select Kubernetes.

4. On the Purpose page, select from the following options to indicate the purpose of the new protection policy group, and then click Next:

Crash ConsistentSelect this type for point-in-time backup of namespaces.

70 Managing Protection Policies

ExclusionSelect this type if there are assets within the protection policy that you plan to exclude from data protection operations.

5. In the Assets page, select one or more unprotected namespaces that you want to back up as part of this protection policy.

NOTE: Discovery of a Kubernetes cluster discovers namespaces that contain volumes from both container storage

interface (CSI) and non-CSI based storage. However, backup and recovery are supported only from CSI-based

storage. If you select a namespace from non-CSI storage, the backup fails.

Optionally, if you want to protect a namespace that contains non-CSI storage, you can exclude the non-CSI PVC

from the backup. If excluding the PVC, ensure that such a policy still meets your protection requirements.

If the namespace that you want to protect is not listed, perform one of the following:

Click Find More Assets to perform an updated discovery of the Kubernetes cluster. Use the Search box to search by asset name.

6. (Optional) For the selected namespaces, click the link in the PVCs Excluded column, if available, to clear any PVCs that you want to exclude from the backup. By default, all PVCs are selected for inclusion.

7. Click Next. The Schedule page appears.

8. On the Schedule page, click + Backup to create a schedule. 9. On the Add Primary Backup page, specify the backup schedule fields, and then click OK:

RecurrenceSpecify how often backups occur. Create EverySpecify how often to create a synthetic full backup. For persistent volumes on VMware first class disks (FCDs), a

synthetic full backs up only the changed blocks since last backup to create a new full backup. Also, namespace metadata is backed up in full upon every backup.

Keep ForSpecify the retention period for the backup. NOTE: For database backups, PowerProtect Data Manager chains the dependent backups together. For example,

the synthetic full or transaction log backups are chained to their base full backup. The backups do not expire until

the last backup in the chain expires. This ensures that all synthetic full and transaction log backups are

recoverable until they have all expired.

Start TimeSpecify the time of day to start initiating backups. End TimeSpecify the time of day to stop initiating backups.

The Schedule page updates with the added backup schedule. NOTE: After completing a backup schedule, you can change any schedule details by selecting the check box next to

the added schedule and clicking Edit.

10. To replicate these backups to a remote DD system:

a. Select the checkbox next to the primary backup schedule and click Replicate. b. Complete the schedule details in the Add Primary Replication dialog box, and then click OK.

NOTE: To enable replication, ensure that you add a remote DD system as the replication location. Add Protection

Storage provides detailed instructions about adding a remote DD system.

11. Optionally, to add a Cloud stage for the purpose of moving backups from DD storage to Cloud Tier, select the check box next to the primary or replication schedule, and then select Cloud Tier. Add a Cloud Tier schedule to a protection policy on page 72 provides more information.

NOTE: In order to move a backup or replica to Cloud Tier, schedules must have a weekly or monthly recurrence and a

retention time of 14 days or more. Also, discovery of a DD system configured with a Cloud unit is required.

12. From the SLA list, select an existing service level agreement that you want to apply to this schedule, or select Add to create an SLA within the Add Backup Service Level Agreement window.

Add a new SLA provides instructions.

NOTE: The Promotion SLA type is not supported for Kubernetes protection policies.

13. From the Storage Name list in the schedule entry:

Select the backup destination from the list of existing DD systems. To add a system, select Add, and complete the details in the Storage Target window.

When you select the destination storage, the Space field updates with the available capacity on the system.

Managing Protection Policies 71

14. Click Set Storage Quotas to set storage space restrictions for a DD MTree or Storage Unit to prevent the consumption of excess space. There are two kinds of quota limitshard limits and soft limits. You can set either a soft or hard limit or both a soft and hard limit. Both values must be integers, and the soft value must be less than the hard value.

NOTE: When you set a soft limit and the limit is reached, an alert is generated but data can still be written to the DD

system. When you set a hard limit and the limit is reached, data cannot be written to the MTree. All data protection

operations fail until data is deleted from the MTree. The DD Operating System Administration Guide provides more

information about MTree quota configuration.

a. Capacity QuotaControls the total size of pre-compression data that is written to the DD system. b. Stream QuotaThe number of concurrent streams allowed on the system during data protection operations. Setting a Stream

Quota limit can help ensure that system performance is not impacted negatively when a data protection operation is consuming too many system resources.

15. Select the Retention Lock check box to enable retention locking for these backups on the selected system. PowerProtect Data Manager uses Governance mode for retention locking, which means that the lock can be reverted at any time if necessary.

NOTE: Primary backups are assigned a default retention lock period of 14 days. Replicated backups, however, are not

assigned a default retention lock period. If you select this check box for a replicated backup, ensure that you set the

Keep For field in the Add Primary Replicate backup schedule dialog to a minimum number of 14 days so that the

replicated backup does not expire before the primary backup.

NOTE: Retention lock is not supported for the Cloud Tier schedule.

16. From the Network interface list, select a network interface card, if applicable. 17. Click Next.

The Summary page appears. 18. Review the protection policy group configuration details, and then click Finish. Except for the protection policy type, you can click

Edit next to any details to change the policy information. An informational message appears to confirm that PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy.

When the new protection policy is created and assets are added to the protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager performs backups according to the backup schedule.

19. Click OK to exit the window, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window.

From the Jobs window, you can monitor the progress of the new Kubernetes cluster protection policy backup and associated tasks. You can also cancel any in-progress or queued job or task.

NOTE: If a Kubernetes cluster is running on vSphere and using vSphere CSI storage, the job details will indicate that

the optimized data path is being used for the backup.

Next steps

If the backup fails with the error Failed to create Proxy Pods. Creating Pod exceeds safeguard limit of 10 minutes, verify that the CSI driver is functioning properly, such that the driver can create snapshots and a PVC from the VolumeSnapshot datasource. Also, ensure that you clean up any orphan VolumeSnapshot resources that still exist in the namespace.

Add a Cloud Tier schedule to a protection policy For some protection policy types, you can add a cloud tier schedule to a protection policy in order to perform backups to cloud tier.

Prerequisites

Ensure that a DD system is set up for cloud tiering.

About this task

You can create the cloud tier schedule from primary, replication, and promotion stages. Schedules must have a weekly or monthly recurrence and a retention time of 14 days or more.

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select Protection > Protection Policies > Add.

72 Managing Protection Policies

3. On the Type page, enter a name and description, select the type of system to back up, and click Next.

The following protection policy types support cloud tiering:

Virtual machine SQL Exchange Oracle SAP HANA File System Kubernetes

4. On the Purpose page, select from the available options to indicate the purpose of the new protection policy, and then click Next. 5. On the Assets page, select the assets that you want to protect with this policy, and then click Next. 6. On the Schedule page, select + Backup. 7. On the Add Primary page, set the following parameters, and then click OK:

RecurrenceSelect Weekly or Monthly. Keep forCloud Tier backup requires a minimum of 2 weeks.

8. Select the protection policy that you created, and then select Cloud Tier. 9. In the Add Cloud Tier dialog box, set the following parameters and then click OK:

Select the appropriate unit from the Cloud Target list. For Tier After, set a time of at least 2 weeks.

The new protection policy is now enabled with cloud tiering. 10. Click Next, verify the information, and then click Finish.

A new job is created, which you can view under the Jobs tab after the job completes.

Results

Once an asset is protected with a Cloud Tier stage, you can also perform a manual backup of the asset. On-demand cloud tiering of protected assets on page 74 provides more information.

Managing Cloud Tier asset copies You can manage Cloud Tier copies of assets by changing copy retention time, deleting copies, and recalling copies.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager dashboard, go to Infrastructure > Assets. 2. Select an asset and click View Copies. 3. Click an asset copy icon.

Cloud Tier backups are listed by cloud storage in the Location column. 4. Select a Cloud Tier backup and click Edit Retention to change how long copies remain in cloud storage. 5. Select a Cloud Tier backup and click Delete to delete the copy in cloud storage. 6. Select a Cloud Tier backup and click Recall to return the cloud backup to your local DD system for recovery or backup.

NOTE: If you use Amazon's network to copy data from AWS storage, Amazon charges you for the data transfer.

Manual backups of protected assets Once assets have been added to a protection policy, you can perform manual backups by using the Back Up Now functionality in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

You can use a single manual backup from the Protection > Protection Policy window to back up multiple assets that are protected in the designated protection policy. To perform this manual backup:

1. Select Protection > Protection Policy 2. Select the protection policy that protects the assets for which you want to perform the manual backup.

NOTE: The protection policy must be enabled, and its purpose must not be Exclusion or Self-Service Protection.

Managing Protection Policies 73

3. On the Assets Selection page, choose whether you want to back up All assets... or if you will Choose some of the assets... that are defined in the protection policy.

If you want to choose some of the assets for manual backup, choose those assets on the Assets page. 4. On the Configuration page, edit the backup type and retention period if you want to change the default settings.

The default settings are inherited from the primary backup stage of the parent protection policy. 5. Click Back Up Now. A notification appears indicating whether the request was processed successfully.

When you perform a manual backup from the Infrastructure > Assets window, you can back up only one asset at a time. To perform this manual backup:

1. Select Infrastructure > Assets. 2. Select the tab for the asset type you want to back up. A list of assets appears. 3. Select an asset from the table that has an associated protection policy.

NOTE: You can select only one asset at a time for manual backup. The protection policy must be enabled, and its

purpose must not be Exclusion or Self-Service Protection. A full backup is created for the selected asset.

4. Click Back Up Now. A notification appears indicating whether the request was processed successfully.

When a virtual machine is part of an application-aware protection policy, the manual backup is a full application-aware backup.

NOTE: The backup generated by a manual backup is managed by other configured stages (promotion backup,

replication, cloud tier, cloud DR) of the parent protection policy.

On-demand cloud tiering of protected assets Once you add assets to a protection policy that contains a cloud tier stage, you can perform on-demand tiering of these assets by using the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

NOTE: On-demand cloud tiering of a copy set requires the related protection policy to have a cloud tier stage.

To perform on-demand cloud tiering:

1. Select Infrastructure > Assets. 2. On the Assets window, select the tab for the asset type you want to back up. A list of assets appears. 3. Select an asset from the table that has an associated protection policy, and then click View Copies.

NOTE: You can only select one asset at a time, and the protection policy that is associated with the asset cannot be

an exclusion policy.

4. Click the DD icon to display the available backup copies in the right pane. 5. Select a backup copy, and then click Tier. A notification appears indicating whether the request was processed successfully.

Go to the Jobs window to monitor the progress of the tiering operation.

Edit a protection policy Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to edit a protection policy name, description, or schedule. You can also edit a protection policy to add or remove assets, change the backup optimization mode, and to modify the settings for the network interface card, storage quotas, and retention lock. You cannot, however, modify a protection policy type or purpose.

About this task

NOTE: You cannot remove assets from a VMAX Storage Group policy.

NOTE: Dell EMC recommends that you do not edit the network interface for App Agent assets such as File System, SQL,

ORACLE, and SAP HANA, because it will cause subsequent backup failure. The workaround is to set the lockbox, which

will trigger a new asset configuration.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policy.

The Protection Policy window opens.

2. Select the protection policy that you want to modify, and click Edit.

The Edit Policy window opens on the Summary page.

74 Managing Protection Policies

3. In the Name, Description, Assets, Schedule, or Options rows of the Summary page , click Edit. The Edit Policy window displays the appropriate page according to your selection. For example, if you click Edit next to the Name or Description rows, the Type page opens.

NOTE: Detailed instructions for adding assets to a policy or removing assets from a policy are provided in the section

Add or remove assets in a protection policy on page 75.

4. After making your changes, click Next to save the changes and go to the Summary page. 5. On the Summary page, click Finish

An informational dialog displays. 6. Click OK to exit the dialog, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the backup of the new protection policy.

Add or remove assets in a protection policy Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add or remove an asset in a protection policy.

About this task

When a protection policy is edited and new assets are added, backups for the new assets start from the next scheduled FULL backup job for the protection policy.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policy.

The Protection Policy window appears.

2. Select the protection policy that you want to modify, and click Edit.

The Edit Policy window opens on the Summary page.

3. In the Assets row, click Edit. The Assets page appears.

NOTE: For virtual machine protection policies, the view that you selected when creating the policy is retained in this

page, and cannot be changed. For example, if you set up this policy with View Asset Table selected, all assets

protected by this policy will display in a table on this page, and the option to select View by Host will be disabled.

4. To remove containers or assets from the protection policy, select the object and click Remove.

The Assets page updates with the changes.

NOTE: This functionality is not supported for VMAX Storage Group protection policies.

5. To add a container or asset to the protection policy:

a. Click + Add.

The Add Unprotected Assets dialog displays any objects that are unprotected.

b. Select the individual unprotected assets that you want to add to the policy, or select a container level within the hierarchy to add all assets within that level, and then click Add.

The Assets page updates with the changes.

6. Click Next to save the changes and go to the Summary page. 7. In the Summary page, click Finish

An informational dialog box appears. 8. Click OK to exit the dialog box, or click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the backup of the new protection policy.

Removing expired backup copies PowerProtect Data Manager deletes the backup copies of an asset automatically when the retention period of the copy expires.

Information about specifying retention periods for a protection policy schedule is provided within the topic for each policy type.

In order for an expired copy to be deleted, the asset must be managed by PowerProtect Data Manager and in one of the following states:

Protected The asset is currently assigned to an enabled protection policy. Previously Protected The asset has been unassigned from a protection policy and has not yet been re-assigned to another policy

or assigned to an Exclusion policy.

Expired copy cleanup occurs at 00:00 AM UTC each day. If a copy deletion fails, a warning alert appears in the audit log under Alerts > System.

Managing Protection Policies 75

NOTE: For virtual machine assets and Kubernetes namespaces, you can also manually delete a backup copy at any time

from the Assets window if you no longer require the copy and the retention lock is not enabled. More options for

managing virtual machine backups on page 64 provides more information.

Export protection This option enables you to export protection jobs and compliance records to a .CSV file so that you can download an Excel file of protection results data.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policy.

The Protection Policy window appears, which displays the following information:

Asset type Purpose Group Name Number of Protected Assets Asset Capacity Number of Failures Number of SLA Violations

2. Select the protection policy for which you would like to export the protection records.

If you do not select a protection policy, PowerProtect Data Manager exports the protection records for all the protection policies.

3. Click Export. The Export Asset Protection window appears.

4. Specify the following fields for the export:

a. The Time Range.

The default is Last 24 hours.

This refers to the last complete midnight-to-midnight 24-hour period; that is, yesterday. So, any events that have occurred since the most recent midnight are not in the CSV export. For example, if you run the CSV export at 9am, any events that have occurred in the last 9 hours are not in the CSV export. This is to prevent the overlapping of or partial exporting when queried mid- day on a regular or irregular basis.

b. The Job Status. c. Click Download .CSV.

If applicable, the navigation window appears for you to select the location to save the CSV file. 5. If applicable, save the .CSV file in the desired location and then click Save.

Delete a protection policy You can delete a protection policy that is not protecting any assets.

Prerequisites

If the policy you want to delete is protecting assets, you must associate those assets with a different protection policy before you can delete the policy.

About this task

Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to delete a protection policy.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Policy. 2. Select the policy you want to delete and click Delete.

76 Managing Protection Policies

Add a Service Level Agreement The SLA Compliance window in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI enables you to add a service level agreement (SLA) that identifies your Service Level Objectives (SLOs). You use the SLOs to verify that your protected assets are meeting the Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

About this task

NOTE: When you create an SLA for Cloud Tier, you can include only full backups in the SLA.

Steps

1. Select Protection > SLA Compliance.

The SLA Compliance window displays with the following information:

SLA Name Stage Type Policies At Risk Objectives Out of Compliance Impacted Assets

2. Select the type of asset for which you want to add the SLA, and click Add.

The Add Service Level Agreement Type window appears.

3. Select the type of SLA that you want to add, and then click Next.

Policy. If you choose this type, go to step 4 Backup. If you choose this type, go to step 5. Promotion. If you choose this type, go to step 6. Replication. If you choose this type, go to step 7. Cloud Tier. If you choose this type, go to step 8.

You can select only one type of Service Level Agreement.

4. If you selected Policy, specify the following fields regarding the purpose of the new Policy SLA:

a. The SLA Name. b. If applicable, select Minimum Copies, and specify the number of Backup and Replication. c. If applicable, select Maximum Copies, and specify the number of Backup and Replication. d. If applicable, select Available Location and select the applicable locations. To add a location, click Add Location.

Options are:

InInclude locations of all copies in the SLO locations. Does not require every SLO location to have a copy. Must InInclude locations of all copies in the SLO locations. Requires every SLO location to have at least one copy. ExcludeLocations of all copies must be other than SLO locations.

e. Click Finish and go to step 9. 5. If you selected Backup, specify the following fields regarding the purpose of the new Backup SLA:

a. The SLA Name. b. If applicable, select Recovery Point Objective (RPO), and then set the duration. The purpose of an RPO is business continuity

planning, and refers to the maximum targeted period in which data (transactions) might be lost from an IT service due to a major incident.

NOTE: You can select only Recovery Point Objective to configure as an independent objective in the SLA, or

select both Recovery Point Objective and Compliance Window. If you select both, the RPO setting must be one

of the following:

Greater than 24 hours or more than the Compliance window duration, in which case RPO validation will occur

independent of the Compliance Window.

Less than or equal to the Compliance Window duration, in which case RPO validation will occur within the

Compliance Window.

c. If applicable, select Compliance Window, and then set the duration, which refers to the time it takes to create the backup copy. Ensure that the Start Time and End Time of backup copy creation falls within the Compliance Window duration specified.

Managing Protection Policies 77

These are the times in which you can expect the specified activity to take place. Any specified activity that occurs outside of this Start Time and End Time triggers an alert.

d. If applicable, select the Verify expired copies are deleted option.

Verify expired copies are deleted is a compliance check to see if PowerProtect Data Manager is deleting expired copies. This option is disabled by default.

e. If applicable, set the Retention Time Objective, and specify the number of Days, Months, Weeks or Years. f. If applicable, select the Verify Retention Lock is enabled for all copies option. This option is disabled by default. g. Click Finish, and go to step 9.

The SLA Compliance window appears with the newly added SLA. 6. If you selected Promotion, specify the following fields regarding the purpose of the new Promotion SLA:

a. The SLA Name. b. If applicable, specify the Recovery Point Objective. c. If applicable, select the Verify expired copies are deleted option.

Verify expired copies are deleted is a compliance check to see if PowerProtect Data Manager is deleting expired copies. This option is disabled by default.

d. If applicable, set the Retention Time Objective, and specify the number of Days, Months, Weeks, or Years. e. If applicable, select the Verify Retention Lock is enabled for all copies option. This option is disabled by default. f. Click Finish, and go to step 9.

The SLA Compliance window appears with the newly added SLA. 7. If you selected Replication, specify the following fields regarding the purpose of the new Replication SLA:

a. The SLA Name. b. If applicable, select the Compliance Window, and specify the Start Time and End Time.

These are the times which are permissible and in which you can expect the specified activity to take place. Any specified activity that occurs outside of this start time and end time triggers an alert.

c. If applicable, select the Verify expired copies are deleted option.

Verify expired copies are deleted is a compliance check to see if PowerProtect Data Manager is deleting expired copies. This option is disabled by default.

d. If applicable, set the Retention Time Objective, and specify the number of Days, Months, Weeks, or Years. e. If applicable, select the Verify Retention Lock is enabled for all copies option. This option is disabled by default. f. Click Finish, and go to step 9.

The SLA Compliance window appears with the newly added SLA. 8. If you selected Cloud Tier type SLA, specify the following fields regarding the purpose of the new Cloud Tier SLA:

a. The SLA Name. b. If applicable, select the Verify expired copies are deleted option.

This option is a compliance check to see if PowerProtect Data Manager is deleting expired copies. This option is disabled by default.

c. If applicable, set the Retention Time Objective and specify the number of Days, Months, Weeks, or Years. d. If applicable, select the Verify Retention Lock is enabled for all copies option. This option is disabled by default. e. Click Finish.

9. Add the newly added SLA to the protection policy. Select Protection > Protection Policy. 10. In the Schedule section of the Summary window, click Edit. 11. Do one of the following, and then click Next:

Select the added Policy SLA from the Set Policy Level SLA list. Create and add the new SLA policy from theSet Policy Level SLA list.

The Summary window appears. 12. Click Finish.

An informational message appears to confirm that PowerProtect Data Manager has saved the protection policy. 13. Click Go to Jobs to open the Jobs window to monitor the backup and compliance results, or click OK to exit.

NOTE: Compliance checks occur automatically every day at 2 am Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

14. In the Jobs window, click next to an entry to view details on the SLA Compliance result.

78 Managing Protection Policies

Export Asset Compliance This option enables you to export compliance records to a CSV file so that you can download an Excel file of compliance results data.

Steps

1. Select Protection > SLA Compliance.

The SLA Compliance window appears. The PowerProtect Data Manager SLA Compliance window displays the following information:

SLA Name Stage Type Policies At Risk Objectives Out of Compliance Impacted Assets

2. Select the SLA for which you would like to export the compliance records. 3. Click Export Asset Compliance.

The Export Asset Compliancewindow appears. 4. Specify the following fields for the export:

a. The Time Range.

The default is Last 24 hours.

This refers to the last complete midnight-to-midnight 24 hour period; that is, yesterday. So, any events that have occurred since the most recent midnight are not included in the CSV export. For example, if you run the CSV export at 9am, any events that have occurred in the last 9 hours are not included in the CSV export. This is to prevent the overlapping of or partial exporting when queried mid-day on a regular or irregular basis.

b. The Job Status. c. Click Download .CSV .

If applicable, the navigation window appears for you to select the location to save the CSV file. 5. If applicable, save the CSV file in the desired location and click Save.

Protection Rules Protection rules enable you to automatically determine which assets are assigned to protection policies when the assets are discovered, based on the rule definitions (rules for inclusion).

When you define a protection rule for a protection policy, note the following requirements:

A protection policy must exist prior to creating the protection rule. An asset can only belong to one protection policy. Starting with PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5, assets can be moved from one policy to another policy based on the priorities of the

protection rule. Virtual machine tags created in the vSphere Client can only be applied to a protection rule. To ensure the protection of homogeneous assets, the protection rule must specify a storage asset type. A virtual machine application-aware protection policy that protects a Microsoft SQL Server Always On availability group (AAG) must

include all the virtual machines of the AAG in the same protection group. Failure to meet this requirement might result in Microsoft SQL Server transaction log backups being skipped. Ensure that the protection rules are designed to include all the AAG virtual machines.

NOTE: With PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5 or later, ensure that Oracle protection rules do not use the DB ID and

Oracle SID Name field settings that were supported with earlier versions.

You can manually move an asset into a protection policy, overriding its automatic placement as defined by protection rules. If you do this, the asset will remain protected by that policy, but protection rules will no longer apply to it. To allow protection rules to apply to the asset again, remove the asset from the protection policy.

Managing Protection Policies 79

Creating virtual machine tags in the vSphere Client Creating virtual machine tags in the vSphere Client is supported by PowerProtect Data Manager with vSphere versions 6.5 and later. Tags enable you to attach metadata to the virtual assets in the vSphere inventory, which makes assets easier to sort and search for when creating a protection policy.

Asset inclusion in a PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy is based on the filtering criteria that you specify when creating a protection rule.

When you create a tag in the vSphere Client, the tag must be assigned to a category in order to group related tags together. When defining a category, you can specify the object types to which the tags will be applied and whether more than one tag in the category can be applied to an object. Within a single rule, you can apply up to 50 rule definitions to tags and categories, as shown in the following example where Category is the category name and Bronze is the tag name:

Category:Category1,Tag:Bronze1 Category:Category2,Tag:Bronze2 Category:Category3,Tag:Bronze3 ... Category:Category50,Tag:Bronze50

In the above example, category names and tag names that exceed 9 or 7 characters respectively reduce the limit for rule definitions in a single rule to less than 50. When rule definitions exceed the maximum limit, no virtual machines are backed up as part of the group, because no members are associated with the group. As a best practice, keep the number of rule definitions within a single rule to 10 or fewer and, in cases where there are a large number of rule definitions within a single rule, keep the number of characters in category or tag names to 10 or fewer.

To view existing tags for vCenter in the vSphere Client, select Menu > Tags & Custom Attributes, and then select the Tags tab. Click a tag link in the table to view the objects associated with this particular tag.

For PowerProtect Data Manager to include tagged assets in a protection rule based on the tags created for the vCenter, you must assign at least one tag to at least one virtual machine. Note that tags associated with containers of virtual machines (for example, a virtual machine folder) are not currently supported for tag associations to assets.

NOTE: Once virtual machines are associated with tags, the association is not reflected in the PowerProtect Data

Manager UI until the timeout period has completed. The default timeout to fetch the latest inventory from the vCenter

server is 15 minutes. When adding a protection rule and using tags as the asset filter, you must select VM Tags.

Add a Protection Rule Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to add protection rules. When an asset meets the filter conditions of the rule, the asset is automatically assigned to the protection policy that you define for the protection rule.

Prerequisites

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Rules.

The Protection Rules window appears.

2. Click the tab to select the type of host for which you would like to add the protection rule, for example, Virtual Machines, and then click Add.

The Add Protection Rule wizard opens on the Protection Policy page.

3. Select the target protection policy for the protection rule and click Next. The Asset Filter page appears.

4. Specify the following fields to indicate the purpose of the new protection rule:

a. Name. For example, SQL Rules Prod Finance b. Description. For example, SQL Rules Prod Servers Finance.

c. Field. Using the three fields, build an asset filter that matches your purpose.

From the list in the first field, select an asset name (such as Datacenter Name or namespace name), characteristic (such as asset size), or a tag (VM Tags or namespace label) to use as the rule criteria when searching for assets. The options available depend upon the host type selected in step 2.

From the list in the second field, select the matching criteria. For an asset name, you can select from several options including Begins with, Ends with, Contains, or Equals. For an asset characteristic such as size, you can select Greater than or Less than. For a virtual machine tag or namespace label, you can only select Includes or Does not include.

80 Managing Protection Policies

In the third field, type a search phrase to apply to the rule criteria to determine a match.

For example, a rule with the filters SQL Server Instance Name, Contains, and Finance helps you create a rule to match the assets in your finance department to the selected protection policy.

d. Click Apply. Any asset that matches the rule and is not currently included in a PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy displays in the Unprotected Assets matching filter table.

e. Verify that the assets that display in the Unprotected Assets matching filter table are the assets that you want to include in the protection policy. If not, clear the filter to view all unprotected assets and build your filter again.

f. When satisfied with the rule matches, click Next.

The Summary page appears. 5. Click Finish.

Results

The protection rule is run automatically upon creation.

Run a Protection Rule on demand PowerProtect Data Manager automatically runs protection rules when new assets are detected or when existing assets are modified. You can also run protection rules on demand.

Prerequisites

NOTE:

For SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, and File system asset types, the protection rule runs only upon scheduled discovery in

PowerProtect Data Manager. Ensure that you schedule discovery for these asset types.

To schedule discovery in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, complete the following steps:

1. Select Infrastructure > Asset Sources.

2. Select the App/File System Host tab.

3. Select the application host, and then click Discover.

4. From the Discovery Schedule list, select the time of day to initiate the discovery.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Rules.

The Protection Rules window appears.

2. Select the required protection rules, and then click Run.

PowerProtect Data Manager runs all the selected protection rules of the current asset type.

Edit or delete a Protection Rule Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to edit a protection rule. You can change the name, description, the rule filters, and the associated protection policy.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Rules.

The Protection Rules window appears.

2. Select a protection rule, and then click Edit. The Summary window appears.

3. To edit the name or description of the protection rule, modify the desired fields and click Finish. 4. To delete a protection rule, select the rule and click Delete.

When you click Delete, PowerProtect Data Manager will remove from protection policies any assets that were added because of this protection rule. PowerProtect Data Manager will add those assets again if you do not update related protection rules.

Managing Protection Policies 81

Change the priority of an existing Protection Rule Use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to change the priority of a protection rule.

About this task

When multiple protection rules exist, you can define the priority of each rule. Priority determines which protection rule that PowerProtect Data Manager will apply to an asset if the asset matches multiple protection rules, and if the matching rules have conflicting actions. For example, if an asset protection policy assignment matches several protection rules and each rule specifies a different protection policy assignment, the protection policy is determined by the protection rule with the highest priority.

An integer is used to represent the priority of the protection rule. The smaller value has the higher priority.

Steps

1. Select Protection > Protection Rules.

The Protection Rules window appears.

2. To change a protection rule's priority, select the rule and click Up or Down.

The smaller value has the higher priority.

Configure the behavior of Protection Rules In PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5. you can use the REST API to change the system settings for protection rules to determine the behavior that results when a rule changes.

The API documentation at https://developer.dellemc.com provides instructions. NOTE: If upgrading from a previous release of PowerProtect Data Manager, the configured behavior for protection rule

changes continues to be applied to the current release. For example, in PowerProtect Data Manager 19.4 if you did not

enable changes to protection rule behavior in the application.properties configuration file to move assets across

policies, you will not be able to change the behavior using this method in PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5. However, if

you updated this configuration file to enable movement of assets across policies when protection rules change, then

this behavior will continue to be applied to move assets across policies after the upgrade.

82 Managing Protection Policies

Restoring Data and Assets

Topics:

View backup copies available for restore Restore a virtual machine or VMDK Restore an application-aware virtual machine backup Restoring a Storage Direct VMAX storage group Restoring a Kubernetes namespace Self-service restore of Kubernetes namespaces Restore the PowerProtect Data Manager server Restore Cloud Tier backups to the DD system Troubleshooting virtual machine restore issues

View backup copies available for restore When a protection policy is successfully backed up, PowerProtect Data Manager displays details such as the name of the storage system containing the asset backup, location, the creation and expiry date, and the size. To view a backup summary:

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Assets, or go to Recovery > Assets.

Assets that have copies are listed.

2. Select a tab to view assets by type.

The entire list of assets that are associated with this type are listed. You can also search for assets by name. For virtual machines, you can also click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

NOTE: In the Recovery > Assets window, only tabs for asset types supported for recovery within PowerProtect Data

Manager display. Supported asset types include the following:

Virtual Machines

File System

Storage Group

Kubernetes

3. To view more details, select an asset and click View copies.

The copy map consists of the root node and its child nodes. The root node in the left pane represents an asset, and information about copy locations appears in the right pane. The child nodes represent storage systems.

When you click a child node, the right pane displays the following information:

Storage system where the copy is stored. The number of copies Details of each copy, including the time that each copy was created, the size of the copy, the backup type, and the retention time. For virtual machine backups, a Disk Excluded column enables you to view any virtual disks (VMDKs) that were excluded from the

backup.

Restore a virtual machine or VMDK After virtual assets are backed up as part of a virtual machine protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can perform image-level and file-level recoveries from individual or multiple virtual machine backups, and also restore individual virtual machine disks (VMDKs) to their original location.

All types of recoveries are performed from the Recovery > Assets window. Recovery options include the following:

8

Restoring Data and Assets 83

Restore and Overwrite Original VM: Restore to the original virtual machine. Restore Individual Virtual Disks: Restore select virtual disks to the original location. Create and Restore to New VM: Restore to a new virtual machine. Instant Access VM: Instant access to the virtual machine backup for browse and restore. File Level Restore: Restore individual files/folders the original or a new virtual machine Direct Restore to ESXi: Recover the virtual machine directly to an ESXi host without a vCenter server.

The Restore button, which launches the Restore wizard, is disabled until you select one or more virtual assets in the Recovery > Assets window. Selecting multiple assets disables the View Copies button, since this functionality is available within the first page of the Restore wizard.

To access the Restore and Overwrite Original VM, Create and Restore to New VM, and Instant Access VM recovery types, or the Restore Individual Virtual Disks option, select one or more virtual assets and then click Restore to launch the Restore wizard.

To access the File Level Restore and Direct Restore to ESXi recovery options, select a virtual asset and then click View Copies.

In both instances, you must select a backup copy in the first page of the Restore wizard before you can go to the Options page, which displays the available recovery options.

NOTE: For all options, recovery in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI can only be performed if the backup or replica is

on a DD system. If a replica backup does not exist on such storage, you must manually replicate this backup to DD

storage before performing the restore.

The following sections describe each recovery option and provide instructions to perform the recovery.

NOTE: SQL virtual machine full database and transaction log restore from application-aware virtual machine protection

policies must be performed using Microsoft application agent tools. The section Restore an application-aware virtual

machine backup provides more information.

Prerequisites to restore a virtual machine Review the following requirements before you restore a virtual machine in PowerProtect Data Manager:

Users who want to perform a virtual machine restore must have Admin or Export and Recovery Admin privileges. Go to Administration > Roles and review the user profile to ensure that the user has the appropriate privileges. A user with the role "User" cannot perform a restore.

Ensure that you have added the DD system, the DD Management Center (DDMC) or DD Virtual Edition (DDVE), and the vCenter server, and that the protection of virtual machine copies has completed successfully.

To check, go to Infrastructure > Assets and Infrastructure > Asset Sources. Ensure that protection of the virtual machines completed successfully. If the virtual machines have been backed up by a protection

policy, the assets appear in the Recovery > Assets window. If performing a restore to a new location, ensure that sufficient space is available on the target datastore. Verify that the virtual machine copy that is selected for restore has not expired.

Restore and Overwrite original virtual machine Recovers a virtual machine backup to its original location on the vCenter. This operation rolls the virtual machines that you backed up with the protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager to an earlier point in time. Use this process for restoring the production system.

Prerequisites

Review Prerequisites to virtual machine restore before performing the restore.

About this task

NOTE: If the original virtual machine was deleted, a Restore and Overwrite Original VM recovery attempts to re-create

the virtual machine. However, if the original virtual machine resources such as the datastore and cluster are no longer

available, the restore fails and a Restore to New is required.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Recovery > Assets and select the Virtual Machines tab.

The Recovery window displays all virtual machines available for recovery.

84 Restoring Data and Assets

2. Select the checkbox next to the appropriate virtual machines and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the asset name of the specific virtual machine or use the File Search button to search on specific criteria for files within backed-up virtual machines.

The Recovery wizard appears. 3. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and

click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 5. Click OK to save the selection and exit the dialog, and then click Next. 6. On the Purpose page, select Restore Entire VMs to restore the image-level virtual machine backup to the original location, and then

click Next.

NOTE: If you specified any disk exclusions in the virtual machine protection policy, a message appears indicating

that disks were excluded from this backup. If one of the excluded disks was a boot disk, the restore might not

complete successfully.

The Restore Type page displays. 7. On the Restore Type page:

a. Select Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original Files.

NOTE: If the system determines that the original virtual machine datastore(s) may be insufficient to complete

the restore a warning is displayed. In this case, create more space in the original datastore(s), and then, select

Proceed Anyways.

b. Select the Restore VM Tags checkbox to restore vCenter tags and categories associated with this backup copy. Tags are backed up by default as part of the virtual machine protection policy backup.

NOTE: You can only select this option when restoring entire virtual machines. Any existing tags and categories on

the assets in the restore location will be replaced with the tags and categories from the assets in the restored

copy. If the tags and categories being restored do not exist in the vCenter Server at the time of the restore, or

have been deleted, they will be re-created as part of the restore, along with the tag description and the

cardinality settings that determine the relationship of tags within a category. If tags and categories on the

vCenter have been renamed since the last backup, the renamed tags and categories will not be overwritten upon

restore. For example, if a tag's ID is the same but the tag's name has been changed since the backup, a new tag is

created based on the tag name in the backup copy being restored.

Upon successful restore, the replaced tags and categories will not be deleted in the vSphere Client, and can be

viewed in the Tags & Custom Attributes window, or the Tags pane of the Summary window when the virtual

machine is selected.

c. Click Next.

If the current virtual machine disk configuration is identical to the copy being restored, the Summary page appears. If there is a mismatch, however, the Options page appears. This page displays the current configuration of the virtual machine along with any disks that have been added since the last backup.

8. On the Options page, for any hard disks in the current virtual machine configuration that were not part of the original backup:

Select Delete disks that will be detached to remove these disks upon restore. Clear Delete disks that will be detached to keep these disks in their original folders on the virtual machine after the restore.

These disks will not be in the virtual machine configuration, but after the restore you can then use the vSphere Client to manually reattach or download these disks as appropriate.

9. Click Next. The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that the virtual machine will be powered off and that the virtual machine in the datastore will revert to the point in time of the selected backup copy before being powered back on.

10. On the Summary page, click Restore. An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.

11. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Restoring Data and Assets 85

Restore individual virtual disks A virtual disk (VMDK) restore recovers individual VMDKs to their original location on the vCenter, rolling the VMDKs that you backed up with the protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager to an earlier point in time.

Prerequisites

Review Prerequisites to virtual machine restore before you perform the following procedure.

About this task

NOTE: When you restore individual VMDKs, only the selected disks are restored. The virtual machine configuration does

not change.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Recovery > Assets and select the Virtual Machines tab.

The Recovery window displays all virtual machines available for recovery.

2. Select the checkbox next to the appropriate virtual machines and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the name of the specific virtual machine or click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery wizard appears. 3. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and

click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 5. Click OK to save the selection and exit the dialog, and then click Next. 6. On the Purpose page, select Restore Individual Virtual Disks to restore specific VMDKs, and then click Next.

The Select Disks page displays. 7. From the Backup Properties pane, select the VMDKs that you want to restore, and then click Next. Note that individual VMDKs can

only be restored to the original location. The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that the selected disk(s) will be overwritten in the current configuration with the copy from the backup.

8. On the Summary page, click Restore. An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.

9. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Restore to new virtual machine A Create and Restore to New VM enables you to create a new virtual machine using a copy of the original virtual machine backup. Other than having a new name or location and a new vSphere VM Instance UUID, this copy is an exact replica of the virtual machine that you backed up with the protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager.

Prerequisites

Review Prerequisites to virtual machine restore before you perform this procedure.

Steps

1. Select the checkbox next to the appropriate virtual machines and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the name of the specific virtual machine or click the File Search button to run file level restore workflows on specific files within VMs.

The Recovery wizard appears. 2. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and

click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

86 Restoring Data and Assets

3. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 4. Click OK to save the selection and exit the dialog, and then click Next. 5. On the Purpose page:

Select Restore Entire VMs if you want to restore an image-level virtual machine backup. NOTE: If you specified any disk exclusions in the virtual machine protection policy, a message appears indicating

that disks were excluded from this backup. If one of the excluded disks was a boot disk, the restore might not

complete successfully.

Select Restore Individual Virtual Disks if you want to restore only specific VMDKs.

NOTE: Individual disks can only be restored to the original location.

6. Click Next. 7. On the Restore Type page:

a. Select Create and Restore to New VM. b. Select the Restore VM Tags checkbox to restore vCenter tags and categories associated with this backup copy. Tags are

backed up by default as part of the virtual machine protection policy backup.

NOTE: You can only select this option when restoring entire virtual machines. Any existing tags and categories on

the assets in the restore location will be replaced with the tags and categories from the assets in the restored

copy. If the tags and categories being restored do not exist in the vCenter Server at the time of the restore, or

have been deleted, they will be re-created as part of the restore, along with the tag description and the

cardinality settings that determine the relationship of tags within a category. If tags and categories on the

vCenter have been renamed since the last backup, the renamed tags and categories will not be overwritten upon

restore. For example, if a tag's ID is the same but the tag's name has been changed since the backup, a new tag is

created based on the tag name in the backup copy being restored.

Upon successful restore, the replaced tags and categories can be viewed in the vSphere Client Tags & Custom

Attributes window, or the Tags pane of the Summary window when the virtual machine is selected.

c. Click Next. 8. On the VM Information page:

a. From the Restore to vCenter list, select the vCenter server for the new virtual machine restore. This list displays any vCenter server that has been added from the Assets window.

When you select a vCenter server, available data centers appear.

b. Select the destination data center. c. Click Next.

9. On the Restore Location page:

a. Select the location within this data center that you want to restore the virtual machine by expanding the hierarchical view. For example, select a specific cluster, and then select a host within the cluster.

b. If you select an ESXi host within this page, the next page is unnecessary. c. Click Next.

10. On the ESX Host page:

If you did not select a specific host in the previous step, select a host that is connected with the cluster, and then click Next. If you selected a host in the previous step, this page indicates that a host is already selected and you can click Next to proceed.

11. On the Datastore page, select the datastore where you want to restore the virtual machine disks.

NOTE:

The Total Estimated Space Needed for Recovery is displayed and updated according to the specified disk

provisioning type.

In the datastore list:

The free space in each datastore is displayed.

If a datastore is estimated to be smaller than required for recovery, it is displayed in red alongside an error icon.

Select Browse... to display the total capacity, provisioned capacity, and free capacity of all available datastore(s),

and select a datastore.

a. If you are restoring multiple virtual machines, select the Datastore and Provisioning Type to use for all virtual machines. b. If you are restoring one virtual machine:

Restoring Data and Assets 87

To restore all disks to the same location, keep Configure Per Disk disabled, and select the datastore from the datastore list in the Storage column.

To restore disks to different locations, enable Configure Per Disk, and for each disk, select a datastore from the datastore list in the Storage column. Select how to provision the disk from the provisioning types in the Disk Format column.

NOTE: If you select a datastore whose estimated free space is smaller than required for recovery, a warning is

displayed. In this case, you can select Proceed Anyways to continue, but it is recommended to create more space

in the specified datastore(s) before doing so.

c. Click Next.

12. On the Options page:

a. For Select Access Level, keep the slider set to Yes if you want to enable instant access for this restore.

When you select this option, the virtual machine is created and turned on while temporarily accessing the VMDKs from DD storage. Storage vMotion is initiated to the target datastore. The virtual machine becomes available for use when it is turned on.

b. (Optional) For the recovery options, select Power on the virtual machine when the recovery completes and Reconnect the virtual machine's NIC when the recovery completes. Power on the virtual machine when the recovery completes is selected by default when instant access is enabled.

c. Click Next. 13. On the Summary page, verify that the information you specified in the previous steps is correct, and then click Restore. 14. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore.

A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time. You can also click next to the job to verify what steps have been performed, for example, when the instant access session has been created.

Instant access virtual machine restore An Instant Access VM restore enables you to create a new virtual machine directly from the original virtual machine backup on the DD system for the purposes of instant backup validation and recovery of individual files. The instant access virtual machine is initially available for 7 days. This process does not copy or move any data from the DD system to the production datastore. An instant access virtual machine restore also provides the option to move the virtual machine to a production datastore when you want to retain access to the virtual machine for a longer time.

Steps

1. Select the check box next to the appropriate virtual machines and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the name of the specific virtual machine, or click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery wizard appears. 2. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and

click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog box appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

3. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 4. Click OK to save the selection and exit the dialog, and then click Next. 5. On the Purpose page:

Select Restore Entire VMs if you want to restore an image-level virtual machine backup. NOTE: If you specified any disk exclusions in the virtual machine protection policy, a message appears indicating

that disks were excluded from this backup. If one of the excluded disks was a boot disk, the restore might not

complete successfully.

Select Restore Individual Virtual Disks if you want to restore only specific VMDKs.

NOTE: Individual disks can only be restored to the original location.

6. On the Restore Type page:

a. Select Instant Access VM. b. Select the Restore VM Tags checkbox to restore vCenter tags and categories associated with this backup copy.

NOTE: You can only select this option when restoring entire virtual machines. Any existing tags and categories on

the assets in the restore location will be replaced with the tags and categories from the restored copy. If the tags

and categories being restored do not exist in vCenter at the time of the restore, or have been deleted, they will be

re-created as part of the restore, along with the tag description and the cardinality settings that determine the

88 Restoring Data and Assets

relationship of tags within a category. If tags and categories on the vCenter have been renamed since the last

backup, the renamed tags and categories will not be overwritten upon restore. For example, if a tag's ID is the

same but the tag's name has been changed since the backup, a new tag is created based on the tag name in the

backup copy being restored.

Upon successful restore, the replaced tags and categories can be viewed in the vSphere Client Tags & Custom

Attributes window, or the Tags pane of the Summary window when the virtual machine is selected.

c. Click Next. 7. On the VM Information page:

a. Select whether you want to use the original virtual machine name for the instant access virtual machine restore, or rename the instant access virtual machine by appending a suffix to the original name.

b. From the Restore to vCenter list, select the vCenter server for the instant access virtual machine restore. You can select the vCenter of the original virtual machine backup, or another vCenter. This list displays any vCenter server that has been added from the Assets window.

When you select a vCenter server, available data centers appear.

c. Select the destination data center. d. Click Next.

8. On the Restore Location page, select the location within this data center that you want to restore the virtual machine by expanding the hierarchical view. For example, select a specific cluster, and then select a host within the cluster. If you select an ESXi host within this page, the next page is unnecessary. Click Next.

9. On the ESX Host page:

If you did not select a specific host in the previous step, select a host that is connected with the cluster, and then click Next. If you selected a host in the previous step, this page indicates that a host is already selected and you can click Next to proceed.

10. On the Options page:

a. Specify a name for the Instant Access virtual machine. b. Optionally, select Power on the virtual machine when the recovery completes and Reconnect the virtual machine's NIC

when the recovery completes. Power on the virtual machine when the recovery completes is selected by default for instant access virtual machine restores.

c. Click Next. 11. On the Summary page, verify that the information you specified in the previous steps is correct, and then click Restore.

A confirmation message displays indicating that the restore has been initiated and providing the option to go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore progress.

12. Go to the Jobs window to view the entry for the instant access virtual machine recovery and verify when the recovery completes

successfully. You can also click next to the job to verify what steps have been performed, for example, when the instant access session has been created.

Results

To monitor and manage the instant access virtual machine recovery, select Recovery > Running Activities, and then click the Instant Access Sessions tab. From this window, you can also extend the instant access virtual machine session beyond the default period of 7 days.

NOTE: On a single-node system such as a DD system, instant access/restore functionality has been enhanced to return

a failure message when overwhelmed with traffic. For example, if on the target node or the ESXi host there are Live VM

and/or Instant Restore sessions that are in conflict, instant access/restore jobs will fail with a message indicating a

resource contention issue. If this occurs, you need to clear the conflicts and then restart the session in order for the job

to execute.

Manage and monitor Instant Access Sessions The Instant Access Sessions tab in the Recovery > Running Sessionswindow enables you to manage the status of a virtual machine restore to new or instant access virtual machine restore (for example, by extending the availability period or deleting an instant access virtual machine) and monitor vMotion events.

NOTE: The Instant Access Sessions that are used by a SQL application-aware self-service restore are displayed in the

PowerProtect Data Manager UI, but management is disabled. Use the SQL application-aware self-service restore UI to

manage these sessions.

When the Jobs window indicates that a recovery has completed successfully, go to Recovery > Running Sessions > Instant Access Sessions to access information about the sessions. This window enables you to monitor and manage all exported copies that you have

Restoring Data and Assets 89

created from the DD system. An active restore session with a state of Mounting indicates that the restore is still in progress. Once the state changes to Mounted, the restore is complete and the instant access virtual machine is ready. When you select the session in the table, you can choose from three options:

Extend Click to extend the number of days the instant access virtual machine restore is available. The default retention period of an instant access virtual machine restore is 7 days.

Migrate Click to open the Migrate Storage vMotion wizard, which enables you to move the instant access virtual machine to a protection datastore. Migrate an instant access session provides instructions.

Delete Click if you no longer require the active restore session. Note that you can also vMotion from inside the vCenter server, and PowerProtect Data Manager removes the Instant Access Session upon detection.

For instant access virtual machine restores, availability of the instant access virtual machine session is also indicated in the vSphere Client. The session appears in the Recent Tasks pane, and you can expand the cluster and select the instant access virtual machine to view summary information, as shown in the following figure.

Figure 3. instant access virtual machine restore in the vSphere Client

Migrate an Instant Access session Once you validate that the instant access virtual machine is the virtual machine that you require for production, click Migrate to open the Migrate Storage vMotion wizard, which enables you select the session and move the virtual machine to a production datastore.

Steps

1. Go to Recovery > Running Sessions, and click the Instant Access Sessions tab. 2. Select a session from the table that is in Mounted state, and click Migrate.

The Migrate Storage vMotion wizard displays. 3. On the Disk Files Datastore page, select the datastore where you want to relocate the instant access virtual machine, and then click

Next.

To migrate all VMDKs to the same datastore, keep the Configure per disk slider to the left, and then select the datastore from the Storage list.

To migrate VMDKs to separate datastores, move the Configure per disk slider to the right, and then:

a. Select a datastore for each disk from the Storage list. b. Select the type of provisioning you want to apply to the disk from the Disk Format list.

4. On the Summary page, review the information to ensure that the details are correct, and then click Migrate. 5. Go to the Jobs window or the Instant Access Sessions window to view the progress of the migration.

In the Jobs window, the migration job appears with a progress bar and start time. You can also click next to the job to verify what steps have been performed. In the Instant Access Sessions window, you can monitor the vMotion status of the migration. When a vMotion is in progress, the status indicates VMotioning. Once the storage vMotion for the session is complete, the status of the session changes to Deleting as the session is being removed from the Instant Access Sessions window.

90 Restoring Data and Assets

File level restore to original virtual machine A file level restore to original virtual machine enables you to recover individual files from backups of virtual machines or VMDKs performed in PowerProtect Data Manager to the same or a new location on the original vCenter Server.

Prerequisites

Review the section Supported platform versions for file-level restore for supported platform and operating system versions. Review the section File-level restore and SQL restore limitations on page 105. Ensure that the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine by logging into the virtual machine and verifying that the agent

package is installed and the agent process is running. If the FLR Agent is not installed, the installation is initiated automatically when you start the mount.

When installing the FLR Agent on Windows virtual machines, the user must be an administrator account. When installing the FLR Agent on Linux virtual machines, the user must be the root user account. The section FLR Agent for virtual machine file-level restore on page 103 provides more information.

NOTE: For file-level restores, you can only restore files:

From a Windows backup to a Windows machine, or from a Linux backup to a Linux machine.

To virtual machines within the same vCenter.

About this task

NOTE: File level restore in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI can only be performed by an administrator.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the Virtual Machines tab.

The Recovery window displays all the virtual machines available for recovery.

2. Select the checkbox next to the virtual machine that you want to recover from, and then click View Copies.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for a specific virtual machine name, or click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery > Assets window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When a virtual machine is selected in the map view, the virtual machine name displays in the right pane with the copy locations underneath. When you select a location in the left pane, for example, a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the virtual machine backup you want to restore, and then click File Level Restore.

The File Level Recover wizard appears. 5. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Original Virtual Machine, and then click Next. 6. On the Mount Copy page:

a. To initiate the disk mount, type the guest operating system user credentials:

If there are administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify end- user credentials.

If there are no administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify administrator credentials. These credentials will be handled as end-user credentials.

b. (Optional) Leave Keep FLR Agent Installed selected when you want the FLR Agent to remain on the destination virtual machine after the restore completes.

c. Click Start Mount to initiate the disk mount. If not already installed, the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine. A progress bar indicates when the mount completes.

NOTE: You cannot browse the contents of the virtual machine backup until the mounting of the destination

virtual machine completes successfully.

d. Upon successful mount, click Next. 7. On the Select Files to Recover page:

a. Expand individual folders to browse the original virtual machine backup, and select the objects that you want to restore to the destination virtual machine.

b. Click Next.

Restoring Data and Assets 91

NOTE: When you browse for objects to recover on this page, each directory or hard drive appears twice. As a result,

when you select an object from one location, the object is selected in the duplicate location as well.

8. On the Options page, select from one of the following options, and then click Next.

Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original FilesSelect this option to restore all selected files to their original location on the original virtual machine.

Restore to an Alternate FolderSelect this option if you want to restore to a new folder in a new location on the original virtual machine.

9. On the Summary page:

a. Review the information to ensure that the restore details are correct. You can click Edit next to any row to change the information.

b. Click Restore. 10. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore.

A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

File level restore to alternate virtual machine A file level restore to alternate virtual machine enables you to recover individual files from backups of virtual machines or VMDKs performed in PowerProtect Data Manager to a new location on a new virtual machine. This restore can be performed to a primary or secondary vCenter Server.

Prerequisites

Review the section Supported platform versions for file-level restore for supported platform and operating system versions. Review the section File-level restore and SQL restore limitations on page 105. Ensure that the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine by logging into the virtual machine and verifying that the agent

package is installed and the agent process is running. If the FLR Agent is not installed, the installation is initiated automatically when you start the mount.

When installing the FLR Agent on Windows virtual machines, the user must be an administrator account. When installing the FLR Agent on Linux virtual machines, the user must be the root user account. The section FLR Agent for virtual machine file-level restore on page 103 provides more information.

NOTE: For file-level restores, you can only restore files:

From a Windows backup to a Windows machine, or from a Linux backup to a Linux machine.

To virtual machines within the same vCenter.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the Virtual Machines tab.

The Recovery window displays all the virtual machines available for recovery.

2. Select the checkbox next to the virtual machine that you want to recover from, and then click View Copies.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for a specific virtual machine name, or click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery > Assets window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When a virtual machine is selected in the map view, the virtual machine name displays in the right pane with the copy locations underneath. When you select a location in the left pane, for example, a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the virtual machine backup you want to restore, and then click File Level Restore.

The File Level Recover wizard appears. 5. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Alternate Virtual Machine, and then click Next. 6. On the Select Target VM page, choose from one of the following options:

Search for a target virtual machine by typing the name. Browse from the available vCenter Servers to locate the destination virtual machine.

7. On the Mount Copy page:

a. To initiate the disk mount, type the guest operating system user credentials:

If there are administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify end- user credentials.

92 Restoring Data and Assets

If there are no administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify administrator credentials. These credentials will be handled as end-user credentials.

b. (Optional) Leave Keep FLR Agent Installed selected when you want the FLR Agent to remain on the destination virtual machine after the restore completes.

c. Click Start Mount to initiate the disk mount. If not already installed, the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine. A progress bar indicates when the mount completes.

NOTE: You cannot browse the contents of the virtual machine backup until the mounting of the destination

virtual machine completes successfully.

d. Upon successful mount, click Next. 8. On the Select Files to Recover page:

a. Expand individual folders to browse the original virtual machine backup, and select the objects that you want to restore to the destination virtual machine.

b. Click Next.

NOTE: When you browse for objects to recover on this page, each directory or hard drive appears twice. As a result,

when you select an object from one location, the object is selected in the duplicate location as well.

9. On the Restore Location page:

a. Browse the folder structure of the destination virtual machine to select the folder where you want to restore the objects. b. Click Next.

10. On the Summary page:

a. Review the information to ensure that the restore details are correct. You can click Edit next to any row to change the information. If you are not restoring to the original virtual machine, an additional field appears for the Target VM.

b. Click Restore. 11. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore.

A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Direct restore to ESXi If the virtual machine you protected with PowerProtect Data Manager was a vCenter virtual machine, but this virtual machine and vCenter is now lost or no longer available, direct restore to ESXi enables you to recover the virtual machine directly to an ESXi host without a vCenter server.

Prerequisites

Direct Restore to ESXi restore requires either the embedded or an added VM Direct appliance that is registered to PowerProtect Data Manager.

Additionally, ensure that you disconnect the ESXi host from the vCenter server.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the Virtual Machines tab.

The Recovery window displays all of the virtual machines available for recovery.

2. Select the checkbox next to the desired virtual machine and click View Copies.

NOTE: If you cannot locate the virtual machine, you can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the

name of the specific virtual machine or click the File Search button to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery > Asset window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When a virtual machine is selected in the map view, the virtual machine name displays in the right pane with the copy locations underneath. When you select a specific location in the left pane to view the copies, for example, on a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table. 4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the virtual machine backup you want to restore, and then click Direct Restore to

ESXi. The Direct Restore to ESXi wizard appears.

5. On the Options page:

Restoring Data and Assets 93

a. (Optional) Select Reconnect the virtual machine's NIC when the recovery completes, if desired. Power on the virtual machine when the recovery completes is selected by default.

b. Click Next. 6. On the ESX Host Credentials page:

a. In the ESX Host field, type the IP of the ESXi server where you want to restore the virtual machine backup. b. Specify the root Username and Password for the ESXi Server. c. Click Next.

7. On the Datastore page, select the datastore where you want to restore the virtual machine disks, and then click Next.

To restore all of the disks to the same location, keep the Configure per disk slider to the left, and then select the datastore from the Storage list.

To restore disks to different locations, move the Configure per disk slider to the right, and then:

a. For each available disk that you want to recover, select a datastore from the Storage list. b. Select the type of provisioning you want to apply to the disk from the Disk Format list.

8. On the Summary page:

a. Review the information to ensure that the details are correct. b. Click Restore.

9. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Restore an application-aware virtual machine backup When virtual machine applications are protected within a protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager, you can recover the application data using the Microsoft application agent.

The PowerProtect Microsoft Application Agent SQL Server User Guide provides instructions on how to restore an application-aware virtual machine using the VM Direct SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) plug-in.

Restoring a Storage Direct VMAX storage group After VMAX storage group assets are backed up as part of a Storage Direct agent protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can perform recoveries from one or all of the storage groups in the backup.

All types of restores are performed from the Recovery > Assets window. Restore options include the following:

Restore to Original: Restore to the original storage group in the original VMAX and overwrite the existing contents. Restore to Alternate: Restore to an alternate location on the original VMAX, or to a different VMAX. Export: Instant access restore of a VMAX storage group backup.

The Restore button, which launches the Restore wizard, does not appear until you select a storage group in the Recovery > Assets window and click View Copies.

Restore a VMAX storage group backup to the original location A Storage Direct host restore to the original location enables you to rollback data from primary or replicated storage group snapshot backups to the same location on the original host by using the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Prerequisites

Unmount all of the production LUNs in the original storage group.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the VMAX Storage Groups tab.

The Recovery window displays all of the storage groups.

2. Select the checkbox next to the storage group that contains the backup, and click View Copies.

94 Restoring Data and Assets

You can also use the Search field, the filter in the Name column to locate a specific storage group.

The Recovery > Assets window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When you select a specific location in the left pane to view the copies, for example, on a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. In the left pane, click the first DD icon to display the copies on the primary DD system, or the second DD to display the replica copies on the secondary DD system.

4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the storage group snapshot backup or replica that you want to restore, and then click Restore. The Recovery wizard opens on the Select Copy page.

5. On the Select Copy page, select Restore all the copies linked with Backup Operation if you want to restore all Storage Groups that are part of this backup, and then click Next.

NOTE: If you leave the check box unselected, the backup of only the storage group that you selected in the Recovery

> Assets window will be restored.

6. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Original and Overwrite Original Storage Group, and then click Next.

NOTE: The files at the original location will be overwritten. If you saved any additional files to this location after the

backup, these files will be lost upon rollback.

7. On the Summary page, click Finish to start the restore. Once the restore completes successfully, you can mount LUNs in the destination storage group to any host.

8. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Restore a VMAX storage group backup to an alternate location A Storage Direct host restore to an alternate location enables you to recover data from primary or replicated storage group snapshot backups to a different location on the original host, or to a different host, by using the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Prerequisites

Unmount all of the LUNs in the destination storage group.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the VMAX Storage Groups tab.

The Recovery window displays all of the storage groups.

2. Select the checkbox next to the storage group that contains the backup, and click View Copies.

You can also use the Search field, the filter in the Name column to locate a specific storage group.

The Recovery > Assets window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When you select a specific location in the left pane to view the copies, for example, on a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. In the left pane, click the first DD icon to display the copies on the primary DD system, or the second DD to display the replica copies on the secondary DD system.

4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the storage group snapshot backup or replica that you want to restore, and then click Restore. The Recovery wizard opens on the Select Copy page.

5. On the Select Copy page, select Restore all the copies linked with Backup Operation if you want to restore all Storage Groups that are part of this backup, and then click Next.

NOTE: If you leave the check box unselected, the backup of only the storage group that you selected in the Recovery

> Assets window will be restored.

6. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Alternate Storage Group, and then click Next. 7. On the Select Storage System page, select an option for the storage system to which the data from the source storage group will

be restored, and then click Next:

Select Original Storage System if you want to restore data to a different storage group on the original VMAX. Select Alternate Storage System if you want to restore data to a storage group on a different VMAX, and then select the

destination storage system from the table.

Restoring Data and Assets 95

8. On the Restore Location page, select the source storage group, select the target storage group, and then click Add in order to create the mapping. The target storage group indicates the destination storage group for the restore, and will either be the original storage system, or a different storage system, depending on the option you selected in the previous step. The Mapping Results pane updates with the selected storage groups.

NOTE: The target storage group should have the same size LUN and geometry as the source storage group.

9. If restoring to an alternate storage system, the Options page displays. On this page, select a staging storage group to use for temporarily mounting static images during the restore, and then click Next.

NOTE: Ensure that this storage group has sufficient space for mounting these images.

10. On the Summary page, click Finish. Once the restore completes successfully, you can mount LUNs in the destination storage group to any host.

11. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Instant Access Restore of a VMAX storage group backup A Storage Direct host instant access restore enables you to mount the primary or replicated storage group snapshot backup, which is on a DD system, to the FTS devices which are the resource storage groups, in order to mask to the host to view and recover from the backup. This restore type, also known as Export, is primarily useful for granular level restore. You can access the Instant Access restore option in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Prerequisites

For a virtual environment, ensure that you add and discover the vCenter server in the PowerProtect Data Manager server. When you select Export, you must specify on which host (virtual or physical) you want to mask the backup. Therefore, the WWPN

for this host must be discovered. Otherwise, the host will not appear for selection. Ensure that you unmount all of the LUNs in the destination storage group.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Recovery > Assets and select the VMAX Storage Groups tab.

The Recovery window displays all of the storage groups.

2. Select the checkbox next to the storage group that contains the backup, and click View Copies.

You can also use the Search field, the filter in the Name column to locate a specific storage group.

The Recovery > Assets window provides a map view in the left pane and copy details in the right pane.

When you select a specific location in the left pane to view the copies, for example, on a DD system, the copies on that system display in the right pane.

3. In the left pane, click the first DD icon to display the copies on the primary DD system, or the second DD to display the replica copies on the secondary DD system.

4. In the right pane, select the checkbox next to the storage group snapshot backup or replica that you want to restore, and then click Restore. The Recovery wizard opens on the Select Copy page.

5. On the Select Copy page, select Restore all the copies linked with Backup Operation if you want to restore all Storage Groups that are part of this backup, and then click Next.

NOTE: If you leave the check box unselected, the backup of only the storage group that you selected in the Recovery

> Assets window will be restored.

6. On the Restore Type page, select Export, and then click Next. 7. On the Export Host page, select the physical or virtual host that you want to mask the backup to, and then click Next. 8. On the Summary page, click Finish. 9. Go to the Jobs window to view the entry for the instant access storage group restore and verify when the mount completes

successfully. An instant access job will indicate Instant access for backup ID storage group ID. You can also click next to the job to verify what steps have been performed, for example, when the instant access session has been created.

Results

To monitor and manage the instant access storage group restores, select Recovery > Running Activities, and then click the Instant Access Sessions tab. When finished with the session, select the session and click Delete in order to unmount the backup from the host.

NOTE: You cannot extend or migrate an instant access storage group session. Also, there is no default retention period.

The session remains mounted until deleted.

96 Restoring Data and Assets

Restoring a Kubernetes namespace After namespace contents are backed up as part of a Kubernetes cluster protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can perform restores from individual namespace backups.

All types of restore are performed from the Recovery > Assets window. Recovery options include the following:

Restore to Original: Restore to the original namespace on the original cluster. Restore to New: Create a namespace, and restore to this location on the original cluster or a different cluster. Restore to Existing: Restore to an existing namespace in the original cluster or a different cluster.

The Restore button, which launches the Restore wizard, is disabled until you select a namespace in the Recovery > Assets window.

Select a namespace and then click Restore to launch the Restore wizard. Alternatively, you can select a namespace and then click View Copies.

In both instances, you must select a backup in the first page of the Restore wizard before proceeding to the Purpose page, which displays the available recovery options.

NOTE: Manually replicating backups to DD storage will not create PCS records in PowerProtect Data Manager. It is

recommended to perform these backups on the local tier, as a cloud tier backup will require a recall operation.

Restore to the original namespace Perform the following to restore to the original namespace within a Kubernetes cluster:

About this task

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Recovery > Assets and select the Kubernetes tab.

The Recovery window displays all protected and unprotected namespaces.

2. Select the checkbox next to a protected namespace and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for a specific namespace, or use the Search field to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery wizard appears. 3. On the Select Copy page, select the radio button next to a backup copy and click Next.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. On the Cluster page, select Restore to Original Cluster, and then click Next. 5. On the Purpose page, select from one of the following options:

Restore Namespace and Select PVCs to restore namespace resources and selected persistent volume claims (PVCs). Restore Only PVCs to restore PVCs without namespace resources.

6. Click Next. The Restore Type page displays.

7. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Original Namespace, and then click Next. The PVCs page appears, displaying the PVCs in the namespace that you plan to restore, along with the PVC configuration in the original target namespace.

8. On the PVCs page, if the configuration of the namespace you want to restore is different from the configuration in the target namespace:

Select Overwrite content of existing PVCs to restore selected PVCs and overwrite existing PVCs in the target location if they have the same name.

Select Skip restore of existing PVCs to restore selected PVCs without overwriting existing PVCs in the target location if they have the same name.

9. Click Next. The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that namespace resources, including pods, services, secrets, and deployments, will not be overwritten during the restore, and that all resources that do not currently exist in the namespace will be restored.

10. On the Summary page, click Restore. An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.

11. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore.

Restoring Data and Assets 97

A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Restore to a new namespace Perform the following to restore to a new namespace within a Kubernetes cluster:

About this task

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Recovery > Assets and select the Kubernetes tab.

The Recovery window displays all protected and unprotected namespaces.

2. Select the checkbox next to a protected namespace and click Restore.

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for a specific namespace, or use the Search field to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery wizard appears. 3. On the Select Copy page, select the radio button next to a backup copy and click Next.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. On the Cluster page, select one of the following options, and then click Next:

Restore to Original ClusterSelect this option to restore to a new namespace on the original cluster. Restore to an Alternate ClusterSelect this option to restore to a new namespace on a different cluster, and then select the

cluster from the list. A restore to an alternate cluster can be useful when migrating namespaces from a cluster on-premises to a cluster in the cloud, when moving namespaces from a lower cluster version to a higher cluster version, or when moving from one environment to another (for example, from a test environment to a production environment).

NOTE: When restoring to an alternate cluster, ensure that this Kubernetes cluster has been added and

discovered in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI Asset Sources window.

5. On the Purpose page, select Restore Namespace and Select PVCs to restore namespace resources and selected persistent volume claims (PVCs), and then click Next. The Restore Type page displays.

6. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to New Namespace, and then type a name for the new namespace. Click Next. The PVCs page appears, displaying the PVCs in the namespace that you plan to restore.

7. On the PVCs page, clear the checkbox any PVCs that you do not want to restore, and then click Next. The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that namespace resources, including pods, services, secrets, and deployments, will not be overwritten during the restore, and that all resources that do not currently exist in the namespace will be restored.

8. On the Summary page, click Restore. An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.

9. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Next steps

To view the new namespace as an asset within the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, initiate a full discovery of the Kubernetes cluster from the Asset Sources window.

Restore to an existing namespace Perform the following to restore to an existing namespace within a Kubernetes cluster:

About this task

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Recovery > Assets and select the Kubernetes tab.

The Recovery window displays all protected and unprotected namespaces.

2. Select the checkbox next to a protected namespace and click Restore.

98 Restoring Data and Assets

You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for a specific namespace, or use the Search field to search on specific criteria.

The Recovery wizard appears. 3. On the Select Copy page, select the radio button next to a backup copy and click Next.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. On the Cluster page, select one of the following options, and then click Next:

Restore to Original ClusterSelect this option to restore to an existing namespace on the original cluster. Restore to an Alternate ClusterSelect this option to restore to an existing namespace on a different cluster, and then select

the cluster from the list. A restore to an alternate cluster can be useful when migrating namespaces from a cluster on-premises to a cluster in the cloud, when moving namespaces from a lower cluster version to a higher cluster version, or when moving from one environment to another (for example, from a test environment to a production environment).

NOTE: When restoring to an alternate cluster, ensure that this Kubernetes cluster has been added and

discovered in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI Asset Sources window.

5. On the Purpose page, select from one of the following options:

Restore Namespace and Select PVCs to restore namespace resources and selected persistent volume claims (PVCs). Restore Only PVCs to restore PVCs without namespace resources.

6. Click Next. The Restore Type page displays.

7. On the Restore Type page, select Restore to Existing Namespace, and then select a namespace from the Select Namespace list. Click Next. The PVCs page appears, displaying the PVCS in the namespace that you plan to restore, along with the PVC configuration in the original target namespace.

8. On the PVCs page, if the configuration of the namespace you want to restore is different from the configuration in the target namespace:

Select Overwrite content of existing PVCs to restore selected PVCs and overwrite existing PVCs in the target location if they have the same name.

Select Skip restore of existing PVCs to restore selected PVCs without overwriting existing PVCs in the target location if they have the same name.

9. Click Next. The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that namespace resources, including pods, services, secrets, and deployments, will not be overwritten during the restore, and that all resources that do not currently exist in the namespace will be restored.

10. On the Summary page, click Restore. An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.

11. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore. A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.

Self-service restore of Kubernetes namespaces PowerProtect Data Manager supports the self-service restore of namespaces from within the Kubernetes cluster. The following procedure describes how to perform a self-service restore:

Prerequisites

NOTE: A Kubernetes administrator can list all PowerProtect Data Manager backups that have taken place on the cluster

in the last 30 days. After 30 days, you can only perform the restore from the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Steps

1. Run the following command to list PowerProtect Data Manager backups performed within the last 30 days on the cluster:

kubectl get backupjob -n powerprotect The command output lists all available backupJob custom resources of PowerProtect Data Manager, in the form name> . For example:

admin@method:~> ~/k8s/kubectl get backupjob -n powerprotect NAME AGE testapp1-2019-11-16-14-15-47 3d9h testapp1-2019-11-16-17-00-49 3d7h

Restoring Data and Assets 99

2. Select the backup that you want to restore from the list, and then create a RestoreJob yaml file in the following format:

apiVersion: "powerprotect.dell.com/v1beta1" kind: RestoreJob metadata: name: namespace: powerprotect spec:

recoverType: RestoreToNew #Default is RestoreToOriginal backupJobName: # For e.g. testapp1-2019-11-16-14-15-47 namespaces: - name: alternateNamespace: # Name for the recovered namespace. Needed only for RestoreToNew. Should not be specified for RestoreToOriginal persistentVolumeClaims: - name: "*" #volumes to be recovered. By default all volumes backed up will be recovered

3. Run the following command to apply the yaml:

kubectl apply -f -n powerprotect 4. Run the following command to track the restore progress:

kubectl get restorejob -n powerprotect -o yaml -w 5. Upon successful completion of the restore, run the following command to delete the RestoreJob:

kubectl delete restorejob -n powerprotect

Restore the PowerProtect Data Manager server You can restore PowerProtect Data Manager server persisted data as a new instance using any of the backups. A System Administrator can carry out the restore.

Prerequisites

Ensure that:

The PowerProtect Data Manager version that is deployed on your system and the backups you are using for the restore match. The network configuration is the same on the newly deployed PowerProtect Data Manager system as on the failed instance that you

are restoring.

Steps

1. Deploy the PowerProtect Data Manager OVA and power it on. 2. Select Restore Backup.

To delay jobs defined by your protection policies until otherwise specified, select After restore, keep the product in recovery mode so that scheduled workflows are not triggered. When selected, after restore the system enters recovery maintenance mode. During recovery maintenance mode:

All jobs defined by your protection policies that modify the backup storage (for example, backup creation, backup deletion, and PPDM Server DR jobs) are not triggered.

All operations that write to the backup storage are disabled. A system alert is displayed in PowerProtect Data Manager.

To enable automatically scheduled operations and user operations that write to the backup storage, click Return to full Operational mode in the alert.

3. Specify the following storage information:

a. DD system IP where the recovery backups are stored. b. DD NSF Export Path where the recovery backups are stored.

100 Restoring Data and Assets

c. Click Connect. 4. Select the PowerProtect Data Manager instance that you would like to restore, and then click OK. 5. Select the backup file that you would like to use for recovery, and then click Recover. 6. Specify the lockbox passphrase associated with the backup, and start the recovery.

This step initiates the recovery and display the progress status. The recovery process can take approximately eight minutes before the URI is redirected to the PowerProtect Data Manager login.

Results

The PowerProtect Data Manager server is recovered.

Next steps

After a successful recovery:

The time zone of the PowerProtect Data Manager instance is set to the same as that of the backup. The operating system user passwords and PowerProtect Data Manager login are set to the lockbox phrase previously provided in step

6.

Restore Cloud Tier backups to the DD system Once a Cloud tier backup is recalled, restore operations of these backups are identical to normal restore operations.

The PowerProtect Data Manager software recalls a copy of the backup from the Cloud unit to the local (active) tier of the DD system, which then allows you to perform a restore of the backup from the active tier to the client. The status appears as Cloud, and changes to Local Recalled after cloud recall completes. After the restore, the backup copy is removed from Cloud tier, and is stored on the active tier of the DD system for a minimum of 14 days, after which the backup may be returned to the cloud depending on your protection policy.

Recall and restore from Cloud tier To recall a backup on Cloud tier to the active tier on a DD system and restore this backup, perform the following:

Prerequisites

NOTE: When a backup is recalled from Cloud tier to the active tier, the copy is removed from Cloud tier.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Assets. 2. On the Assets window, select the tab that contains the asset you want to recall from Cloud Tier, and then click View Copies. 3. Click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that appear in the table. 4. Click Recall.

The Recall from Cloud dialog box appears. 5. In the Retain until box, specify how long you want to keep the copy on the active tier, and then click OK. 6. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the recall operation.

When the copy has been moved successfully, the Location changes from Cloud to Local. 7. Select Recovery > Assets, and then select the tab that contains the recalled asset. 8. Select the recalled asset, and then click Restore.

NOTE: If you are unsure whether the asset has been recalled, click View Copies and select DD to view the available

backup copies. If the asset backup is a recalled copy, the Status column indicates Local Recalled.

9. Select the recalled copy to re-tier the copy to the active tier.

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Troubleshooting virtual machine restore issues The following topics provide information on troubleshooting virtual machine restore failures.

Virtual machine protection copy does not display under available copies If a virtual machine protection copy does not display under the available copies in PowerProtect Data Manager, verify the following:

Ensure that protection of the virtual machine completed successfully. Check that the desired copy has not expired according to the PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy.

Virtual machine restore fails with name resolution error A virtual machine restore might fail with the following error due to network issues between the DD system and PowerProtect Data Manager or the vCenter/ESXi:

com.emc.brs.vmdm.http.HttpsConnector - null: Temporary failure in name resolution java.net.UnknownHostException : null: Temporary failure in name resolution Ensure that you have proper name resolution between the DD system and PowerProtect Data Manager /vCenter/ESX.

DD NFS share not removed after restore to original The DD NFS share might not be removed after a successful virtual machine restore to original. When this occurs, the restore hangs and the following DD NFS clients appear enabled in the DD system.

Figure 4. DD NFS clients still enabled after restore

If you encounter this issue, you can wait 24 hours for PowerProtect Data Manager to clean up the DD NFS shares, or you can stop the restore and clean up the DD NFS clients manually by performing the following steps:

1. Restart the VMDM service by typing /usr/local/brs/lib/vmdm/bin/vmdm restart.

2. Clean up DD NFS clients by typing nfs del .

3. In the vSphere Client's Configuration tab, manually unmount the EMC-vProxy-vm-qa-xxxxx DDNFS datastore that is mounted on the ESXi host.

Virtual machine restore fails with error due to VM Direct corruption A virtual machine restore might fail with the following error due to corruption of the VM Direct Engine that is running in PowerProtect Data Manager:

com.emc.dpsg.vproxy.client.VProxyManager - Error(createSession): javax.net.ssl.SSLException: Unrecognized SSL message, plaintext connection Ensure that the vproxyd service is running in PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

ps xa | grep vproxy Ensure that the vproxy rpm is installed as expected in PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

rpm -qa | grep vProxy When logged in as the root user, restart the vproxyd service on PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

systemctl restart vproxyd

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Virtual machine restore fails with error "User UserEARA does not have proper privileges" A virtual machine restore fails with the error "User UserEARA does not have proper privileges" when the user does not have adequate privileges to perform the restore operation.

Ensure that the PowerProtect Data Manager user performing the restore belongs to System Tenant and has the Export and Recovery Admin role.

Virtual machine restore fails when the previous restore of this virtual machine is in progress or did not complete A virtual machine restore fails with the following error if the previous restore operation for the same virtual machine is still in progress or did not complete successfully:

Error : There is another running restore operation that conflicts with this request. If the previous restore operation for this virtual machine is still in progress, monitor the progress in PowerProtect Data Manager until the restore completes. If the virtual machine restore is complete but the task stops responding, then you must manually cancel the restore in PowerProtect Data Manager by restarting the VMDM service. You can restart the VMDM service by typing /usr/local/brs/lib/ vmdm/bin/vmdm restart.

Troubleshooting instant access restore failures An instant access restore consists of two stages. First, a virtual machine is made available in the UI as an instant access virtual machine without moving the virtual machine to permanent storage. Second, storage vMotion is initiated to migrate the virtual machine to permanent storage.

If at any point during the migration a restore failure occurs, the instant access session is not automatically removed until after the expiration period for an instant access virtual machine restore, which is 7 days by default. This behavior is intentional for the following reasons:

To avoid data loss, since changes might have been made to the virtual machine during that time To provide you with the opportunity to fix the issue (for example, to free up space on the restore destination or choose a different

datastore) and then take the appropriate action

When the cause of the failure is determined and/or fixed, you can use the Instant Access Sessions window of the UI to retry the migration, or save the data and delete the instant access virtual machine, as required. The section Manage and monitor Instant Access Sessions provides detailed information about these actions.

FLR Agent for virtual machine file-level restore The VM Direct FLR Agent is required for file-level restore operations and is installed automatically on the target virtual machine when you initiate a file-level restore and provide the virtual machine credentials.

The FLR Agent installation on Linux virtual machines requires that you use the root account. If non-root credentials are provided for the target virtual machine, the FLR Agent installation fails, even if this user has privileges similar to a root user. Once the FLR Agent installation is completed by a root user, you can perform file-level restore operations as a non-root user.

FLR Agent installation on Windows virtual machines requires that you use administrative privileges. If the provided credentials for the target virtual machine do not have administrative privileges, the FLR Agent installation fails.

On Windows, to perform a file-level restore using a non-administrator user, ensure that the FLR Agent is already installed on the target machine using administrative privileges. Otherwise, ensure that an administrative user is specified, and click OK.

On Linux, to perform a file-level restore using a non-root user, ensure that the FLR Agent has already been installed on the target virtual machine using the root user account. Otherwise, ensure that you are using a supported platform and the root user is specified, and click OK. For Linux, file-level restore is only supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6.x, 7.x and 8.x, and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server versions 11 and 12.

NOTE: The most up-to-date software compatibility information for PowerProtect Data Manager is provided in the E-Lab

Navigator, available at https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/modernHomeDataProtection.

Restoring Data and Assets 103

FLR Agent installation on Windows virtual machines with User Account Control enabled Performing the FLR Agent installation on User Account Control (UAC) enabled Windows virtual machine requires you to either provide the credentials of the administrator user, or to disable UAC during the FLR Agent installation and then re-enable upon completion.

On Windows versions 7, 8, and 10, the administrator account is disabled by default. To enable the account, complete the following steps:

1. To activate the account, open a command prompt in administrative mode, and then type net user administrator /active: yes.

2. To set a password for the administrator account, go to Control Panel > User Accounts and select the Advanced tab. Initially, the account password is blank.

3. In the User Accounts pane, right-click the user and select Properties, and then clear the Account is disabled option.

To disable UAC during the FLR Agent installation and then re-enable on completion of the installation, complete the following steps:

1. Initiate a file-level restore to launch the FLR Agent installation window. The FLR Agent installation is automatically started during a mount operation if it is not already installed on the destination virtual machine.

2. In the FLR Agent installation window, select the Keep VM Direct FLR on target virtual machine option. 3. Open regedit and change the EnableLUA registry key value at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

\Policies\System to 0x00000000. By default, this is set to 1.

4. Proceed with the FLR Agent installation. 5. Open regedit and reset the EnableLUA registry key to the previous value to re-enable UAC.

Updating the Microsoft Application Agent and FLR Agent software The Microsoft Application Agent and FLR Agent software required to perform SQL application-aware data protection and file-level restore operations will be automatically updated on the target virtual machine by the VM Direct appliance during the file-level restore operation. The VM Direct appliance detects the available software on the client and updates the Agent software with the new version of software from its repository. If the update does not occur automatically, contact a Dell EMC technical support professional for a procedure to update the VM Direct software repository with the latest version of the Agent software packages.

Supported platform and OS versions for virtual machine file-level restore File-level restore is only supported for the following platforms and operating system versions.

Platforms/operating systems are qualified for file-level restore support using the default file system for these platforms:

NOTE: The most up-to-date software compatibility information for PowerProtect Data Manager is provided in the E-Lab

Navigator, available at https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/modernHomeDataProtection.

RedHat Enterprise Linux versions 6.x, 7.x, and 8.x SuSE Linux Enterprise Server versions 11.x and 12.x Debian version 9.1 Ubuntu version 17.10 CentOS version 7.2 Oracle Enterprise Linux version 7.2 Windows 7, 8, 10, Server 2008, 2012, 2016 (all 64-bit platforms and R2, where applicable) for FAT, and NTFS.

Support for Debian or Ubuntu operating system VM Direct file-level restore is supported on the Debian/Ubuntu operating system. To configure the Debian or Ubuntu guest operating system for file-level restore, perform the following steps.

About this task

NOTE: File-level restore is not supported on Debian/Ubuntu ext4 file systems.

Steps

1. Log in to the system console as a non-root user.

104 Restoring Data and Assets

2. Run the sudo passwd root command.

Enter the new password twice to set a password for the root account.

3. Run the sudo passwd -u root command to unlock the root account.

4. Specify the root user credentials in the Dell EMC Data Protection Restore Client and proceed to complete the file-level restore operation at least once.

While performing the file-level restore operation for the first time, remember to select Keep FLR agent.

5. After performing the above steps at least once, you can revert the root account to the locked state and use non-root account for future file-level restore requests. Non-root user can lock the root account with the sudo passwd -l root command.

Operating system utilities required for file-level restore On Linux and Windows, the installed operating system must include several standard utilities in order to use file-level restore. Depending on the target operating system for restore and the types of disks or file systems in use, some of these standard utilities, however, may not be included.

The following utilities and programs may be required for performing file-level restore.

On Windows:

msiexec.exe diskpart.exe cmd.exe

On Linux:

blkid udevadm readlink rpm bash

NOTE: On Linux LVM, LVM2 rpm version 2.02.117 or later is required. Also, additional binaries required on Linux LVM

include dmsetup, lvm, and vgimportclone.

File-level restore and SQL restore limitations This section provides a list of limitations that apply to file-level restore and individual SQL database and instance restore.

Consider the following:

The VM Direct FLR Agent is installed automatically on the target virtual machine for file-level restore when a disk mount operation is initiated. However, if the user does not have sufficient administrator privileges, the mount fails and the FLR Agent is not installed. Ensure that the user performing file-level restore is a system administrator. Note that adding a user to the Administrators group does not grant this user sufficient privileges to perform this operation.

When performing a file-level restore, VMDKs fail to mount with the following error if the FLR Agent service is not running on the target virtual machine: "Cannot connect to vProxy Agent: dial tcp <127.0.0.1: : connectex: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it."

If you no longer require the VM Direct FLR Agent on the target virtual machine, the agent must be properly uninstalled. If you manually delete VM Direct FLR Agent files instead of uninstalling the agent, and at some point reinstall the agent, subsequent mount attempts to perform restores will fail.

To uninstall the VM Direct FLR Agent on Linux:

1. Execute the following command: /opt/emc/vproxyra/bin/preremove.sh.

2. Uninstall FLR agent package by running rpm -e emc-vProxy-FLRAgent.

3. If the uninstall fails due to a broken installation or other issue, you can force removal of the package by running rpm -e -- force emc-vProxy-FLRAgent.

To uninstall the VM Direct FLR Agent on Windows:

1. Select Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. 2. Locate EMC VM Direct FLR. 3. Right-click the program and select Uninstall.

When a file-level restore or SQL restore operation is in progress on a virtual machine, no other backup or recovery operation can be performed on this virtual machine. Wait until the file-level restore session completes before starting any other operation on the virtual machine.

Restoring Data and Assets 105

Clean up from a suspended or cancelled mount operation requires a restart of the virtual machine before you can initiate a new mount for the file-level restore.

When you enable Admin Approval Mode (AAM) on the operating system for a virtual machine (for example, by setting Registry/ FilterAdministratorToken to 1), the administrator user cannot perform a file-level restore to the end user's profile, and an error displays indicating "Unable to browse destination." For any user account control (UAC) interactions, the administrator must wait for the mount operation to complete, and then access the backup folders located at C:\Program Files (x86)\EMC\vProxy FLR Agent\flr\mountpoints by logging into the guest virtual machine using Windows Explorer or a command prompt.

When you perform file-level restore on Windows 2012 R2 virtual machines, the volumes listed under the virtual machine display as "unknown." File-restore operations are not impacted by this issue.

When you perform file-level restore on Ubuntu/Debian platforms, you must enable the root account in the operating system. By default, the root account will be in locked state.

You can only restore files and/or folders from a Windows backup to a Windows machine, or from a Linux backup to a Linux machine. You must install VMware Tools version 10 or later. For best results, ensure that all virtual machines run the latest available version of

VMware Tools. Older versions are known to cause failures when you perform browse actions during file-level restore or SQL retore operations.

You can perform file-level restore across vCenters as long as the vCenters are configured in PowerProtect Data Manager, and the source and target virtual machine have the same guest operating system. For example, Linux to Linux, or Windows to Windows.

File-level restore does not support the following virtual disk configurations:

LVM thin provisioning Unformatted disks FAT16 file systems FAT32 file systems Extended partitions (Types: 05h, 0Fh, 85h, C5h, D5h) Two or more virtual disks mapped to single partition Encrypted partitions Compressed partitions

File-level restore of virtual machines with Windows dynamic disks is supported with the following limitations:

The restore can only be performed when recovering to a virtual machine different from the original. Also, this virtual machine cannot be a clone of the original.

The restore can only be performed by virtual machine administrator users. If Windows virtual machines were created by cloning or deploying the same template, then all of these Windows virtual machines

may end up using the same GUID on their dynamic volumes. File-level restore does not restore or browse symbolic links. File-level restore of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2016 virtual machines is not supported on the following file

systems:

Deduplicated NTFS Resilient File System (ReFS) EFI bootloader

106 Restoring Data and Assets

Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster

Topics:

Managing system backups Manage PowerProtect Data Manager backups for disaster recovery Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager Cloud Disaster Recovery Prepare the DD system recovery target Configure backups for disaster recovery Configure PowerProtect Data Manager server disaster recovery backups Record settings for disaster recovery Restore PowerProtect Data Manager from an external DD system Recovering a Search cluster from a DR backup Troubleshooting backup configuration issues Troubleshoot recovery of PowerProtect Data Manager Recover a failed PowerProtect Data Manager backup

Managing system backups The PowerProtect Data Manager system protection service enables you to protect the persistent data of a PowerProtect Data Manager system from catastrophic loss by creating a series of system backups.

Each backup is considered a full backup although it is created in an incremental manner. The persistent data that is saved in a backup includes the Lockbox and Elasticsearch databases. The backup operation creates a point-in-time snapshot of the database while the system is in a quiesced state. While the system is quiesced, user functionality is limited. After the snapshot completes and while PowerProtect Data Manager copies the snapshots to the DD storage unit, full user functionality is restored. If the system fails to quiesce, PowerProtect Data Manager still takes a backup, which is marked as crash consistent instead of application consistent.

To store system backups, you must configure and assign a private DD storage unit for the PowerProtect Data Manager system. The system protection service enables you to manage the frequency and start time of an automated system backup, perform on-demand backups, and define the length of time that the system backups are available for recovery.

File Search indexes are backed up for DR recovery along with other component DR backups. For this release, recovery requires manual steps. Contact Customer Support.

Manage PowerProtect Data Manager backups for disaster recovery View PowerProtect Data Manager backups and perform manual backups.

About this task

You can view the last 5 PowerProtect Data Manager backups.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select System Settings > Disaster Recovery > Manage Backups. 2. To perform a manual backup:

You can back up to only one DD host at a time. When you enter new DD information for backup, you overwrite the existing DD host for backup. If there are more than one external DD systems, you can change which DD system has the backup.

a. Click Backup Now.

The Enter a name for your backup dialog appears.

b. [Optional] Type a name for your backup.

9

Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster 107

You can leave the backup name blank, and PowerProtect Data Manager provides a name for the backup using the naming convention UserDR-. If you provide a name with the convention that PowerProtect Data Manager uses for scheduled backups, which is SystemDR, PowerProtect Data Manager displays an error.

c. Click Start Backup.

The backup appears as an entry in the table. To view details for the backup, click the arrow icon.

If a new search engine node is deployed,PowerProtect Data Manager backs up the search cluster. When the backup is complete, you can view the status of the search cluster backup in the details. To view details for the backup, click the arrow icon.

To monitor the status of the backup, select Jobs > Running and look for a job with the name Protect the server datastore.

3. To delete a backup:

a. Select a backup from the list. b. Click Delete.

The system displays a warning to confirm you want to delete the backup. Click Yes to proceed. 4. Click Close.

Overview of PowerProtect Data Manager Cloud Disaster Recovery The Cloud Disaster Recovery (DR) feature enables you to utilize a cloud DR site by deploying the Cloud DR Server in the public cloud. You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI for the purpose of running VM protection and DR workflows in the cloud.

Examples of Cloud DR workflows include the following:

Cloud DR site copy managementSet the Cloud DR site by creating a VM protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. VM copy failover validationBefore a disaster occurs, you can validate the failover of a VM copy to the cloud within PowerProtect

Data Manager by running a DR test and then monitoring the test progress. Fail over a production VMYou can fail over a production virtual machine within PowerProtect Data Manager by running a DR failover

operation and then verifying that the restored VM appears within Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure cloud.

The PowerProtect Data Manager Cloud Disaster Recovery Administration and User Guide provides more information about Cloud DR workflows within PowerProtect Data Manager.

Prepare the DD system recovery target Before you can configure PowerProtect Data Manager for backup and recovery, you must configure the NFS export on the DD target system.

Steps

1. Use a Web browser to log in to the DD System Manager as the system administrator user. 2. In the Summary tab in the Protocols pane, select NFS Exports > Create Export. 3. In the Create NFS Export window, provide the following information, and then click OK.

Export Namethe name of the DD MTree Directory Paththe full directory path for DD MTree that you created. Ensure that you use the same name for the directory.

NOTE: For an external DD system, specify a path similar to the following, /data/col1/ . Where is

the MTree used to store the DR backups.

4. When the progress message indicates that the save operation is complete, click Close. 5. In the Summary tab in the Protocols pane, click NFS Exports. 6. Under NFS Protocols > Exports, select the DD MTree from the list of exports and click Add Clients. 7. In the Add Clients window, provide the following information, and then click OK.

ClientIP address or host name of the PowerProtect Data Manager. NOTE: To configure DR protection for an existing Search cluster, add the IP address or host name of the Search

cluster to the NFS Client list.

Accept the default settings for the rest of the fields. Current SelectionEnsure that the list includes no_root_squash, which is required for permission for your system to change

the directory structure on the NFS share.

108 Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster

Configure backups for disaster recovery Configure your system to automatically create backups in the event of a disaster or catastrophic outage.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have configured a DD system as a replication location. See Prepare the DD system recovery target on page 108.

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager as administrator. 2. Select System Settings > Disaster Recovery > Configuration. 3. Enter the following information, and then click Save.

Select Enable backup. DD SystemIP address or host name of the DD system where you created the MTree with NFS Export NFS Export Paththe path of the NFS Export

Results

The initial backup runs, and then backups are automatically triggered every hour.

Configure PowerProtect Data Manager server disaster recovery backups Configure disaster recovery protection for the PowerProtect Data Manager system and the system metadata.

Prerequisites

For external DD system backups, ensure that you carry out the procedure described in Configure the DD system on page 128.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select System Settings > Disaster Recovery > Configuration. 2. Configure the backup with the following attributes:

a. In the DD System field, type the DD system to back up. b. In the NFS Export Path field, type the path where backups are stored on the target DD system.

3. Click Save.

Record settings for disaster recovery Plan for disaster recovery by recording vital information.

About this task

In the event of a major outage, you will need certain information to recover your systems.

Steps

Ensure that you record the following information on a local drive outside PowerProtect Data Manager:

PowerProtect Data Manager build numberCustomer Support can provide this information. It is not mandatory. Port GroupsLog in to the vSphere Client, right-click the appliance name and select Edit Settings. Record the port group

settings that are assigned to PowerProtect Data Manager. NFS export detailsClick the System Settings icon and select Disaster Recovery > Configuration. Under Backup, record the

host IP address and the NFS Export Path. Run the GET /Configurations API (api/v2/configurations) from PowerProtect Data Manager and save the details

for network information.

Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster 109

To get the PowerProtect Data Manager token:

curl --request POST 'https:// :8443/api/v2/login' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{"username": ,"password": }' -k

You can use this bearer token to get the configuration from PowerProtect Data Manager:

curl --request GET 'https:// :8443/api/v2/configurations' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --header 'Authorization: Bearer ' -k

Restore PowerProtect Data Manager from an external DD system You can restore PowerProtect Data Manager from an external DD system where the data is replicated.

Prerequisites

Ensure that all the information listed in Record settings for disaster recovery on page 109 is available. Ensure that the FQDN of the PowerProtect Data Manager is the same as the host name. Ensure that the VM for PowerProtect Data Manager is powered on. Ensure that you have set up the recovery target system. See Prepare the DD system recovery target on page 108.

About this task

When your primary PowerProtect Data Manager system fails because of a major event, deploy a new PowerProtect Data Manager system and recover the backup from the external DD system.

NOTE: If your recovery system is on a different FQDN, see Troubleshoot recovery of PowerProtect Data Manager on

page 112.

Steps

1. Use the .ova file to deploy a new PowerProtect Data Manager system. 2. On the Install window under Welcome, select Restore Backup. 3. (Optional) To keep the PowerProtect Data Manager server in recovery mode after the restore completes, select the checkbox.

When this option is enabled, PowerProtect Data Manager enters into recovery mode and stops scheduled workflows from running.

4. Under Select File, enter the DD System and NFS Export Path where the backup is located, and then click Connect. A list of the available recovery backups on the DD system appears.

5. Select the backup from which to recover the system, and click OK. 6. Provide the Lockbox Passphrase and click Start.

When the Passphrase is verified, the recovery starts. Recovery can take a few minutes.

Results

When recovery is complete, the PowerProtect Data Manager login page appears.

When you log in to PowerProtect Data Manager, If the option to keep the PowerProtect Data Manager server in recovery mode was selected, a red banner appears at the top of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. The banner indicates that the PowerProtect Data Manager system is operational but scheduled workflows are disabled. If you want to return PowerProtect Data Manager to full operational mode and enable scheduled workflows, click Return to full operational mode.

110 Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster

Recovering a Search cluster from a DR backup Recovery of a Search cluster is a manual process to be completed by the administrator.

Prerequisites

Complete the steps to perform disaster recovery of PowerProtect Data Manager. On the Restore PPDM page:

Record the Selected Host information ( and ) PowerProtect Data Manager. Record the of the selected backup.

About this task

Use this procedure to set the cluster to the selected point in time.

Steps

1. Login to PowerProtect Data Manager with the same administrator credentials you used before the PowerProtect Data Manager was restored.

2. Remove stale Search Cluster nodes:

a. Use SSH to log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. b. Run the following command to source the environment file:

Source /opt/emc/vmdirect/unit/vmdirect.env c. Obtain the list of Search Nodes that require removal by running /opt/emc/vmdirect/bin/infranodemgmt get list d. Make note of the ID of any Search Node that needs to be deleted. e. Use the infranodemgmt tool to delete the Search Nodes by running /opt/emc/vmdirect/bin/infranodemgmt

delete --node_id= f. Verify that the nodes have been removed by running /opt/emc/vmdirect/bin/infranodemgmt get list

3. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, complete the steps to deploy a Search Cluster.

NOTE: Ensure that you deploy a Search Cluster with the same number of nodes that were in the original Search

Cluster before disaster recovery.

4. Locate the backup manifest file:

a. Use SSH to log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. b. Navigate to the directory path /data01/server_backups/ _ .

c. Run grep -Rnwa -e ' ' --include=*.manifest 5. Open the backup Manifest file. 6. Locate the Components section, which contains Search Cluster.

The values for the following fields listed in the Search Cluster section are needed for the POST Call in the next step.

Name=id BackupPath, which contains :/data/col1/ / /SearchCluster

For example:

"Components": [ { "name": "SearchCluster", {{ "id": "c25290d9-a88c-4a15-9e7c-656f186209ae", }} {{ "version": "v2", }} {{ "backupPath": "10.25.12.74:/data/col1/serverdr_backup/vm- qa-0091_6ce36793-3379-45d2-84bd-d8bde69e52d4/SearchCluster", }} {{ "backupStatus": "SUCCESSFUL", }} {{ "backupsEnabled": true }} {

{ } }} {{ ]}}

where:

NFSHost = "10.25.12.74" NFSExport = "/data/col1/serverdr_backup"

Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster 111

NFSDirPath = "vm-qa-0091_6ce36793-3379-45d2-84bd-d8bde69e52d4/SearchCluster" Name = "c25290d9-a88c-4a15-9e7c-656f186209ae"

7. Run the following POST call:

https:// :8443/api/v2/search-clusters/component-backups/ /restore

{

"ddDirectoryPath" : " ",

"ddHost" : " ",

"ddNfsExportName" : " "

}

8. To monitor the status of the restore process, in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Jobs > Running and look for a job with the description, Restoring backup Search Node.

Troubleshooting backup configuration issues The following section provides a list of error messages that might appear when you configure an appliance backup configuration.

DD storage unit mount command failed with error: 'Cannot mount full path: Access is denied' This error message appears when an NFS export does not exist on the DD system for the full path to the DD Boost Storage Unit.

To resolve this issue, ensure that you have configured an NFS export for the full path of the DD Boost storage unit and that the appliance is an Export client.

DD storage unit mount command failed with error: 'Cannot resolve FQDN: The name or service not known' This error message appears when the appliance cannot contact the DD system by using the specified FQDN. To resolve this issue, ensure that you can resolve the FQDN and IP address of the DD system.

Troubleshoot recovery of PowerProtect Data Manager When the FQDN of the recovery site is different from the FQDN of the primary site, a mount error might occur and the recovery process requires a few extra steps.

About this task

If a mount error occurs during recovery, follow this work-around procedure.

Steps

1. On the DD system where the backup is located, delete the replication pair and mount it for PowerProtect Data Manager. 2. When recovery is complete, on PowerProtect Data Manager, regenerate the certificates using the following command.

sudo -H -u admin /usr/local/brs/puppet/scripts/generate_certificates.sh -c 3. Restart the system and select the URL of the primary PowerProtect Data Manager system.

The https://PPDM IP/#/progress page appears and recovery resumes.

4. Log in to the primary PowerProtect Data Manager. The PowerProtect Data Manager VM vCenter console shows an error, which you can ignore.

112 Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster

5. Open the primary PowerProtect Data Manager using the original IP address and log in.

Results

Recovery is complete.

Recover a failed PowerProtect Data Manager backup Steps

1. Redeploy the PowerProtect Data Manager OVA. 2. Call Dell EMC Technical support.

Preparing for and Recovering from a Disaster 113

Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks

Topics:

Configure Alert Notifications View and manage System Alerts View and manage Audit Logs Monitor and view jobs Monitor and view tasks Restart a job or task manually Restart a job or task automatically Cancel a job or task Export logs for a job or task

Configure Alert Notifications The Alert Notifications window of the UI enables you to configure email notifications for PowerProtect Data Manager alerts.

Steps

1. Select Administration > Alert Notifications

The Alert Notifications window appears with a table that displays the details for existing notifications.

2. Click Add.

The Add Alert Notification dialog appears.

3. In the Name field, type name of the individual or group who will receive the notification email. 4. In the Email field:

a. Specify the email address or alias to receive notifications. This field is required in order to create an alert notification. Separate multiple entries with a comma.

b. Click Test Email to ensure that a valid SMTP configuration exists. 5. From the Category list, select the notification category. 6. From the Severity list, select the notification severity. 7. In the Duration field, specify the amount of time that the notification will display. 8. In the Subject field, optionally type the subject that you would like to attach to the notification email. 9. Click Save to save your changes and exit the dialog.

Results

The Alert Notifications window updates with the new alert notification. At any time, you can Edit, Delete, or Disable the notification by selecting the entry in the table and using the buttons in this window.

View and manage System Alerts Alerts enable you to track the performance of data protection operations in PowerProtect Data Manager so that you can determine whether there is compliance to service level objectives. You can access the system alerts from the Alerts window.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Alerts.

The Alerts window displays alert information in a table. You can filter the alerts by Severity, Date, Category, or Acknowledge.

2. Select the System tab.

3. To view more details about a specific entry, click next to the entry in the table.

10

114 Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks

4. For the following steps, connect to the PowerProtect Data Manager console with an account that has the Admin role. 5. To acknowledge the system alert, select the alerts and then click Acknowledge. 6. To add or edit a note for the system alert, click Add/Edit Note, and when finished, click Save.

View and manage Audit Logs Audit logs enable you to view specific information about jobs that are initiated in PowerProtect Data Manager so that you can determine compliance to service level objectives. You can access the audit logs from the Alerts window.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Alerts.

The Alerts window displays alert information in a table. You can filter the alerts by Severity, Date, Category, or Acknowledge.

2. Select the Audit Logs tab.

3. To view more details about a specific entry, click next to the entry in the table. 4. To export an audit log report to a .csv file which you can download as an Excel file, select an entry in the table and click Export.

NOTE: If you apply any filters in the table, exported audit logs include only those logs that satisfy the filter

conditions.

5. To change the retention period for audit logs, click Set Boundaries, select the number of days from the Days of Retention menu, and then click Save.

Monitor and view jobs The Jobs window in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI enables you to monitor the status of certain data protection, system, and maintenance jobs and to view details. To perform analysis or troubleshooting, you can view a detailed log of a failed job.

To access the Jobs window, open the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, and select Jobs. The Jobs window appears, displaying successfully completed jobs by default.

The Jobs window provides you with options to filter and sort the information that appears:

Filter jobs by Completed or RunningBy default, the Jobs window opens on the Completed tab. To display only jobs in progress, select the Running tab at the top of the window.

Filter jobs by time rangeBy default, the Jobs window displays all jobs regardless of time range. To display jobs for a set time range, select from one of the available options.

Filter jobs by Description, Policy Name, Job Type, Asset Type, Start Time, Status, or Events, by clicking in their respective column.

Sort jobs by Description, Policy Name, Job Type, Asset Type, and Start Time by clicking the column heading.

You can use the Search field to filter jobs based on a search string. When you type a keyword in the Search field, the PowerProtect Data Manager UI filters the results as you type. To clear the search filter, remove all keywords from the Search field.

To view details for a job, click the magnifying glass icon in the Details column next to the job name.

You can also monitor the status of individual tasks, view task details, and perform certain operations on tasks.

NOTE: Job duration includes the sum of all tasks plus the job processing time.

Monitor and view tasks Within a job, you can view the status of specific tasks. This information can be helpful when troubleshooting to determine whether one or more tasks caused a job to fail.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Jobs.

The Jobs window appears.

2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the Details column next to the job name.

The Details pane appears on the right, with a Task Summary at the bottom.

Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks 115

3. Next to Task Summary, click the link that indicates the total number of tasks.

A new window opens to display a list of all tasks for the job and details for each task.

The success or failure of individual tasks is indicated in the Status column. If a failed task requires action, a status of Critical appears.

4. (Optional) Sort and filter the information that appears:

To sort tasks by Task Name, Status, or Asset Name, click a column heading.

To filter tasks by Task Name, Status, or Asset Name, click in their respective column. To filter tasks based on a search string, type the string in the Search field.

5. To view task details and summary information, click the magnifying glass icon in the Details column next to the individual task, and then complete the following steps:

a. On the Steps tab, review the summary information, which describes the task activity.

Click to expand the step and view additional information, such as a description, summary, and recommended actions if applicable.

b. On the Details tab, review the details for the task.

Restart a job or task manually You can manually restart a failed virtual machine backup in the Jobs window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

About this task

When you click Restart, the job or task restarts immediately, regardless of the scheduled activity window. NOTE: If a policy with both protection and Cloud Data Recovery (CDR) stages fails, the CDR job is canceled and cannot

be restarted.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Jobs.

The Jobs window appears, displaying only completed jobs by default. You can filter the information that appears in the window. Monitor and view jobs on page 115 provides more information.

2. Select the Running tab. 3. To restart a failed job, select the failed job from the list, and then click Restart. 4. To restart a failed task:

a. Click the magnifying glass icon in the Details column next to the job name

The Details pane appears on the right, with a Task Summary at the bottom.

b. Next to Task Summary, click the link that indicates the total number of tasks. c. Select a failed task, and then click Restart. d. Click Close.

Results

To view the status of the restarted job or task, select the Running tab at the top of the Jobs window. The status indicates Running or Queued.

Restart a job or task automatically If a backup job fails or one of the tasks within the job fails, you can enable automatic restart of the failure by configuring auto retry in the entrypoint.sh file. Auto retry can be useful in situations where the failure is due to an intermittent issue, such as a network or service interruption.

Prerequisites

In PowerProtect Data Manager, some services that are required for auto retry, such as the workflow service, have been moved into a docker container. In order to enable auto retry, ensure that the workflow service is running in a docker.

116 Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks

About this task

Auto retry is only supported for daily, weekly, or monthly schedules for virtual machine and File System agent protection operations.

Steps

1. Log in to the PowerProtect Data Manager server by using SSH. 2. Copy the entrypoint.sh file from the workflow container by typing the following:

docker cp workflow:/workflow/bin/entrypoint.sh . 3. Configure auto retry by adding a line to entrypoint.sh:

a. Type vi entrypoint.sh b. Before the last line in the output, -jar /${APP_NAME}/lib/workflow-manager.jar), add the following:

-Denable.auto.retry.scheduler=true \ NOTE: Auto retry is disabled by default. After adding this line, if you want to disable this setting at any point,

change the entry to -Denable.auto.retry.scheduler=false \

4. Optionally, add the following application properties to the file to specify a maximum number of auto retries and a time interval at which subsequent auto retry attempts will occur:

-Dfailed.job.retry.max.count=2 \ -Dfailed.job.retry.interval=PTM30 \

NOTE: The values specified above are the recommended default values. Auto retries will only occur during the

activity window. If you perform a manual retry in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, this retry will not count

towards the auto retry max count.

For the interval duration, the value must be specified in ISO-8601 format.

5. Save the entrypoint.sh file to the workflow container by typing the following:

docker cp entrypoint.sh workflow:/workflow/bin/ 6. Restart the workflow service by using one of the following methods:

Type docker container restart workflow NOTE: For the configuration to be applied successfully using this method, you can only restart the container. If

you restart your workflow service or your PowerProtect Data Manager operating system, the configuration will

be lost.

Type the following to save the docker image and restart the workflow service:

docker commit workflow dpd/ppdm/ppdmc-workflow:19.5.0-1-SNAPSHOT workflow restart You can use this method to permanently apply the configuration change after restoring the docker image.

Results

Upon configuration, the workflow service is scheduled to run every 30 minutes to determine if any jobs or tasks have failed. To view whether a failed job or task has been restarted, go to the Jobs window in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI and select the Running tab. If a restart occurred, the status will indicate Running or Queued.

Cancel a job or task From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, you can cancel a backup that is still in progress, or any asset protection and replication activities when the tasks are queued.

About this task

NOTE: The Cancel operation is only available for supported jobs and tasks.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Jobs.

The Jobs window appears, displaying only completed jobs by default. You can filter the information that appears in the Jobs window. Monitor and view jobs on page 115 provides more information.

Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks 117

2. To cancel a job, select Running, select a job that is in-progress, and then click Cancel.

NOTE: If a job is almost complete, the cancellation might fail. If the cancellation fails, a message displays indicating

that the job cannot be canceled.

3. To cancel an individual task:

a. Click the magnifying glass icon next to the job name.

The Details pane appears on the right, with a Task Summary at the bottom.

b. Next to Task Summary, click the link that indicates the total number of tasks. c. Select a task that is in-progress or queued, and then click Cancel.

NOTE: If a task is almost complete, the cancellation might fail. If the cancellation fails, a message displays

indicating that the task cannot be canceled.

d. Click Close.

Results

The Jobs window displays the status of the canceled job or task. If the cancellation is successful, then the status eventually changes to Canceled. If the cancellation is not successful, then the status might indicate either Success or Critical.

Export logs for a job or task The PowerProtect Data Manager UI enables you to export and view a detailed log of a job or task. You can view logs to perform analysis or troubleshooting.

About this task

NOTE: You can only export logs for failed jobs and tasks that have a log available to download. If a log is available to

download, the Export Log button is enabled.

Steps

1. In the PowerProtect Data Manager UI left navigation pane, select Jobs.

The Jobs window appears, displaying only completed jobs by default. You can filter the information that appears in the Jobs window. Monitor and view jobs on page 115 provides more information.

2. To export a log for a completed job, select a job from the list, and then click Export Log. 3. To export a log for a completed task:

a. Click the magnifying glass icon next to the job name.

The Details pane appears on the right.

b. In the Task Summary section, click the link that indicates the total number of tasks. c. Select a completed task, and then click Export Log.

118 Managing Alerts, Jobs, and Tasks

Modifying the System Settings

Topics:

System settings System Support Modifying the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine disk settings Configure the DD system

System settings You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to modify system settings that are typically configured during PowerProtect Data Manager installation.

To access System Settings, click the icon in the top-right.

Modify the network settings You can modify the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS servers that are defined for the appliance.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > System > Network. 2. Update the fields as necessary:

Domain Name IP Address

NOTE: When you change the domain name or IP address, the system becomes unavailable until all components

are restarted.

Subnet Mask Gateway Primary DNS Secondary DNS

3. Click Save.

Synchronize time on PowerProtect Data Manager and other systems The PowerProtect Data Manager system time is synchronized with the ESXi host system.

The PowerProtect Data Manager system time must match the systems with which it interfaces or compliance check will fail. Dell EMC recommends that all systems be configured to use an NTP server.

NOTE: Times in the UI are always displayed as local to the users time zone based on their browser or system settings.

The PowerProtect Data Manager system might be in a different time zone but when viewing the UI it will always show

the times local to the user.

11

Modifying the System Settings 119

Modify the appliance time zone Use this procedure to modify the time zone for the PowerProtect Data Manager appliance.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > System > Timezone. 2. From the Timezone list, select the applicable time zone. 3. Click Save.

Change the system root user password Perform the following steps if you want to change the password for the root user.

Prerequisites

NOTE: Changing the password only changes the password for the UI login, not for the appliance. Make note of your

original appliance password in case you require this password for appliance operations.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Authentication.

The System Users window appears.

2. Select the User name for the password to edit and click Edit. The Change the password for the root user dialog box appears.

3. In the Old Password box, enter the existing password. 4. In the New Password and Confirm Password boxes, enter the new password. 5. Click Save.

Enable replication encryption You can ensure that replicated content is encrypted while in-flight to the destination storage, and then decrypted before it is saved on the destination storage.

About this task

The encryption settings on both the source and destination systems must match to ensure successful replication.

For example, if you enable in-flight encryption in PowerProtect Data Manager, the setting must be enabled on each source and destination server before defining the PowerProtect Data Manager replication objective. If encryption is enabled after the initial definition of replication objectives, any replication jobs that were initiated during the period when the source and destination server encryption settings did not match will fail.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Security.

The Security dialog box appears.

2. Click the Replication Encryption switch so it is enabled, and then click Save.

Next steps

The Infrastructure > Storage window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI displays the status of the in-flight encryption setting for all attached storage systems.

NOTE: For systems with DD OS version 6.2 and earlier installed, the status might display as Unknown. DD OS version 6.3

and later supports authentication mode. DD OS versions earlier than version 6.3 support only anonymous authentication

mode. PowerProtect Data Manager supports only anonymous and two-way authentication modes. Ensure that both

source and destination system servers use the same authentication mode.

You can take additional steps on your PowerProtect Data Manager server to enable in-flight encryption on connected DD systems by using DD System Manager, as described in the DD Operating System Administration Guide.

120 Modifying the System Settings

License types The available license types are:

TrialApplied automatically on installation of PowerProtect Data Manager and enables full use of the product without applying a license key for up to 90 days. When the trial period ends, PowerProtect Data Manager continues to operate with full functionality so that you can apply a permanent license.

Front-end protected capacity by terabyte (FETB)The primary model of eLicensing, which is based on the capacity that you want to protect. For example, you can purchase a 100-TB license, which enables you to protect up to 100 TB of data.

Socket-basedLicensed per CPU socket on virtual machine hosts that are being backed up or replicated.

NOTE: When you upgrade from a previous release, for example, eCDM 3.0.0-18, to PowerProtect Data Manager, any

existing license and its associated Secure Remote Services connection are removed from the system and replaced with

the 90-day trial license. If you have a valid FETB or socket license for PowerProtect Data Manager, upload this license

and set up the associated Secure Remote Services connection.

Perpetual and term-based (subscription) licensing Licensed software is offered in perpetual and term-based licenses. Your quote identifies whether your license rights are perpetual or term- based.

A perpetual license enables you to use the software for as long as you are in compliance with the terms of the license agreement.

A term-based license enables you to use the software for a specified time, as long as you are in compliance with the terms of the license agreement. At the end of the license term, you must either stop using the software, extend the license term, or purchase new licenses through an agreement with Dell EMC.

PowerProtect Data Manager licenses You can add a license file to PowerProtect Data Manager and view license details, such as capacity usage and software ID number.

Prerequisites

To obtain the XML license file from the Dell EMC license management website, you must have the License Authorization Code (LAC), which is emailed from Dell EMC. If you have not received the LAC, contact your technical support professional.

About this task

To review existing license information, go to Settings > License.

To add a license, perform the following steps:

Steps

1. Click the System Settings icon along the top-right: . 2. Go to Settings > License > Upload file. 3. Do one of the following:

Copy and paste license file text into the License window. Browse to the location where a license file is located, select the license file and click Open.

The license file content appears in the License window. 4. Click Save.

Results

A message appears in the License window to confirm that the license is successfully added.

Modifying the System Settings 121

System Support You can use the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to manage and modify support settings, such as the mail server setup and Secure Remote Services registration, that are typically configured during installation.

To access the Support window, click the icon in the top-right, and then select System Settings > Support.

Register the Secure Remote Services gateway Secure Remote Services (SRS) enables you to register PowerProtect Data Manager with a gateway host IP address for remote access. You can register only one SRS gateway for PowerProtect Data Manager. After PowerProtect Data Manager is registered, Technical Support Engineers can remotely connect to PowerProtect Data Manager to troubleshoot issues, and you can receive critical updates PowerProtect Data Manager by using SRS version 3.36.20.10 or later.

Prerequisites

You must apply a valid PowerProtect Data Manager license. You must have an SRS gateway ServiceLink account open and deployed. Your Dell EMC Sales representative can assist you.

About this task

If you update a license file with a different SWID, the SRS gateway requires the new SWID. Reregister the license file with the SRS gateway to ensure the SRS gateway has the new SWID.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select System Settings > Support > Secure Remote Services 2. Enter the following information:

The hostname or IP address of the virtual machine that is deployed for SRS. The username and password for the SRS gateway account. The SRS gateway account credentials are provided by the ServiceLink

team.

3. Click Save to complete registration of the SRS gateway.

NOTE: Currently, you can use only an IPv4 address for the gateway. IPv6 is not supported.

Remove the Secure Remote Services gateway

Prerequisites

You must disable Auto Support to delete Secure Remote Services. If you have Auto Support enabled, you will receive an error message when you attempt to delete Secure Remote Services.

About this task

Use the following procedure to remove the Secure Remote Services gateway.

Steps

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select System Settings > Support > Auto Support. 2. Move the Enable Auto Support slider to Disabled, and then click Save. 3. Select System Settings > Support > Secure Remote Services

The Secure Remote Services Configuration dialog box appears.

4. Click Delete to remove the Secure Remote Services gateway.

122 Modifying the System Settings

Callhome When you register an Secure Remote Services gateway, you also enable the Callhome feature, which allows Technical Support Engineers to collect data that is related to troubleshooting device and PowerProtect Data Manager software issues. Callhome does not collect any personal information.

Callhome populates three reportsa telemetry report, an alert summary report, and a PowerProtect Central report. The following table lists the information that Callhome collects for the telemetry report.

Table 22. Telemetry report information

Category Type of information collected

Asset Sources DDMC instances vCenter instances SMIS instances SQL groups instances Kubernetes cluster

Hosts information ESXi hosts ESXi cluster hosts Application hosts

DD inventory Number of DD systems DD operating system version and system ID MTree inventory Asset source ID Serial number Model DD system capacity

PowerProtect Data Manager operational inventory

Asset information (number of assets, asset groups, assets protected, unprotected) Protection policies (number of policies) Tags (number of tags and tag categories) Active protection policy details (assets and their types, objectives for each stage) Failed jobs Application agents SLA violations External proxies

Usage Amount of data that is protected

Licensing Status of the applied license

Compliance in last 24 hours FETB in compliance FETB out of compliance

Traffic Metrics API Gateway call metrics

Callhome collects details about the following objects for the PowerProtect Central report:

Protection Policies Alerts Cloud Disaster Recovery metrics Service Level Agreement Assets Storage Systems Data targets Protection Details Compliance Details

Modifying the System Settings 123

Audit logs

Configure PowerProtect Central reporting You can enable or disable PowerProtect Central data collection for Dell EMC storage systems.

Prerequisites

Add a valid license in System Settings > License. Set up SRS in System Settings > Support > SRS.

About this task

PowerProtect Central is a no-cost SaaS/cloud-based management application that proactively monitors and measures the overall health of Dell EMC systems through intelligent, comprehensive, and predictive analytics. The data reported to PowerProtect Central includes configuration data, historical metrics and health score data.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Support > Auto Support. 2. Click Enable Auto Support or Disable Auto Support. 3. Scroll to the end and click Accept to accept the Telemetry software terms. 4. Select Secure Remote Services and click Save.

Results

When Auto Support is enabled, PowerProtect Central reports are sent automatically.

To log in to PowerProtect Central, click the Reporting menu item, or go to https://powerprotectcentral.emc.com

For more information on PowerProtect Central, refer to the PowerProtect Central Online Support site.

Set up the email server The Email Setup area on the PowerProtect Data Manager System Settings area enables you to set SMTP email server information to send emails for resetting local user passwords and customized alert notifications.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Support > Email Setup. 2. Populate the following fields:

a. Mail Server

The SMTP mail server.

b. Email from:

The email address at which you would like to receive the PowerProtect Data Manager autosupport email.

c. [Optional] Recipient for Test Email:

The email address to which you would like to send the PowerProtect Data Manager test email.

d. [Optional] Port:

The default port is 25. PowerProtect Data Manager supports using nondefault ports.

If the email setup is deleted, you must manually choose any nondefault port that is not in use anywhere else.

e. User Name:

The user name associated with the PowerProtect Data Manager SMTP email server.

f. Password:

The password associated with the PowerProtect Data Manager SMTP email server.

3. Click Send Test Email. PowerProtect Data Manager sends a test email.

4. Click Save.

124 Modifying the System Settings

Add Auto Support When auto support is enabled, auto support information, telemetry reports, alert summary, and PowerProtect Central reports will be sent.

About this task

If Secure Remote Services and SMTP are both configured, this information will be sent via Secure Remote Services.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Support > Auto Support.

The Auto Support window appears.

2. Change the Enable Auto Support option to Disabled or Enabled, and click Save.

When you enable Auto Support, select whether to receive the Auto Support communications via SRS or email server.

When you enable Auto Support, the Telemetry Software Terms page displays. Review and scroll down to the bottom of the page to accept the terms, and then click Save to save your changes.

When you disable Auto Support, PowerProtect Data Manager stops sending error and telemetry data to SRS or the SMTP server. PowerProtect Data Manager continues to send information for upgrades and other information.

NOTE: You must disable Auto Support to delete SRS.

Enable automatic upgrade package downloads Enable upgrade packages to be downloaded automatically through SRS.

About this task

If this feature is disabled, the system alerts you when a new package is available through SRS. When the feature is enabled, the system automatically downloads available packages, and then alerts you when the package is downloaded.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Support > Secure Remote Services. 2. Select Automatically download upgrade packages, and then click Save.

Add a log bundle Use the following procedure to add a log bundle.

About this task

NOTE: You can add a maximum of 10 log bundles.

Steps

1. Select System Settings > Support > Logs. 2. Click Add to add a log bundle.

The Add Log Bundle window appears. 3. Select the systems for the log bundle (Data Manager, VM Direct Engines, or, if Cloud DR is deployed, CDRS), set the log bundle

duration, and click Save. The Jobs window displays the progress of the log bundle creation. Also, a green banner in the UI indicates that the log bundle has successfully been created. If you want to dismiss the banner, click X.

4. To delete the log bundle, select the box to the left of log bundle and click Delete.

The Log Capacity indicates how much space (in GB) remains on the disk for logs and the percentage of the disk in use for log storage.

5. To download the log bundle, click the bundle name in the Bundle Name column.

Modifying the System Settings 125

Monitor system state and system health In addition to the summary system health view provided in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI's Dashboard window, the System Settings > Support window provides a further breakdown of PowerProtect Data Manager system health information.

Monitor system component health Through the Settings window, you can monitor the state of the appliance and the health of each system component. .

To view the health of system components, click the icon in the top-right, select System Settings > Support, and then select System Health.

The following table provides a summary of each component state:

Table 23. Component status

Status Description

Running This state appears when the associated service or component is running with full functionality. When all components are in running state, the state of the appliance is operational.

Initializing This state appears when the component is starting. When the component successfully starts, the state changes to Running.

Maintenance This state appears when the associated service is in maintenance. In the maintenance state, components have limited functionality. Infrastructure services do not go into maintenance state. When other components are in maintenance, the appliance state is also maintenance.

Quiesce This state appears when the service that is associated with the component is stopping.

Shut down This state appears when the service has stopped.

No response This state appears when the service that is associated with the component is running, but the service is not responding.

Access the open source software package information All open source software (OSS) package information used by PowerProtect Data Manager is stored in a common directory.

To access this information, SSH login to PowerProtect Data Manager and retrieve the OSS reports from the /usr/local/brs/ puppet/licenses directory.

Modifying the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine disk settings Follow the steps in this section, under the guidance and recommendations of Dell EMC Support, to expand the size of the data disk and system disk, and modify the memory configuration.

Modify the virtual machine memory configuration Adjust the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine memory configuration to support changes in the protection environment.

Prerequisites

Shut down PowerProtect Data Manager and the VM Direct appliance.

Steps

1. Log in to the vSphere Web Client. 2. Right-click the appliance and select Edit Settings.

The Edit Settings window appears with the Virtual Hardware button selected. 3. In the Memory field, specify the new memory value.

126 Modifying the System Settings

Ensure that the value you specify does not exceed 16 times the amount of memory the virtual machine has when powered on and is a multiple of 4 MB.

4. Click OK.

Modify the data disk size Follow these steps to expand the size of a data disk that is single partitioned and has the log partition is on the system disk.

Steps

1. Perform the following steps from the vSphere Web Client:

a. Right-click the VM Direct appliance and select Shut Down Guest OS. b. After the power off completes, right-click the appliance and select Edit Settings.

The Edit Settings window appears with the Virtual Hardware button selected. c. Increase the provisioned size of Hard disk 2 to the desired size, and then click OK.

NOTE: You cannot decrease the provisioned size of the disk.

d. Right-click the VM Direct appliance and select Power On. 2. Perform the following steps from the appliance console, as the root user.

NOTE: If you use ssh to connect to the appliance, log in with the admin account, and then use the su command to

change to the root account.

a. Reboot the appliance by typing reboot.

b. On the GNU GRUB menu, press Esc to edit the GNU GRUB menu.

c. In the edit screen, search for the line that starts with Linux, and then add word single before the entry splash=0

The following figure provides an example of the edit screen with the updated text.

Figure 5. Editing the GNU GRUB menu

d. Press Ctrl-x to reboot into single-user mode. e. When prompted, type the password for the root account. f. Unmount the data disk, by typing umount /data01.

g. Start the partition utility, by typing parted, and then perform the following tasks:

i. Type select /dev/sdb.

ii. Type print. If you are prompted to fix issues, type fix at each prompt. The output displays the new disk size in the Size field and the current size in the table.

iii. Type resize 1 new_size. Where new_size is the value that appears in the Size field in the output of the print command.

For example, to resize the disk to 700 GB, type: resize 1 752GB iv. Type quit.

3. Reboot the VM Direct appliance by typing systemctl reboot.

Modifying the System Settings 127

4. Log in to the console as the root user.

NOTE: If you use ssh protocol to connect to the VM Direct appliance, log in with the admin account, and then use

the su command to change to the root account.

5. Grow the xfs file system by typing xfs_growfs -d /data01.

6. Confirm the new partition size by typing df -h.

Modify the system disk size Follow these steps to expand the size of a data disk when the log partition is the last partition on the system disk.

Steps

1. Perform the following steps from the vSphere Web Client:

a. Right-click the VM Direct appliance and select Shut Down Guest OS. b. After the power off completes, right-click the appliance and select Edit Settings.

The Edit Settings window appears with the Virtual Hardware button selected. c. Increase the provisioned size of Hard disk 1 to the desired size, and then click OK.

NOTE: You cannot decrease the provisioned size of the disk.

d. Right-click the VM Direct appliance and select Power On. 2. Boot from a SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) version 12 CD. 3. Start the partition utility, by typing parted, and then perform the following tasks.

a. Type select /dev/sdx.

b. Type print. If you are prompted to fix issues, type fix at each prompt. The output displays the new disk size in the Size field and the current size in the table.

c. Type quit.

4. Reboot the VM Direct appliance by typing systemctl reboot.

5. Log in to the console as the root user.

NOTE: If you use ssh protocol to connect to the VM Direct appliance, log in with the admin account, and then use

the su command to change to the root account.

6. Grow the xfs file system by typing xfs_growfs -d /data01.

7. Confirm the new partition size by typing df -h.

Configure the DD system Prerequisites

Before you can use DD to protect the system, use NFS to export the MTree that PowerProtect Data Manager uses on the DD system. The setup on the DD system requires that you add the PowerProtect Data Manager client with no_root_squash.

Steps

1. Use a web browser to log in to the DD System Manager as the system administrator. 2. In the Summary tab, Protocols pane, select NFS export > create export.

The Create NFS Exports window appears. 3. In the Create NFS Exports window:

a. In the Export Name field, specify the name of the DD MTree. b. If you have not yet created the DD MTree, follow the prompts to create the MTree and click Close. c. In the Directory path field, specify the full directory path for DD MTree that you created. Ensure that you use the same name for

the directory. d. Click OK.

A message appears to indicate that the NFS export configuration save is in progress and then complete. e. Click Close.

128 Modifying the System Settings

Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in

Topics:

Introducing the PowerProtect plug-in for the vSphere Client Prerequisites for enabling the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in Monitor PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection copies On-demand PowerProtect policy backup in the vSphere Client Image-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client File-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client

Introducing the PowerProtect plug-in for the vSphere Client When adding a vCenter Server in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, if you enable the vSphere Plugin option, a subset of the UI functionality becomes available within the vSphere Client.

The PowerProtect Data Manager portlet appears when you select Hosts and Clusters or VMs and Templates in the left pane of the vSphere Client home page, and then select a virtual machine within the datacenter.

Figure 6. PowerProtect portlet in the vSphere Client

NOTE: If you were already logged into the vSphere Client when the vCenter discovery was started in PowerProtect Data

Manager, you must log out and log back in to see the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

If the virtual assets in the vCenter have not yet been assigned to a PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy, only the PowerProtect name displays in the portlet. Adding the virtual machine to a protection policy provides additional information, as shown in the following figure.

12

Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in 129

Figure 7. PowerProtect portlet with protected virtual machine

After you set up a virtual machine protection policy, you can perform the following PowerProtect Data Manager functionality within the vSphere Client:

View information about protection policies and information about available protection copies. Monitor in-progress backup and restore operations for the virtual machine protection policy. You can also view information for

successfully completed protection copies that are available for restore. Perform a manual backup. Perform an image-level restore (Restore to Original, Restore to New, or Instant Access). Perform a file-level restore.

Prerequisites for enabling the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in To use the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in for backup and restore operations, complete the following tasks in the vSphere Client and the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Add and discover the vCenter ServerIn the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Infrastructure > Asset Sources, and move the vSphere Plugin slider to the right to enable the plug-in. Add a VMware vCenter Server on page 48 provides information.

Verify that the virtual machine assets for the vCenter have been discoveredIn the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to the Infrastructure > Assets window and select the Virtual Machines tab. About vCenter Server asset sources and virtual assets on page 47 provides more information.

Add privileges for the Virtual machine power user groupIn the vSphere Client, go to Administration > Roles, select the Virtual Machine power user (PPDM), and then open the Edit Role window . Add the following PowerProtect Data Manager privileges:

All PowerProtect restore privileges File Level Restore to Original Instant Access Restore to New Restore to Original

130 Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in

Figure 8. PowerProtect privileges added for the Virtual machine power user

NOTE: If you edit the vCenter Server in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI to unregister the vSphere Plugin for

PowerProtect Data Manager, these PowerProtect Data Manager privileges are not removed from the user group.

For the virtual asset (virtual machine, cluster, host) and all its child elements, add permissions to the Virtual machine power user group that you enabled with PowerProtect Data Manager privileges. To add these permissions, select the asset in the left pane of the vSphere Client, and then click the Permissions tab.

Add a virtual machine protection policy in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI Protection > Protection Policies window to schedule a backup of the virtual machines. Add a protection policy for a virtual machine on page 60 provides information.

Monitor PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection copies You can use the Monitor window in the vSphere Client to view PowerProtect Data Manager protection copies that are available for restore, and monitor in-progress backup and restore operations for the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policy.

In the Monitor window's navigation pane, select PowerProtect > Protection Copies to view information about completed PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy backups. This view is the same as the view in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI Infrastructure window. A copy map enables you to view the available protection copies when you click on the storage icon, as described in More options for managing virtual machine backups on page 64.

To view the status of active backup and restore operations initiated from the PowerProtect Data Manager UI or the vSphere Client, click the arrows icon in the lower right corner of the window to expand the Recent Tasks pane. You can also view this pane from the Summary window.

On-demand PowerProtect policy backup in the vSphere Client You can back up one or more PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policies at any time by performing a manual (on- demand) backup in the vSphere Client.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you are logged in to the vSphere Client as an administrator. Add the Backup privilege to the Administrator group in the vSphere Client. To add the Backup privilege, complete the following

steps:

1. Select Administration > Roles. 2. Select Administrator, and then click Privileges in the right pane. 3. In the PowerProtect Backup section, select Backup.

Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in 131

Ensure that virtual machine assets have been added to a virtual machine protection policy. You cannot perform manual backups of unprotected virtual machines.

Steps

1. Select Hosts and Clusters or VMs and Templates in the left pane of the vSphere Client home page, and then select a virtual machine within the datacenter. The Summary window displays.

2. Perform a manual backup of a virtual machine protection policy by using one of the following methods:

In the left pane, right-click the virtual machine, and then select PowerProtect > Backup. Within the PowerProtect portlet, click Backup Now.

The vSphere Client starts the backup operation. A message appears indicating whether the request was processed successfully.

Results

An entry for the backup job appears in the Jobs > Running window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI. To view the status of operations, you can also click the arrows icon in the lower right corner of the window to expand the Recent Tasks pane.

Image-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client You can use the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in to perform an image-level restore of a PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policy backup.

About this task

Available image-level restore options in the vSphere Client include:

Restore to OriginalRestore the virtual machine to the original location on the same vCenter. Restore Individual Virtual DisksRestore selected VMDKs to the original location on the same vCenter. Restore to NewRestore the virtual machine to a new location on the original vCenter or a different vCenter. Instant AccessRestore the backup as a live virtual machine to view the backup and then determine whether you want to do a full

restore. Instant Access sessions are made available for a default period of 7 days, which can be extended.

Steps

1. Select Hosts and Clusters or VMs and Templates in the left pane of the vSphere Client home page, and then select a virtual machine within the datacenter. The Summary window displays.

2. Access the backup copy by using one of the following methods:

In the left pane, right-click the virtual machine, and then select PowerProtect > Restore. Within the PowerProtect portlet, click Restore.

3. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. In the Choose Copy dialog:

a. Select the storage icon to access the backup copies. b. Choose from one of the available copies that appears in the table. c. Click OK to close the dialog and return to the Select Copy page. d. Click Next.

5. On the Purpose page, select from one of the following options:

Restore Entire VMsSelect this option if you want to restore the entire virtual machine. Restore Individual Virtual DIsksSelect this option if you want to restore only specific virtual machine disks (VMDKs).

NOTE: Individual VMDKs can only be restored to the original location.

6. Click Next.

132 Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in

If restoring entire virtual machines, the Restore Type page displays. If restoring individual VMDKs, the Select Disks page displays. 7. On the Restore Type page, select from one of the available restore options. The wizard updates to display the options specific to the

restore type that you selected.

NOTE: Options such as vCenter, resource pool, and datastore are limited to the logged-in vSphere user's

permissions, and are not necessarily the same as a PowerProtect Data Manager administrator.

For Instant Access restore, review the section Instant access virtual machine restore on page 88. For Restore to New, review the section Restore to new virtual machine on page 86. For Restore to Original, review the section Restore and Overwrite original virtual machine on page 84. For Restore Individual Virtual Disks, review the section Restore individual virtual disks on page 86.

8. On the Summary page, review your selections and then click Restore.

Results

An entry for the restore job appears in the Recent Tasks pane of the vSphere Client and in the Recovery > Running Activities window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Next steps

For Instant Access restores, when the virtual machine is powered on and you select the virtual machine in the left pane of the Summary window, the session information appears within the PowerProtect portlet. If you need extra time for this session, you can click Extend Session and increase session availability by up to 7 days.

File-level restore of a PowerProtect backup in the vSphere Client You can use the PowerProtect portlet in the vSphere Client to perform a file-level restore of a PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policy backup.

Prerequisites

Note the following before performing file-level restore in the vSphere Client:

A minimum vCenter version 6.7 U1 is required. Review the section Supported platform versions for file-level restore for supported platform and operating system versions. Review the section File-level restore and SQL restore limitations on page 105. Ensure that the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine by logging into the virtual machine and verifying that the agent

package is installed and the agent process is running. If the FLR Agent is not installed, the installation is initiated automatically when you start the mount.

When installing the FLR Agent on Windows virtual machines, the user must be an administrator account. When installing the FLR Agent on Linux virtual machines, the user must be the root user account. The section FLR Agent for virtual machine file-level restore on page 103 provides more information.

NOTE: For file-level restores, you can only restore files:

From a Windows backup to a Windows machine, or from a Linux backup to a Linux machine.

To virtual machines within the same vCenter.

About this task

Available file-level restore options in the vSphere Client include:

Restore single or multiple files to the original folder and overwrite the original files within the same virtual machine, or Restore single or multiple files to a new folder with a new name within the same virtual machine.

Steps

1. Select Hosts and Clusters or VMs and Templates in the left pane of the vSphere Client home page, and then select a virtual machine within the datacenter. The Summary window displays.

2. Access the backup copy by using one of the following methods:

Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in 133

In the left pane, right-click the virtual machine, and then select PowerProtect > File Level Restore. Within the PowerProtect portlet, click File Level Restore.

3. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and click Choose Copy. The Choose Copy dialog appears.

NOTE: If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.

4. In the Choose Copy dialog:

a. Select the storage icon to access the backup copies. b. Choose from one of the available copies that appears in the table. c. Click OK to close the dialog and return to the Select Copy page. d. Click Next.

5. On the Mount Copy page:

a. To initiate the disk mount, type the guest operating system user credentials:

If there are administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify end- user credentials.

If there are no administrator-level credentials associated with the virtual assets or protection policy being restored, specify administrator credentials. These credentials will be handled as end-user credentials.

b. (Optional) Leave Keep FLR Agent Installed selected when you want the FLR Agent to remain on the destination virtual machine after the restore completes.

c. Click Start Mount to initiate the disk mount. If not already installed, the FLR Agent is installed on the target virtual machine. A progress bar indicates when the mount completes.

NOTE: You cannot browse the contents of the virtual machine backup until the mounting of the destination

virtual machine completes successfully.

d. Upon successful mount, click Next. 6. On the Select Files to Recover page:

a. Expand individual folders to browse the original virtual machine backup, and select the objects that you want to restore to the destination virtual machine.

b. Click Next.

NOTE: In the browse view, each directory or hard drive appears twice. Selecting an object from one location selects

the object in the duplicate location as well.

7. On the Options page, select from one of the following options:

Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original FilesSelect this option to restore all selected files to their original location on the original virtual machine.

Restore to an Alternate FolderSelect this option if you want to restore to a new folder in a new location on the original virtual machine.

8. Click Next. If performing the restore to the original virtual machine, the Summary page displays. You can go to the final step. If performing the restore to an alternate location on the original virtual machine, the Restore Location page displays.

9. On the Restore Location page:

a. Browse the folder structure of the virtual machine to select the new folder where you want to restore the objects. b. Click Next.

10. On the Summary page:

a. Review the information to ensure that the restore details are correct. You can click Edit next to the Restore Location or Files Selected rows to change the information.

b. Click Restore.

Results

An entry for the restore job appears in the Recent Tasks pane of the vSphere Client and in the Recovery > Running Activities window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

134 Configuring the vSphere Client PowerProtect plug-in

Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services

Topics:

PowerProtect Data Manager image backup and recovery for VMware Cloud on AWS Configure the VMware Cloud on AWS web portal console Amazon AWS web portal requirements Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features vCenter server inventory requirements VMware Cloud on AWS configuration best practices Add a VM Direct Engine Protection and recovery operations Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features Unsupported operations in VMware Cloud on AWS Troubleshooting VMware Cloud on AWS

PowerProtect Data Manager image backup and recovery for VMware Cloud on AWS PowerProtect Data Manager provides image backup and restore support for VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Using PowerProtect Data Manager to protect virtual machines that are running in VMware Cloud on AWS is similar to how you protect the virtual machines in an on-premises data center. This section provides information on network configuration requirements, PowerProtect Data Manager best practices for VMware Cloud on AWS, and unsupported PowerProtect Data Manager operations for VMware Cloud on AWS.

To perform data protection and disaster recovery tasks in VMware Cloud on AWS, consider the following recommendations and requirements for the backup infrastructure deployment:

Deploy PowerProtect Data Manager in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment. Deploy the VM Direct Appliance in VMware Cloud on AWS environment. Deploy at least one VM Direct Appliance for each SDDC

cluster in the VMware Cloud on AWS. Clone backups to another DD system running either in the same AWS geographical location or in a different AWS geographical

location. This type of deployment enables backup copies to be stored for longer retention, leveraging the AWS network for transferring data at lower latency and cost when compared to the public Internet.

Store backups outside of the VMware Cloud on AWS environment. For example, store backups on the Amazon AWS VPC. This type of deployment enables efficient data transfer over the fast ENI connection that is used by VMware to communicate with Amazon AWS.

Clone your backups to another DD system that is running either in the same AWS geographical location or in a different AWS geographical location. This type of deployment enables backup copies to be stored for longer retention, leveraging the AWS network for transferring data at lower latency and cost when compared to the public Internet.

Configure the VMware Cloud on AWS web portal console Domain Name System (DNS) resolution is critical for deployment and configuration of PowerProtect Data Manager, the PowerProtect Data Manager external proxy, and the DD appliance. All infrastructure components should be resolvable through a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). Resolvable means that components are accessible through both forward (A) and reverse (PTR) lookups.

In the VMware Cloud on AWS web portal console, ensure that the following requirements are met:

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Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services 135

By default, there is no external access to the vCenter Server system in the Software Defined Data Center (SDDC). You can open access to the vCenter Server system by configuring a firewall rule. To enable communication to the vCenter public IP address from the SDDC logical network, set the firewall rule in the compute gateway of VMware Cloud on AWS. If the firewall rule is not configured in the SDDC, PowerProtect Data Manager does not allow you to add the vCenter Server.

The default compute gateway firewall rules prevent all virtual machine traffic from reaching the internet. To enable the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine to connect to the internet, create a compute gateway firewall rule. This action enables outbound traffic on the logical network to which the PowerProtect Data Manager server virtual machine is connected.

Configure DNS to allow machines in the SDDC to resolve Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) to IP addresses belonging to the internet. If the DNS server is not configured in the SDDC, the PowerProtect Data Manager server does not allow you to add the vCenter Server by using the server's public FQDN or IP address.

It is recommended that you deploy the DD system as a virtual appliance in the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). During the SDDC creation, connect the SDDC to an AWS account, and then select a VPC and subnet within that account.

The DD system running in the Amazon VPC must be connected to the VMware SDDC through the VMware Cloud Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs). This action allows the SDDC, the services in the AWS VPC, and subnet in the AWS account to communicate without having to route traffic through the internet gateway.

The same ENI channel is recommended for access to DD systems.

For more information about configuring ENIs, see https://vmc.vmware.com/console/aws-link. If DDVE is running in the Amazon VPC, configure the inbound and outbound firewall rules of the compute gateway for DD

connectivity.

For detailed information on what incoming on outgoing ports need to be opened for PowerProtect-VM proxy solution, refer to the PowerProtect Data Manager Security Configuration Guide.

If using NSX-T, configure the DNS to resolve to the internal IP address of the vCenter server. Navigate to SDDC Management > Settings > vCenter FQDN and select the Private vCenter IP address so that you can directly access the management network over the built-in firewall. Additionally, ensure that you open TCP port 443 of the vCenter server in both the management gateway and the compute gateway.

Amazon AWS web portal requirements In the Amazon AWS web portal, ensure that the following requirements are met:

If a DD system is running in your Amazon VPC, configure the inbound and outbound firewall rules of your Amazon VPC security group to provide connectivity between the VMware SDDC compute gateway and DD connectivity.

If you are replicating from one DD system to another, configure the inbound rule for the security group in AWS to allow all traffic from the respective private IPs of the DD Virtual Editions running in your Amazon VPC.

If you have more than one DD instance running in AWS to perform replication, both DD systems must have the ability to ping each other using the FQDNs.

Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features VMware Cloud on AWS has certain restrictions on workloads and resource pools. To ensure proper operation, select the Workload an Compute sections in AWS.

Do not use the following non-accessible areas:

vSANdatastore datastore Management VMs folder in VMs and Templates view Mgmt-ResourcePool resource pool in Hosts and Clusters view

vCenter server inventory requirements In the vCenter server inventory of your SDDC, ensure that the following requirements are met:

An internal DNS name lookup server must be running inside the vCenter inventory. This will be referenced by all the workloads running in the VMware SDDC.

The internal DNS server must have Forwarders enabled to access the internet. This action is required to resolve the vCenter Server's public FQDN. Forwarders are DNS servers that the server can use to resolve DNS queries for records that the server cannot resolve.

136 Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services

VMware Cloud on AWS configuration best practices For VMware Cloud on AWS support, ensure that the following requirements are met:

When deploying or configuring PowerProtect Data Manager or the VM Direct appliance, ensure that correct DNS server IP points to the internal DNS server that is running in the vCenter inventory.

Ensure that both forward and reverse lookup entries in the internal DNS server are in place for all of the required components, such as PowerProtect Data Manager, VM Direct appliance, and the DDVE appliance.

If using NSX-T, add the vCenter server toPowerProtect Data Manager by using the FQDN. If using NSX-V, add the vCenter server to PowerProtect Data Manager by using the public FQDN of the vCenter server. When adding the vCenter server to PowerProtect Data Manager, specify the login credentials for the cloudadmin@vmc.local user. When configuring the VM Direct appliance in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment, ensure that you select the transport mode as Hot

Add only. VMware Cloud on AWS does not support the NBD transport mode.

Add a VM Direct Engine In the Protection Engines window, perform the following steps to deploy a VM Direct Engine to facilitate data movement with the VM Direct protection engine.

About this task

The PowerProtect Data Manager software comes bundled with an embedded VM Direct Engine, which is automatically used as a fallback proxy for performing backups and restores when the added external proxies fail or are disabled. Dell EMC recommends that you deploy external proxies because the embedded proxy has limited capacity for performing parallel backups.

Steps

1. In the VM Direct Engines pane of the Protection Engines window, click Add. 2. In the Add VM Direct Engines dialog box, complete the required fields, which are marked with an asterisk.

Consider the following:

Only IPv4 addresses are supported for the Gateway, IP Address, Netmask, and Primary DNS. If you have added multiple vCenter Server instances, the vCenter to Deploy list enables you to select the vCenter on which to

deploy the VM Direct Engine.

NOTE: Do NOT select the internal vCenter in this step.

The ESX Host/Cluster list enables you to select on which cluster or ESXi host you want to deploy the additional VM Direct Engine.

The Network list shows all the networks that are available under the selected ESXi Host/Cluster. The Data Store list shows all datastores that are accessible to the selected ESXi Host/Cluster based on ranking (whether the

datastores are shared, local, or NFS), and available capacity (the datastore with the most capacity appearing at the top of the list). You can choose the specific datastore on which the VM Direct Engine will reside or leave the default selection of to

enable PowerProtect Data Manager to determine the best location to host the VM Direct Engine. The Transport Mode list enables you to select either Hot Add or Network Block Device (NBD) transport mode or to default to

Hot Add mode and fail back to NBD only if Hot Add cannot be used. NOTE: When configuring the VM Direct Engine in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment, ensure that you select

the transport mode as Hot Add. VMware Cloud on AWS does not support the NBD transport mode.

3. Click Save. The VM Direct Engine is added to the VM Direct Engines pane. Note that it can take several minutes before the new VM Direct Engine is registered in PowerProtect Data Manager. The VM Direct Engine appears in the vSphere Client window.

Results

When an external VM Direct Engine is deployed and registered, it is used by PowerProtect Data Manager instead of the embedded VM Direct for any data protection operations involving virtual machine protection policies, unless all added VM Direct Engines are unavailable. If no added VM Direct Engine is available, the embedded VM Direct Engine is used as a fallback to perform limited scale backups and restores. If you do not want to use an added VM Direct Engine, you can disable that proxy. Additional VM Direct actions on page 53 provides more information.

Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services 137

Next steps

If the VM Direct Engine deployment fails, review the network configuration of PowerProtect Data Manager in the System Settings window to correct any inconsistencies in network properties. After successfully completing the network reconfiguration, you must delete the failed VM Direct Engine and then add the VM Direct Engine in the Protection Engines window.

When configuring the VM Direct Engine in a VMware Cloud on AWS environment, if the VM Direct Engine is deployed to the root of the cluster instead of inside the Compute-ResourcePool, you must move the VM Direct Engine inside the Compute-ResourcePool.

Protection and recovery operations Using PowerProtect Data Manager to protect virtual machines that are running in VMware Cloud on AWS is similar to how you protect the virtual machines in an on-premises data center.

Once you complete the tasks to set up and run a virtual machine protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager, you can perform the following PowerProtect Data Manager functionality:

In the Summary window, view information about protection policies and, if policies have been run in PowerProtect Data Manager, information about available protection copies.

In the Monitor window, actively monitor in-progress backup and restore operations for the virtual machine protection policy, and view information for successfully completed protection copies that are available for restore.

Perform a Restore to Original, Restore to New, or Instant Access restore. You can initiate a restore from the Monitor window, or by right-clicking a virtual machine and selecting PowerProtect > Restore.

Interoperability with VMware Cloud on AWS product features VMware Cloud on AWS has certain restrictions on workloads and resource pools. To ensure proper operation, select the Workload an Compute sections in AWS.

Do not use the following non-accessible areas:

vSANdatastore datastore Management VMs folder in VMs and Templates view Mgmt-ResourcePool resource pool in Hosts and Clusters view

Unsupported operations in VMware Cloud on AWS PowerProtect Data Manager image backup and restore in VMware Cloud on AWS does not currently support the following operations:

Application-consistent data protection for MS-SQL with the VM Direct appliance. File-level restore from an image-level backup if using NSX-V. Note that this operation is supported if using NSX-T. Instant access recovery of an image-level backup. Emergency restore (image-level restore directly to an ESXi host, bypassing the vCenter). Image-level backups and restores that use NBD or the NBDSSL transport mode. VM Direct appliance that is configured with dual-stack or IPv6. If a datacenter is placed inside a folder in the SDDC, image backup and restore is not supported. VM Backup and Recovery plugin (HTML5) for vSphere is not supported.

Troubleshooting VMware Cloud on AWS When restoring as new VM, the reconnect NIC option might not work correctly.

Workaround 1. Edit the settings of the restored new VM and change the network to "VM Network" and then click Apply. 2. Reopen the Edit Setting Configuration pane of the VM and then change the network to the correct NSX-T network logical switch. 3. Click Connect.

138 Configuring VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services

Upgrading the PowerProtect software

Topics:

Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.5 and later Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.4 and later Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.2 and 19.3 Upgrade the software from PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1

Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.5 and later Use this procedure to upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.5 or later or to apply critical updates.

Prerequisites

Download the upgrade package from Dell EMC Support Downloads and Drivers. Ensure that you have administrator credentials. Only a PowerProtect Data Manager administrator can initiate the upgrade. To enable automatic snapshots, ensure that the vCenter hosting PowerProtect Data Manager is added as an asset source. Check for running tasks and cancel them or allow them to complete. Disable any Protection Policies that are scheduled to run in the next few hours.

About this task

NOTE: If SRS is configured and a critical update is available in the SRS gateway, a notification appears in the UI. You

can also download available critical updates that appear in the Support Site section of the Upgrade page.

An upgrade package can upgrade one or more of the following:

The PowerProtect Data Manager, including application agent installers stored on the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine External VM DIrect appliance Kubernetes support and PowerProtect Search software.

The upgrade process automatically stops all running jobs, puts the system into maintenance mode, and creates a snapshot of the system. If the upgrade fails or is aborted, the system uses the snapshot to roll back to the previous state. Once the system is rolled back or upgraded successfully, the snapshot is automatically deleted.

At any time, you can check if the PowerProtect Data Manager system is ready to upgrade by running a manual precheck. Run a manual precheck on page 140 provides more information.

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select System Settings > Upgrade.

Click the down arrow next to the package name to view details about the contents.

3. Click Upload Package, browse to the path that contains the upgrade package, select the package, and then click Open. 4. Wait until the package status is Available, and then click OK.

5. Click to start the upgrade.

The upgrade manager runs a precheck.

If a critical issue is found, the upgrade is cancelled. Fix any issues and run the precheck to ensure that the issue is fixed. If non-critical issues are found, Dell EMC recommends that you fix any issues and run the precheck before proceeding with the

upgrade.

6. Click Continue, enter the lockbox passphrase, if required and click Yes to proceed.

14

Upgrading the PowerProtect software 139

The upgrade begins. The browser is redirected to the Upgrade Manager UI on port 14443. This action enables you to monitor upgrade progress while the PowerProtect Data Manager components are shutdown for the upgrade.

NOTE: To monitor the update status if the connection to the appliance closes, connect to https:// IP_address_appliance:14443.

The Upgrade Manager status bar enables you to abort the upgrade, if necessary.

When the upgrade completes successfully, the browser is redirected back to the main PowerProtect Data Manager UI login page.

Results

The Upgrade page indicates the status of the upgrade.

If the upgrade fails, but PowerProtect Data Manager is still running:

1. Wait for the Upgrade Manager to finish processing. 2. Click Return to Dashboard and log in to view the issue. 3. Select System Settings > Upgrade to view the issue that caused the failure. 4. Fix the issue that caused the failure, and then retry the upgrade.

If the upgrade fails and PowerProtect Data Manager is not running:

1. Click Export Logs to download the log files for troubleshooting. 2. Click Rollback to snapshot to restore the core PowerProtect Data Manager system to its state before the upgrade.

3. On the Upgrade page, click to delete the failed upgrade package. 4. Review the log files to determine the cause of the failure.

If you can resolve the issues manually, try the upgrade again. If you cannot resolve the issues, contact Dell EMC Support.

Run a manual precheck At any time, you can run a manual precheck to check if the PowerProtect Data Manager system is ready to upgrade or to verify that any issues that caused a previous precheck to fail are now resolved.

About this task

To run a manual precheck, complete the following steps:

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select System Settings > Upgrade.

Click the down arrow next to the package name to view details about the contents.

3. To upload an upgrade package:

NOTE: You can skip this step if you have already uploaded the upgrade package.

a. Click Upload Package, browse to the path that contains the upgrade package, select the package, and then click Open. b. Wait until the package status is Available, and then click OK.

4. To run the precheck, click in the Actions column.

When the precheck is complete, a dialog box lists any areas that require attention, such as indication that the upgrade is disruptive or requires a reboot. The dialog box also includes warnings about running tasks or active sessions that should be addressed before the upgrade. Click the links that are provided to go to the management page for the active events, where you can cancel them or allow them to complete before continuing.

The dialog box also indicates if any application agents managed by PowerProtect Data Manager are not compatible with the latest version of the PowerProtect Data Manager system. Manually upgrade the application agents to the latest version before you upgrade the PowerProtect Data Manager system.

NOTE: If there are any unacknowledged critical alerts, the precheck fails. If this occurs, an error message is

displayed indicating that you must acknowledge the critical alerts before continuing. To acknowledge critical alerts,

in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Alerts > System.

140 Upgrading the PowerProtect software

Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.4 and later Use this procedure to upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.4 or later or to apply critical updates.

Prerequisites

Download the upgrade package from Dell EMC Support Downloads and Drivers. Ensure that you have administrator credentials. Only a PowerProtect Data Manager administrator can initiate the upgrade. To enable automatic snapshots, ensure that the vCenter hosting PowerProtect Data Manager is added as an asset source. Check for running tasks and cancel them or allow them to complete. Disable any Protection Policies that are scheduled to run in the next few hours.

About this task

NOTE: If SRS is configured and a critical update is available in the SRS gateway, a notification appears in the UI. You

can also download available critical updates that appear in the Support Site section of the Upgrade page.

An upgrade package can upgrade one or more of the following:

The PowerProtect Data Manager, including application agent installers stored on the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine External VM DIrect appliance Kubernetes support and PowerProtect Search software.

The upgrade process automatically stops all running jobs, puts the system into maintenance mode, and creates a snapshot of the system. If the upgrade fails or is aborted, the system uses the snapshot to roll back to the previous state. Once the system is rolled back or upgraded successfully, the snapshot is automatically deleted.

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select System Settings > Upgrade.

Click the down arrow next to the package name to view details about the contents.

3. Click Upload Package, browse to the path that contains the upgrade package, select the package, and then click Open. 4. Wait until the package status is Available, and then click OK. 5. Click Upgrade.

The upgrade manager runs a precheck.

If a critical issue is found, the upgrade is cancelled. Fix any issues and run the precheck to ensure that the issue is fixed. If non-critical issues are found, Dell EMC recommends that you fix any issues and run the precheck before proceeding with the

upgrade.

NOTE: If there are any unacknowledged critical alerts, the precheck fails. If this occurs, an error message is

displayed indicating that you must acknowledge the critical alerts before continuing. To acknowledge critical alerts,

in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Alerts > System.

6. Click Continue, enter the lockbox passphrase, if required and click Yes to proceed. The upgrade begins. The browser is redirected to the Upgrade Manager UI on port 14443. This enables you to monitor upgrade progress while the PowerProtect Data Manager components are shutdown for the upgrade.

NOTE: To monitor the update status if the connection to the appliance closes, connect to https:// IP_address_appliance:14443.

The Upgrade Manager status bar enables you to abort the upgrade, if necessary.

When the upgrade completes successfully, the browser is redirected back to the main PowerProtect Data Manager UI logon page.

Results

The Upgrade page indicates the status of the upgrade.

If the upgrade fails, but PowerProtect Data Manager is still running:

1. Wait for the Upgrade Manager to finish processing.

Upgrading the PowerProtect software 141

2. Click Return to Dashboard and log in to view the issue. 3. Select System Settings > Upgrade to view the issue that caused the failure. 4. Fix the issue that caused the failure, and then retry the upgrade.

If the upgrade fails and PowerProtect Data Manager is not running:

1. Click Export Logs to download the log files for troubleshooting. 2. Click Rollback to snapshot to restore the core PowerProtect Data Manager system to its state before the upgrade. 3. On the Upgrade page, click Delete to delete the failed upgrade package. 4. Review the log files to determine the cause of the failure.

If you can resolve the issues manually, try the upgrade again. If you cannot resolve the issues, contact Dell EMC Support.

Upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.2 and 19.3 Use this procedure to upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager from version 19.2 or 19.3 or to apply critical updates.

Prerequisites

The upgrade process automatically stops all running jobs, puts the system into maintenance mode, and creates a snapshot of the system. If the upgrade fails or is aborted, the system uses the snapshot to roll back to the previous state. Once the system is rolled back or upgraded successfully, the snapshot is automatically deleted.

Download the upgrade package from Dell EMC Support Downloads and Drivers. Ensure that you have administrator credentials. Only a PowerProtect Data Manager administrator can initiate the upgrade. To enable automatic snapshots, ensure that the vCenter hosting PowerProtect Data Manager is added as an asset source. Check for running tasks and cancel them or allow them to complete. Disable any Protection Policies that are scheduled to run in the next few hours.

NOTE: Before starting an upgrade from version 19.3 to 19.4, ensure that you run an ad hoc DR backup operation to back

up the Search Service, which is not included in the automatic DR backup that runs before the upgrade.

About this task

An upgrade package can upgrade one or more of the following:

The PowerProtect Data Manager, including application agent installers stored on the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine External VM DIrect appliance Kubernetes support and PowerProtect Search software.

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select System Settings > Upgrade. 3. Click Upload Upgrade File, browse to the path that contains the upgrade package, select the package, and then click Open.

The package downloads and appears in the list of packages. Click the down arrow next to the package name to view details about the contents.

4. When the package status is Available, click Upgrade. 5. Enter the Lockbox passphrase, if required, and then click Continue.

A dialog box lists any areas that require attention, such as an indication that the upgrade is disruptive or requires a reboot, and warnings about running tasks or active sessions that should be addressed before the upgrade. Click the links that are provided to go to the management page for the active events, where you can cancel them or allow them to complete before continuing.

NOTE:

Although the upgrade can proceed even if jobs or IA sessions are active, it is not recommended.

If you are upgrading from version 19.3 to 19.4 or later, the precheck fails if there are any unacknowledged critical

alerts. If this occurs, an error message is displayed indicating that you must acknowledge the critical alerts before

continuing. To acknowledge critical alerts, in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, go to Alerts > System.

142 Upgrading the PowerProtect software

The dialog box also lists any required certificates. Continuing indicates acceptance of the certificate. 6. Click Yes to proceed.

The upgrade begins. The browser is redirected to the Upgrade Manager UI on port 14443. This enables you to monitor upgrade progress while the PowerProtect Data Manager components are shutdown for the upgrade.

NOTE: To monitor the update status if the connection to the Upgrade Manager closes, connect to https:// IP_address_upgrade_manager:14443.

The Upgrade Manager status bar enables you to abort the upgrade, if necessary.

When the upgrade completes successfully, the browser is redirected back to the main PowerProtect Data Manager UI logon page.

Results

The Upgrade page indicates the status of the upgrade.

If the upgrade fails:

1. Click Export Logs to download the log files for troubleshooting. 2. Click Rollback to snapshot to restore the core PowerProtect Data Manager system to its state before the upgrade. 3. On the Upgrade page, click Delete to delete the failed upgrade package. 4. Review the log files to determine the cause of the failure.

If you can resolve the issues, try the upgrade again. If you cannot resolve the issues, contact Dell EMC Support.

Upgrade the software from PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1 You cannot upgrade PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1 directly to a version later than 19.3. Use this procedure to upgrade from PowerProtect Data Manager version 19.1 to version 19.2 or 19.3. You can then upgrade to version 19.4 or later.

Prerequisites

Download the upgrade package from Dell EMC Support Downloads and Drivers. Ensure that you have administrator credentials. Only an administrator can initiate the upgrade. Check for running tasks and cancel them or allow them to complete. Disable any Protection Policies that are scheduled to run in the next few hours. Take a snapshot of the system: Select the PowerProtect VM in the vSphere Client, right click, and then select Snapshot > Take

snapshot.

About this task

An upgrade package can upgrade one or more of the following:

The PowerProtect Data Manager, including application agent installers stored on the PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine External VM DIrect appliance

Steps

1. Log in to PowerProtect Data Manager with administrator credentials. 2. Select System Settings > Upgrade. 3. Click Upload Upgrade File, browse to the path that contains the upgrade package, select the package, and then click Open. 4. Wait until the package status is Available, and then click OK. 5. Optional: Click Perform upgrade.

A dialog box lists any areas that require attention, such as an indication that the upgrade is disruptive or requires a reboot and warnings about running tasks or active sessions that should be addressed before the upgrade. Click the links that are provided to go to the management page for the active events, where you can cancel them or allow them to complete before continuing.

NOTE: Although the upgrade can proceed even if jobs or IA sessions are active, it is not recommended.

The dialog box also lists any required certificates. Continuing indicates acceptance of the certificate.

6. Enter the Lockbox Passphrase, if required.

Upgrading the PowerProtect software 143

The upgrade begins. The browser is redirected to the Upgrade Manager UI on port 14443, which enables you to monitor upgrade progress while the PowerProtect Data Manager components are shut down for the upgrade.

NOTE: To monitor the update status if the connection to the appliance closes, connect to https:// IP_address_appliance:14443.

When the upgrade is successful, the browser is redirected back to the main PowerProtect Data Manager UI login page. 7. Log in toPowerProtect Data Manager and return to the Upgrade page to verify that the state of the upgrade is Installed.

Results

The overall package status covers critical upgrades for the PowerProtect Data Manager. Other subcomponents, such as Agents and vProxies, might still be processing or even fail, but the upgrade continues. You can view the state of each subcomponent by expanding the package that was installed.

NOTE: If the upgrade fails, you must delete the failed package before uploading a new package (or the same package)

to try again.

Next steps

If you created a manual snapshot, use the vSphere Client to delete the snapshot:

1. Right-click the appliance, and then select Manage Snapshots. 2. In the Manage Snapshots window, select the snapshot and click Delete.

NOTE: If you are planning to use Cloud DR, contact the Dell EMC Support team for assistance to enable Cloud DR

failback flow.

144 Upgrading the PowerProtect software