Vembu BDR v2.1.0 BETA

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Vembu BDR v2.1.0 BETA

Release Notes

Vembu BDR v2.1.0 BETA is now publicly released and is available for evaluation with new features and more bug fixes which improves the stability and performance.

Major features in v2.1.0

BETA

Hyper-V CBT

Hyper-V CBT backup lets you to backup your Hyper-V virtual machines and you can perform instant boot during disaster. Our all-new Hyper-V CBT driver tracks for the changed blocks in an efficient manner and it helps to run the incremental backups in 5X faster!

Backup verification

Vembu BDR's image verification process provides a way to be sure that your image backups are working by running boot test, mount test and also, run chkdsk to make sure the integrity of the data. You can easily verify this, by viewing the screen shot of the boot screen every day.

Download as VHDX

Now Vembu BDR supports one more virtual hard disk format VHDX along with VHD, VMDK and IMG formats during restore. You can either download or instantly access the VHDX along with VHD, VMDK and IMG formats for disk image, VMware and Hyper-V backups. This will not use any

additional storage on your storage repositories. It’s virtual!

Disk image backup support extended to larger disks

GPT disks with more than 2TB now can be backed up by using Vembu BDR disk image backup option.

VMware disk level restores

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Other features in Vembu BDR

VembuHIVE™

VembuHIVETM is our proprietary patent-pending technology for next-generation data backup, recovery, sharing and collaboration. One of the key components of this technology is the VembuHIVETM_{File System (VHFS), which is a file system over native file systems with in-built} version control, security, encryption, and in-built error correction. The inherent flexibility that allows VHFS to host any file system is the key to its ability to seamlessly support a wide range of complex restore use-cases in Vembu BDR.

VMware UltraBlaze™

With this feature, the backing up of VMs using an exclusive physical agent is not really required. It just works with your existing VMware Server. In other words, VMs can be backed up with existing hardware which will save a ton of money that gets spent on procuring exclusive physical machines just for backing up VMware agents. As the proxy VM is created on existing hardware/ESXi host, backups can be taken 3X faster!

Ability to retain more incrementals, without the storage overhead

The entire backup data stored in VHFS is automatically version-controlled with intelligent meta-data management. This feature combined with compression gives the ability to retain multiple incrementals of a backup with minimal storage overhead. For disk image and VMware backup, it is required to configure either retention policy or additional full backup in the schedule for effective data management and incremental versions.

Any-point-in-time instant recovery, even when data is compressed, encrypted

Since every incremental is a self-sufficient snapshot with pointers to the blocks in VHFS, any incremental is instantaneously available as a full backup. There is no extra processing to restore an incremental backup compared to a full backup. (no need for merge)

Instant Boot/Mount

In Vembu BDR, every incremental backup is always available as a full backup, instantaneously. This provides the flexibility to boot or mount any incremental image backup instantaneously. There is no merging, no consolidation and hence no time spent in creating a full by merging incrementals.

Application-aware disk-image backups

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Application-aware VMware backups

VMware backups, using VMware APIs, now utilize application-specific VSS writers (SQL Server, Exchange) to take consistent snapshots of apps, and truncate log files to ensure consistent backups for applications.

Restore both disk image and VMware backups in VHD, VMDK and RAW

formats

Since disk image and VMware backups are stored at block level in a neutral format, Vembu BDR gives the ability to instantly restore any incremental backup in any format - VHD, VMDK or RAW.

Instant backup verification after every Incremental

This feature is a manual process in current release and will be fully automated in the future release. With VembuHIVE Technology, every incremental backup can be verified instantly with a mount test, boot test and a check disk test. This happens for every incremental without merging

incrementals and creating a full. This is done to ensure that all incremental backups are successful and data didn't get corrupted either during the transit or when written to disk.

Rebuild Vembu BDR server after disaster

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System Requirements

The table below gives the minimum and recommended client and server configurations for the Vembu BDR v2.1.0 BETA release.

Vembu BDR Backup Server Vembu BDR Client

OS Windows 2012 R2 (64 bit only) Windows 2008 R2 (64 bit only) Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (64 bit only) Windows: Windows XP sp2 onwards, Windows 7, Windows 2003 sp2 onwards, Windows 2008 sp2 onwards, Windows 2008 r2, Windows 2012 & 2012r2, sbs2003, sbs2008, sbs2011 Linux:

CentOS 5.2 and later,

RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 and later, CloudLinux 5.10 and later,

Fedora 11 and later, Debian Linux 5.0 and later,

Gentoo and Ubuntu 10.04 and later MAC:

OSX 10.5 and above for Intel PC’s Instant Boot

Environments

HyperV for Windows 2008/2012 R2, KVM 1.0 for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. N/A Memory Minimum: 8 GB Recommended: 16 GB Minimum: 2 GB Recommended: 4 GB CPU Minimum: x64 architecture

with 4 core Xeon

Recommended: 8 core dual processor

2 core processor

Meta Data Storage

10% of the planned total backup size.

N/A

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Installation Instructions

Download Vembu BDR backup server and client installers from following URL:

https://www.vembu.com/try/

Known Issues & Limitations

Hyper-V CBT:

Known Issues:

1. Sometime Hyper-V VMs will remain in saved state during snapshot while scheduling the Hyper-V backup.

2. Retention will not work for Hyper-V backups in BETA release

3. Hyper-V guest VMs with VHDX will not be backed up in BETA release

4. Hyper-V driver should be uninstalled before uninstalling Vembu BDR client installation 5. Image verification not supported in BETA release

6. Direct restore to another or same Hyper-V host is not supported in BETA release 7. Restore report is not available for Hyper-V backup in BETA release

Limitations:

1. PowerShell should be installed on Hyper-V host machine to configure Hyper-V backup 2. Guest VMs that are running operating systems which do not support VSS, such as Microsoft

Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0 or Windows XP, Linux will be remain in a saved state while the VSS snapshot is created

3. Virtual machines that do not have Hyper-v Integration Services installed will remain in a saved state while the VSS snapshot is created.

Backup verification:

Known issues:

1. Backup verification is not supported Hyper-V backups in BETA release Limitations:

1. Backup verification is not supporting for dynamic disk 2. Boot test note supported other than OS disks

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VMware disk level restores:

Limitations:

1. The target VM will be stopped by Vembu BDR during disk level restore process

2. Disk on Linux VMs can not be restored into Windows. In similar, disk on Windows VMs can not be restored to Linux.

Download as VHDX: Known Issues:

1. VHDX download will not work for VMware and Hyper-V backups in BETA

Other known issues:

Issue: “Backup in Progress” error message due to abnormal termination of client connection

If a client’s connection to the server is lost or gets closed abnormally, then the next time when the same client re-attempts an incremental backup it will get an error message from the server saying "Backup in progress." This loss of connection is sometimes not detected by the backup server, which continues processing the earlier aborted incremental backup session.

Solution: For another incremental backup to successfully proceed, restart the backup server

Issue: “Nautilus could not create the required folder…” message when mounting a virtual drive on an Ubuntu Server

While trying to mount a virtual drive on Ubuntu Server via the backup server console, the UI sometimes displays the error message ”Nautilus could not create the required folder

‘/root/.config/nautilus’.”

Solution: This is a benign error. This error can be ignored and the mounted drive can be used without any issues

Issue: Instant boot/drive mounting fails when an earlier boot session was interrupted

Instant boot/ Drive mounting fails with “Error: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.” This often happens if an earlier instant boot session for the same VHD file was interrupted or did not proceed to completion.

Solution: Reset the Virtual Drive mounting status by remounting it again from the Backup Server Console

Issue: Issues mounting a VHD file via Windows Device Manager

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if the VHD was unmounted manually from the Vembu BDR Server console when it was in a mounted state in the Windows Device Manager.

Solution: Reboot the BDR Server machine. This is technically not an issue with the BDR server’s backed up Virtual Drives. Windows Device Manager holds on to stale mount handles and prevents the same device from getting mounted successfully when remounted

Issue: Instant boot fails if BDR with “Failed to create VM” error

Instant boot fails with “Failed to create VM” error and “The application encountered an error while attempting to change the state of VM_Machine_Name.” This is caused if Vembu BDR is not run with administrator privileges.

Solution: Run Vembu BDR Server with administrator privileges

Issue: Mail Level Recovery from Exchange Server in a Disk image backup fails

Mail Level Recovery from Exchange Server in a Disk image backup fails if the BDR client is not on the same domain as the Exchange Server.

Solution: Ensure Vembu BDR Client which is attempting the Mail Level Restore is in the same domain of Exchange server

Issue: Recovery Image issues with multiple HDDs

There may be issues with VMDK recovery image for disk image backups when there are multiple HDDs in the backup.

Solution: We recommend you restore one HDD at a time via a VMDK image from the Disk Image backup

Issue: Internet access is not automatically available after Instant Boot

VMs created using instant boot will not have any network adapter settings. Hence internet access will not be available from the virtual machine.

Solution: Enable Internet access manually

Issue: XenServer / Slave mode not supported

Restoring a VM directly to XenServer in slave mode is not supported.

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Issue: Error when Vembu BDR is restarted during a live recovery

If VembuBDR gets restarted when a live recovery is in progress, the BDR server will fail to start and throw the error “32005 UI communication port to <<non-existent>> state”.

Solution: Reboot the system on which Vembu BDR server is installed

Automatic software upgrade required manual intervention, if the Client machine's(Windows XP 32 bit) OS volume has CHKDSK issues

If the client machine has CHKDSK issue for OS volume, after completing the upgrade process, a pop up will be shown with following message “Error in opening the XML file: C:\Program

Files\Vembu\VembuBDr\Vembu\VembuBDR\htmlgui\conf\UIConfig.conf.”

Solution: Log in to the client machine and click ‘OK’ button

New desktop icon is not shown up after automatic software update due to system cache

After upgrading the existing installation, the new desktop icon is not shown.

Solution: Clear temp data on the machine and reboot the machine

If client agent crashed during VMware backup with UltraBlaze technology, the attached VMs volume will be detached from the client agent

The volumes attached during the VMware backup with UltraBlaze technology will not removed during agent crashed.

Solution: Remove attached volumes manually from the agent VM

Other limitations:

● Vembu Virtual Drive and Instant boot is not supported on Windows 2008 R2 Standard Edition.

● Instant boot is not supported on the Windows machine which does not support Hyper V role. ● Instant boot is not supported on Oracle Virtualbox.

● Instant booting into multiple VMs simultaneously is not supported.

● After migrating the backup server data from one server to another server through the

vStorage Motion, further incrementals are not allowed on the new server for the same backup data. The client must begin with a fresh full backup.

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● Application aware backup is not supported for 32 bit Guest OS.

● Occasionally after restoring files from a file backup, some files may display zero bytes file size, even though the full file gets restored (as verified by checking the file properties).

● Restore operation fails for VM backups which have guest OS with both iSCSI and IDE disk. ● Folder level right-mouse-click option to mount a VHD file is disabled on Windows 2012 R2

server OS.

● All type of local backup and seed migration is not supported.

● Rebuilding backup server/server disaster recovery feature is not supported.

● Restored VHDs will boot only in Oracle VirtualBox v4.2.6. Other earlier/later versions have not been tested for compatibility.

● Only direct restore of a VMware backup to ESXi, VCenter server is supported. Downloading a VMDK and booting it in ESXi, VCenter Server is not recommended.

● For disk image backup schedules, client's allotted space is not validated when the transferred backup data exceeds.

● Vembu BDR does not support VMware backup for ESXi free versions as VMware APIs themselves do not support ESXi free versions.

● In Mail Level Restore, item level recovery from Public Folder EDB is not supported. ● Searching mails across multiple mailboxes in MLR feature is not supported.

● Backup will fail, if any NTFS partition mounted as folder. ● Disk image for GPT disks of more than 2TB is not supported.

● Disk image backup for Windows 8 operating system is not supported.

● If the disk drives are defragmented using 3rd party tools, further incremental disk image backups will fail with CHKDSK error.

● In disk image backup is not supported for ReFS file size system.

● Automatic socket reconnection is not supported for disk image and VMWare backup schedules.

● Virtual machines created through instant boot will not contain the actual network adapter settings.

● VMWare backup is not supported for the VMWare servers having RDM datastore type. ● VMWare backup is not supported for the Guest OS hardware version < 7.

● In VMWare backups, if any snapshot is reverted, further incremental backups will fail. ● In Hyper-V backup, if a VM's data resides in both CSV & non-CSV storage, the backup will fail. ● In disk image plugin backup schedule, additional disk drives cannot be added or removed

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● Scheduling can not be changed from the default option. ● Bandwidth throttling is by default disabled.

● Selective replication for each client/backup is not supported.

● To enable Cloud DR, the backup server should be registered with Vembu Portal ● Email notification is not available for replication.

● Once Cloud DR registered to a particular region it is not possible to change it to other region. ● There is no option to abort an active replication for a backup job, instead we can use suspend

icon against that backup.

● There is no difference in tray icon for client on server installation.

● Vembu BDR Backup Server disaster recovery is not supported from Vembu Cloud DR server. ● To use VMware UltraBlaze technology, the agent must be installed on the Virtual Machine on

the same ESXi server where the source VM’s reside.

● If proxy VM in which backup agent is running is on a VFMS3 datastore, the volume on proxy VM should be formatted with appropriate block size given below depending on the maximum disk size of the source VM(s).

1MB block size – support up to 256GB 2MB block size – Support up to 512GB 4MB block size – Support up to 1024GB 8MB block size – Support up to 2048GB

● The disks that are to be hot added must be SCSI. IDE drives are not compatible with hotadd. ● The proxy VM should have installed VMware tools and VMware tools should be upgraded

immediately to the available newer version.

● VMware UltraBlaze technology will not be applied for the existing VMware backups after upgrade.

Vembu BDR v2.1.0 BETA