4 4 3 Beefalo:RHV Restore
Overview
SEP sesam backup solution for RHV* environments was developed together with Red Hat. SEP sesam uses RHV Manager backup (libvirt) API to perform snapshot-based backups of virtual machines (VMs) in RHV environments and enables consistent, agentless backup and restore of all RHV VMs.
As of v. 4.4.3 Beefalo, the RHV module also provides support for oVirt-based platforms within Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM) in the same way as for RHV environments. Since the RHV module now supports OLVM the same GUI options and steps apply for restoring OLVM VM, with the only difference that the relevant OLVM objects should be selected instead of RHV.
The restore of RHV/OLVM VMs is very similar to regular file system restore. There are two ways to restore your RHV virtual machines (VMs) in SEP sesam: by using GUI restore wizard (described below) or through the web interface Restore Assistant (only RHV VMs). Even though most of the options are the same in both restore interfaces, the web Restore Assistant interface is designed to be more intuitive and offers additional advanced options. However, it cannot be used for scheduling restore, as scheduling is only supported in the GUI mode. For details, see Restore Assistant.
In the GUI, the restore is triggered from the Menu bar -> Activities -> Restore. The restore wizard guides you through the process of restoring your data. Note that you can only restore one VM at a time. For step-by-step procedure, see Standard Restore Procedure.
*RHV is a rebranding of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV).
Restore options
- You can restore your RHV VM to the original or different location with the same or a different VM name using relocation.
- You can restore your VM to the same or a different single RHV server or RHV cluster.
- You can perform a simple path restore of the selected RHV VM configuration directly to a directory on any system instead of restoring and importing VM to the RHV environment.
Restore workflow
The restore process uses the following workflow:
- The VM configuration is restored to the SEP sesam data mover VM.
- The target VM is created from this.
- The disks on the target VM are created and attached to the SEP sesam data mover VM.
- The data is then restored.
- The disks are detached from the data mover VM and attached to the target VM.
Prerequisites
To ensure error-free operation of SEP sesam and improve performance, make sure that the following conditions are met:
- Check the RHV support matrix for the list of supported RHV versions and OLVM support matrix for supported OLVM versions.
- Make sure that your RHV/OLVM environment is configured properly, as described in RHV Configuration.
- Make sure that there is enough free space on the target system to which you are restoring your data.
Note | |
During restore, the virtual disk will consume complete thick provisioned space on the target storage. For example, if you have backed up 1 TB VM disk, 1 TB must be free on the target pool where the VM is created. |
Restoring RHV virtual machines
Create a new restore task for the RHEV Manager or OLVM client. You can only restore one VM at a time.
- In the SEP sesam GUI menu bar, select Activities -> Restore. The New restore task window opens.
- Select what you want to restore. You can search savesets by task name or filename or path.
- When searching by task name, use the drop-down list of available tasks and select the one you want to restore. This option is enabled by default.
- If you are searching by filename/path, select the option Filename or path in a saveset and enter your search expression in the search pattern field.
- In the Saved in period drop-down lists, specify the time frame for which you want to conduct the search. Click Next.
- Select the RHV saveset you want to restore. Click Next.
- Review your restore task configuration and set additional options, if required. Details of the selected saveset are displayed at the top and at the bottom (Optional data source selection) of the window. The name of the restore task is automatically generated in the Restore task name field. You can edit the name and insert a comment below.
- Target data
- Target node
- VM restore options
- Do not overwrite existing items (default): VM will be restored only if it does not exist on the target server.
- Overwrite existing items: If the VM exists on the target server, it will be replaced by its restored version.
- Create a new version will restore VM under a new name.
- If you are performing a standard VM restore, you can also select whether you want your virtual machine to start automatically after restore by selecting Start virtual machine after restore/Do not start (selected by default).
- Optionally, if you want to restore only the actual size of the VMs, you can use the dd utility to create a thin-provisioned (sparse) disk file: Click the Expert Options button and enter the following under Restore Options: -a use_dd
- In the final step of the restore wizard, you can review all the settings of your restore task. You can also edit the settings by using Change Selection button. If you want to start your restore immediately, click Start. If you want to save the restore task, click Save.
Note | |
As of v. 4.4.3. Beefalo, the Expert Options button for specifying more advanced restore options is only available in the Advanced and Expert UI mode. It is not available for users that run the GUI in Basic mode. In the latter case, you first have to change the Basic UI mode to Advanced or Expert, as described in UI Mode. |
A restore task can be scheduled like any other task. If you want to add a restore task to the schedule, see Scheduling Restore.
You can view the status of your restore jobs by selecting Job state -> Restores from the Main Selection. Restore overview provides detailed information on the last run of restore jobs, including the task name, status (successful, error, in a queue ...), start and stop time of the last backup, data size, throughput, client and message.
As of 4.4.3 Beefalo V2, you can also monitor your restores online by using new Web UI. For details, see SEP sesam Web UI.