Protect VMware virtual machines

Updated: August 23, 2016

Once you've added the VMware server(s) to DPM, you're almost ready to start protection in DPM. However, before you begin protection, you need to allocate disk storage that DPM can use for short-term storage. For guidance on adding storage, see Adding Storage to DPM. Once you have added storage, you are ready to use the Create New Protection Group wizard to create a protection group for the VMware VMs.

VMware provides VM folders that let you organize VMs as you like, whether it is based on applications to which those VMs belong, or to departments in the business.

DPM can protect individual VMs, as well as cascading levels of folders that contain VMs. Once you select a folder for protection, all folders (and VMs) within this folder are automatically detected and protected. This is called folder-level protection. DPM detects and configures protection for the VMs at 12 AM (based on the DPM server's local timezone). When DPM detects that new VMs have been created, DPM configures protection by end of that day.

In large VMware deployments, a single vCenter server can manage thousands of VMs. DPM supports scale-out protection of VMware server clusters. The new scale-out feature removes the limit of a one-to-one relationship between a VMware cluster and a DPM server. You can add a VM to a protection group on any of the recognized DPM servers. Please note, scale-out protection is only available for VMs hosted on servers running Windows Server 2012. Multiple DPM servers can be used to protect VMs managed by a single vCenter server. While multiple DPM servers can be used to protect VMs deployed on the same vCenter server, only one DPM server can protect a VM or folder at any given time. VMs and folders that are already protected by one DPM server cannot be selected by another DPM server. To deploy scale-out protection, there must be a minimum of two DPM servers, for example D1 and D2, which are visible to all virtual machines hosted on nodes N1, N2, N3 and N4. When protection groups on D1 or D2 are created, any of the virtual machines from V1 to V8 can be added to the DPM for protection.

DPM can back up VMware VMs to disk and to the Azure cloud. You specify the protection method while creating the new Protection Group.

For all operational recovery scenarios like accidental deletion or corruption scenarios, back up to disk. For long-term retention or offsite backup requirements, back up to cloud. See the Azure Backup documentation, for more information about long-term retention.

DPM provides application-consistent backups of Windows VMs and file-consistent backups of Linux VMs (provided you install VMware tools on the guest).

Use the Create New Protection Group wizard to protect your VMware VMs.

1. In the Administrator Console, click Protection.

2. On the tool ribbon, click New.

   The Create New Protection Group wizard opens.

   

3. In the Select Protection Group Type screen, select Servers and click Next.

4. In the Select Group Members screen, expand the Available members folders and select the folders to protect and click Next.

   Once you select a folder, the member is added to the Selected members list. Note: items already protected by a DPM server cannot be selected, and will not be a member of the protection group. View the DPM server that protects an item by hovering over the item in the Available members list.

   

5. On the Select Data Protection Method screen, type a Protection group name, and then select the protection method.

   For protection method, you can choose: short-term protection to a hard drive, or online protection to the cloud. Note that tape protection is not supported for VMware VMs. Once you've selected your protection method, click Next.

6. On the Specify Short-Term Goals screen, for the Retention Range specify the number of days your data will be kept on disk.

   If you want to change the schedule when application recovery points are taken, click Modify. On the Express Full Backup tab, choose a new schedule for the time(s) and days of the week when Express Full Backups are taken. The default is daily at 8 PM, local time for the DPM server.

   When you have the short-term goals you like, click Next .

7. On the Review Disk Allocation screen, recommended disk allocations are displayed. Recommendations are based on the retention range, the type of workload and the size of the protected data.

   • Data size - Size of data in protection group.

   • Disk space - The amount of disk space DPM recommends for allocation to the protection group. If you want to modify this setting you should allocate total space that’s slightly larger than the amount you estimate that each data source will grow.

   • Colocate data - If you enable colocation multiple data sources in the protection group can map to a single replica and recovery point volume. Colocation isn’t supported for all workloads.

   • Automatically grow - If you enable this setting, if data in the protected group outgrows the initial allocations, DPM will try to automatically increase the disk size by 25%.

   • Storage pool details - Shows the current status of the storage pool, including total and remaining disk size.

   Click Next.

8. On the Choose Replica Creation Method screen, specify how the initial replication of data in the protection group will be performed. If you select to replicate over the network we recommended you choose an off-peak time. For large amounts of data or less than optimal network conditions, consider replicating the data offline using removable media.

9. On the Consistency Check Options screen, select how you want to automate consistency checks. You can enable a check to run only when replica data becomes inconsistent, or according to a schedule. If you don’t want to configure automatic consistency checking, you can run a manual check at any time by right-clicking the protection group in the Protection area of the DPM console, and selecting Perform Consistency Check.

10. On the Specify Online Protection Data screen, select the data source(s) that you want to protect.

11. On the Specify Online Backup Schedule screen, specify how often you want to take a backup from the disk backup to Azure. A recovery point is created each time a backup is taken.

12. On the Specify Online Retention Policy screen, specify how long you want to retain your data in Azure.

    You can read more about backing up DPM to Azure in Back up DPM workloads with Azure Backup.

13. On the Choose Online Replication screen, choose your method for creating your initial backup copy. The default choice is to send the initial backup copy of your data over the network. However, if you have an extremely large amount of data, it may be more timely to use the Offline Backup feature. See the Offline Backup topicin Azure for more information, including a step-by-step walkthrough.

14. On the Summary screen, review the settings. If you are interested in optimizing performance of the protection group, see the topic, Optimizing DPM operations that affect performance. Once you are satisfied with all settings for the protection group, click Create Group to create the protection group and trigger the initial backup copy.

    The Status screen appears and gives you an update on the creation of your protection group, and the state of your initial backup.