IBM Spectrum Protect for VMware vSAN Virtual Environments

Products

• VMware vSAN

Issue/Introduction

Purpose
This article provides information about protecting VMware vSphere deployments based on the VMware vSphere vSAN infrastructure using IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments 8.1. x. 
Disclaimer:  The partner solution referenced in this article is a solution that is developed and supported by a partner. Use of this product is also governed by the end user license agreement of the partner. You must obtain from the partner the application, support, and licensing for using this product. For more information, see IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments.
Resolution
Here is a summary of target use cases [file services or data protection], solution architecture, solution components, and support information.
Use cases
IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments 8.1.x provides data protection for virtual machines hosted in a VMware vSAN environment and supports these use cases:

• Virtual machine data protection providing backup to a centralized IBM Spectrum Protect server
• Incremental forever virtual machine backup using VMware’s Change Block Tracking (CBT) feature to reduce the daily backup workload to only data that has changed since the previous backup operation
• Integrated data protection management using the vSphere Client plugin for IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments
• Data compression and data deduplication at the backup source or target
• Automatic discovery of new virtual machine inventory without having to modify existing data protection policies
• Recovery of a virtual machine to a vSAN environment or to a non-vSAN environment
• Recovery of files and/or directories within supported Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines
• Backup and recovery of individual virtual machine disks (VMDK)
• Ability to instantly access a virtual machine image by accessing data directly from the IBM Spectrum Protect server backup storage
• Ability to instantly restore a virtual machine by accessing data directly from the IBM Spectrum Protect server backup storage and migrating the storage to vSAN storage
• Protection of Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange Server applications running within a virtual machine

Resolution

Solution Architecture
The recommended architecture for protecting virtual machines in a VMware vSAN environment allows a customer to protect virtual machine workloads by providing backup to a centralized Spectrum Protect backup server with storage outside of the production vSAN datastore as shown in the diagram below:

The IBM Spectrum Protect components for this solution are:

• Spectrum Protect backup server which provides automated, centrally scheduled, policy-managed backup capabilities for virtual machines and other workloads. This component can be installed in the virtual vSphere infrastructure, as a physical component, or hosted in a compatible cloud service.
• Spectrum Protect backup storage which can consist of disk-based, cloud-based, or tape-based storage organized into storage containers or storage pools.  For disk-based storage, the storage could be hosted in a virtual vSphere environment but would be on different datastores then the resources on the vSAN datastores which are being protected.  For more information about which cloud object storage environments are certified with IBM Spectrum Protect see this IBM Support document.
• Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environment (Data Protection for VMware) data movers which are responsible for moving data between the protected vSAN datastores and the Spectrum Protect backup storage for backup and recovery operations. This component is installed on a virtual machine instance hosted by the vSAN datastore(s) which are being protected.

Solution Components
The following components are required for data protection of virtual machines in VMware Cloud on AWS:

• IBM Spectrum Protect Server 8.1.x or higher
• IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments – Data Protection for VMware 8.1.x or higher

Detailed information about the solution can be found in the IBM Knowledge Center

Installation and Configuration
Installation and configuration of the IBM Spectrum Protect Server component can be found in the IBM Knowledge Center
The following are best practices for installation of IBM Spectrum Protect components in a VMware vSAN environment

• IBM Spectrum Protect server components should not be installed in the vSAN environment being protected. The IBM Spectrum Protect server (database and storage pools) should be hosted outside of the environment being protected.
• IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments data mover components should be deployed on the ESXi servers hosting the vSAN environment so that data movement for backup and restore operations can take advantage of the HotAdd transport.

Steps to install and configure IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments – Data Protection for VMware component.

1. Review the IBM Knowledge Center article: Installing and upgrading Data Protection for VMware
2. Follow the instructions on how to install and configure data movers.  As noted above, the data movers should optimally be installed on the ESXi servers hosting the vSAN environment.
3. Update the option file for each of the data movers to indicate to only use the HotAdd or NBDSSL transport methods. This can be done by configuring the VMVSTORTRANSPORT option in the dsm.opt or dsm.sys file as follows
   
   VMVSTORTRANSPORT hotadd:nbdssl

Support Information

• For information on troubleshooting and collecting IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments logs refer to this IBM Support article.
• Information about IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments error messages can be found in this IBM Knowledge Center article
• Note that this are no special considerations for troubleshooting and collecting IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments logs or for viewing error messages in a VMware vSAN environment.
• To download entitled software from IBM visit Passport Advantage to download most purchased software products, or My Entitled Systems Support to download system software. Please note that you would need to login to access Passport Advantage 
• Information about enabling and collecting logs on vCenter and ESXi components can be found in this IBM Support article.
• For information about support see the IBM Support home page.  

For more information on IBM Spectrum Protect and IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments see  the IBM Spectrum Protect home page.