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NCD – Backing Up and Restoring VMs


Navisite Cloud Director's virtual machine (VM) backup features, powered by CommVault®, allow you to...
  • configure daily agentless backups on a per-VM basis.

  • perform a full restore of a backed up VM, resulting in a VM copy of the backup restored to the same vCloud and vApp as the original source VM.

  • perform file-level restores from VM backups, indicating the destination target path to which the file(s) should be restored.
VMs can be restored...
  • from the last 30 days of daily backups.

  • from the last 60 days of weekly backups.

  • from the last year of monthly backups.
Restoring from a backup results in the creation of a new VM from the backup. The original VM is not affected by the restore.

Viewing Backup Service Availability

Navisite Cloud Director's VM backup functionality may only be available in certain vClouds. To determine the vClouds that support backup:
  1. At the Navisite Cloud Director Dashboard page, click NCD SERVICES in the "Services" section of the navigation bar on the left side of the page to display the NCD Services page.

  2. At the NCD Services page, click Backups.



  3. The "Status" column in the "Backups" table indicates whether backups are enabled or disabled for a particular vCloud.

Configuring Backups and Restores for a vCloud

To activate your user account in the CommVault portal to perform self-service restores from VM backups:
  1. Click Configure for the desired vCloud in the "Backups" table. The Activate User pop-up window appears.



  2. Enter your Navisite Cloud Director password in the "Password" field, and click Activate User.

  3. A one-time authentication is performed using your password. Upon subsequent launches of the CommVault portal, no such authentication is necessary.

Backing Up a VM

Navisite Cloud Director VM backups are stored both locally (within the same datacenter in which they are configured), and remotely (at the opposite national datacenter from the one in which they are configured; for example, remote backups for a VM in the Redhill01 datacenter are stored at the Woking01 datacenter).

From a VM's detail page, you can enable or disable backups for the VM. To do so:
  1. At the Dashboard page, click vDataCenters in the navigation bar on the left side of the page to display the vDataCenters page.

  2. In the "vDataCenters" list, click the name of the vDC containing the VM for which backups are to be configured. The vDataCenter detail page appears.

  3. At the vDataCenter detail page, scroll down to the "Children" section and click vApps.

  4. In the "vApps" list, click the name of the vApp containing the VM for which backups are to be configured. The vApp detail page appears.

  5. Scroll to the "Children" section of the vApp detail page and click VMs to display a list of VMs within the vApp.

  6. In the "Name" column of the "VMs" list, click the name of the VM for which backups are to be configured. The VM detail page appears.

  7. Scroll to the "Configuration" section and click Backups to display the backup settings for the VM.

  8. To enable or disable backups for the VM, click the "Enabled" field's "gear" icon and select "Yes" or "No" from the resulting drop-down menu.

  9. Click the green check mark to save the setting.

  10. Note: Once backups are enabled for a VM, the first daily backup occurs immediately.



The "Backups" subsection of the VM detail page also displays a table of all existing backups. Each listed backup provides the following information:
  • Status – the "Status" indicator provides a green check mark for successful backups, or a red X for backups that encountered an error.

  • Date – provides the date and time of the backup.

  • Level – the level of the backup, which may be one of the following:

    • Full – The first backup performed is a full disk backup. It is the only full backup performed, and becomes the baseline to which all subsequent backups are applied.

    • Incremental – Daily backups (performed after the initial full backup) are incremental, including only data that is new or has changed since the previous backup.

    • Synthetic Full – Weekly backups apply the incremental backups to the full backup to compose a synthetic full backup. This backup is then used as the base for future incremental backups.

  • Result – the result of the backup ("Running" or "Success," for example).


Click the "CommVault Portal" Configure button to examine details of your backups and initiate full-VM or file-level restores from them (see Restore from a VM backup, below).

Removing Backup Service from a VM

To stop backup from being performed on a VM:

  1. Go to the VM's detail page.

  2. Open the "Configuration" section and click Backups to display the backup settings for the VM.

  3. To remove backup configuration from the VM, click the "Enabled" field's "gear" icon and change the setting from"Yes" to"No". Click the green check mark to save the setting.

Note: Removing the backup service from a VM does not remove or otherwise affect the backups already captured from the VM.

Impacts on Billing:
  • Removal of backup service from a VM stops backup charges for the VM.  

  • Backup charges include retention and occur at the time a backup is captured.  No further charges accrue for those VM backups already captured prior to removal of backup service.  

Backup Settings and Availability for Deleted VMs

  • When a VM is deleted, its backup (if configured) is disabled automatically in advance of the VM's removal.

  • Backups performed before a VM is deleted remain available for restore (for 30-day, 60-day, 1-year lifespans – see Restore from a VM backup, below). To locate them:

    1. Click BACKUPS in the "Services" section of the navigation bar on the left side of the page to display the Backups page.

    2. Click NCD Backups to display the "NCD Backups" summary list.

    3. Select the "Deleted VMs" tab above the summary list.

Restore from a VM Backup

VMs can be restored...
  • from the last 30 days of daily backups.

  • from the last 60 days of weekly backups.

  • from the last year of monthly backups.
Restoring from a backup results in the creation of a new VM from the backup. The original VM is not affected by the restore.

Locating Backups in Navisite Cloud Director

To locate a VM's backups within NCD, either...
  1. Click BACKUPS in the "Services" section of the navigation bar on the left side of the page to display the Backups page.

  2. Click NCD Backups to display the "NCD Backups" summary list.
OR
  1. At the desired VM's VM detail page, scroll down to the "Configuration" section and click Backups.

Launching the CommVault Portal

  1. Click the "Commvault Portal" Configure button. The CommVault portal is launched in a separate browser tab.



  2. Note: When accessing the CommVault portal for the first time, you must enter your Navisite Cloud Director password. A one-time authentication is performed using your password. Upon subsequent launches of the CommVault portal, no such authentication is necessary.

Performing a Restore

To restore from VM backups:
  1. Click the CommVault portal's My Data link to access a tabular list of your VM backups.

  2. Locate the backed-up VM to be restored, and click the Show Details link in the "Actions" column for the VM. The VM backup details page appears, displaying summary information about the backup (date, size, schedule, etc.), and a "Restore" section.

  3. Click either Recover Virtual Machine to restore a full VM, or Select Files to restore selected files.

    • The "Recover Virtual Machine" option prompts you to enter a VM Name for the new virtual server to be created from the backup restore. Click Submit to restore. CommVault creates the new VM in the same NCD vCloud and vApp where the backed up VM resides.

    • The "Select Files" option prompts you to select a Destination NCD VM and Path for the file(s) to be restored from the backup; a User Name and Password (and password Confirm) to be used to access the destination VM; and an Overwrite intention checkbox. Click Restore Now to submit.

  4. Return to Navisite Cloud Director to access VMs and files restored from CommVault backups.

Searching for Backed-up VMs

VMs configured for backup have the "Backup" feature tag and therefore may be found through global search.

If you search for tag:Backup, the search results list VMs that have backups enabled. Click any listed VM to navigate to its detail page.

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