Configuring Data Protection for VMware

You must configure Data Protection for VMware to preserve Microsoft VSS metadata information during a virtual machine backup for systems that are hosting Microsoft SQL Server data.

About this task

Data Protection for VMware provides application consistency when you back up virtual machines that are hosting Microsoft SQL Servers. With these backups, you can recover the virtual machine with Microsoft SQL Server in a consistent state.

To recover only selected databases from this type of backup with Tivoli® Storage Manager, without having to recover the entire virtual machine, preserve information about the state of the Microsoft SQL Server at the time of the virtual machine snapshot and backup. This information is collected as part of the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) interaction that occurs during a virtual machine snapshot.

For Data Protection for VMware to collect the Microsoft VSS metadata for Microsoft SQL Server, you must configure Data Protection for VMware to obtain this information from the virtual machine during the backup operation.

Procedure

  1. Configure Data Protection for VMware to preserve the Microsoft VSS metadata information during a virtual machine backup for systems that are hosting Microsoft SQL Server data.
    1. Locate the options file for the Data Protection for VMware data mover. On Windows systems, the options file is dsm.opt. On Linux systems, the options file is dsm.sys.
    2. Specify the INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS option for the virtual machine. You must set this option for virtual machine backups to preserve the Microsoft VSS metadata information. Choose from the options in the following table:
      Table 1. INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS options
      Option Result
      INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm_display_name When you set this option, virtual machine applications receive a notification when a backup is going to occur. This notification allows the application to commit transactions and truncate transaction logs so that the application can resume from a consistent state when the backup completes.

      vm_display_name refers to the name of the virtual machine as shown in the VMware vSphere Client and vSphere Web Client.

      INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm_display_name OPTions=KEEPSqllog When you set this option, SQL server logs are not truncated when a data mover node backs up a virtual machine that runs a SQL server. By specifying this parameter, you can manually preserve the SQL Server logs and restore SQL transactions to a specific checkpoint after the virtual machine is restored. When you specify this option, the SQL log is not truncated.
    3. Verify that the Virtual Machine Disks (VMDK) that host the Microsoft SQL Server database are not being excluded from the virtual machine backup operation. Repeat the preceding steps for all data movers that protect virtual machines that are hosting Microsoft SQL Server.
  2. On each data mover, for example, datamover10, store the guest virtual machine credentials to Data Protection for VMware by running the following command from the Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client command line: 
    dsmc set password –type=vmguest vm_guest_display_name 
guest_admin_ID guest_admin_pw
    This command stores the guest virtual machine credentials, which are encrypted on the system that hosts the data mover. The following minimum permissions are required for guest_admin_ID guest_admin_pw:
    • Backup rights: Users with the db_backupoperator database role are granted to run the self-contained application data backup. If the user is a member of the SQL Server sysadmin fixed server role, the user can back up any databases of Microsoft SQL Server instance. The user can also back up the databases for which the user is the owner and does not have backup rights to a specific database. The guest VM user must have permission to create Volume Shadow Copies and to truncate SQL Server logs.
    • Restore rights: If the database exists, you can complete the restoreoperation if you are a member of the dbcreator fixed server role, or if you are the database owner. Users with a Microsoft SQL Server sysadmin fixed server role have permission to restore a database from any backup sets. For other users, the situation depends on whether the database exists.

What to do next

You can verify the virtual machine backup configuration and ensure that the VMDKs are included. In addition, you can view other parameters by issuing the backup command with the preview option from the backup-archive client, for example: 
dsmc backup vm vm_display_name -preview -asnode=datacenter_node
You can also use the Tivoli Storage Manager scheduler to schedule periodic backups of your virtual machines. You can also back up the virtual machine that is hosting the Microsoft SQL Server by using the backup-archive client command line: 
dsmc backup vm vm_display_name -asnode=datacenter_node