How to install Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environment (TSM VE) ?

 Before installing Tivoli Storage Manager for VE to protect your VMware infrastructure, you need to plan and decide how many Data Protection for VMware vSphere GUI's are required based upon your size of your environment. It is recommended to know the different types of TDP VM components and their uses before installing TSM for VE package. You can follow the same procedure on both Windows & Linux.

In general, we commonly install TSM for VE package on Vstorage backup server if separate server is dedicated for VM datastores which has access to SAN, otherwise you can install it on any system which has below settings. Below are the prerequisites for installing TSM for VE package on any server.

• The server on which you are installing this TSM for VE package should have network connectivity to both SAN (VM datastores) & LAN. 

• Installed Vcenter server or Vcenter client.

• Should have network connectivity to TSM Server.

• Installed & configured TSM BA Client, you should select vmtools option while installing.

• Configured Policy Domain and storage pool settings to hold the VM backups on TSM server.

You should also make sure that the following ports are open on the server which you are installing TSM for VE package,

• 443  - for vCenter Server (secure HTTP), Data Protection for VMware vSphere

• 902  - for ESXi hosts

• 9080 - for vSphere Client,  Data Protection for VMwarevSphere GUI Server (HTTP port for access to vCenter as plug-in)

• 9081 - for vSphere Client,  Data Protection for VMware vSphere GUI Server (secure HTTPS port for access to vCenter through web browser)

• 22 - for Linux Data Protection for VMware Recovery Agent, Data Protection for VMware Windows "mount" host.

• 3260 - for Linux Data Protection for VMware file-level recovery, Data Protection for VMware Windows "mount" host.

• 3260 - for Windows target with Dynamic disk for file-level recovery, Data Protection for VMware Windows "mount" host.

• 1500  - for vStorage Backup Server (proxy), Tivoli Storage Manager Server

• 1501, 1581 - for httpport

• 1582, 1583 - for webports

Installing Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments (TSM for VE) package

1) Login to the server as administrator, and extract the setup files which you have downloaded. Double click the file named Setup.

2) Choose Typical Installation as shown in the below figure if you want to install all DP for VMware features such as Vsphere GUI, Instant Restore and Recovery Agent etc. Choose Advanced Installation for customized installation.

3) In the next screen, select the type of protection you need. Choose Vsphere protection to protect data in a Vsphere environment or choose Vcloud Protection if you need to protect data in Vcloud Director.

4) Tick both the options so that the the DP for Vsphere GUI is registered in Vcenter as a plug-in, by which you can do backup & restore activities. Second option is for enabling access to DP for Vsphere GUI by a web browser.

5) In this step, you have to give your Vcenter credential. TSM for VE will communicate with the Vcenter and it registers DP for Vsphere GUI in the Solutions & Applications tab.

6) Now click NEXT to install TSM for VE packages.

7) In between the installation, you were asked for confirmation of some IBM device drivers, click YES/OK to install them. It is recommended to read all the pop-windows which you see during this installation. Once the installation is completed, click Finish and you need to restart the server to get the changes updated.

8) TSM for VE requires automount to be disabled and the SAN policy set to OnlineAll. The TSM for VE installation process will set these automatically but the settings should be verified after installation is complete. Run the below commands 

C:\>diskpart

DISKPART> automount

DISKPART> san

DISKPART> exit

9) If the settings are not update automatically during installation or incorrect, run the following commands to update them manually.

C:\>diskpart 

DISKPART> automount disable

DISKPART> automount scrub

DISKPART> san policy OnlineAll

DISKPART> exit

10) Once the server is rebooted, DP for Vsphere GUI will automatically open on a web browser if you choose to install it or you can open  DP for Vsphere GUI plug-in within the Vcenter. Next you need to configure the VMware setup for backup using this DP for Vsphere GUI.

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How to Configure Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environment (TSM for VE) ?

After the successful installation of TSM for VE package on the Vstorage backup server, you need to configure TDP for Vsphere GUI to configure VM backups. This process will automatically register required client nodes and creates required client schedule services. You can also do these steps manually. It is recommended to do it through GUI to make configuration easier and you will be sure that you did not miss any steps in between. The below screenshots are taken from IBM for your understanding.

Configuring TSM for VE for protecting Virtual Machines

1) If you chose to enable access to the GUI via a web browser during installation process, the web browser will be automatically invoked after completion of the installation. If you wish to use this feature, click continue to this website.

You will see the below screen on a web browser, if you click Continue in the above figure. You can access the GUI via web browser by using URL https://hostname:9081/TsmVMwareUI/ or via the start menu from the vStorage backup server where the GUI is installed. Log in using vCenter Server credentials.

2) If you choose to Register the GUI as a vCenter Plug-in during installation, you can also access the GUI from the Solutions and Applications section of vCenter. Whether you use the web browser access or the vCenter plug-in access, the interface will look the same.

3) When you open the GUI for the first time, it will automatically launch the Configuration Wizard as below. If you are opening it for second time or later, you need to click EDIT CONFIGURATION tab. You just need to click NEXT to start the configuration. 

4) Enter your TSM Server credentials here and click NEXT.

5) TDP for VMware requires several nodes to be defined on the TSM server to protect the entire VM infrastructure. The configuration wizard will create these nodes. This screen gives the option to assign a common prefix to these nodes as well as to select a TSM policy domain. The wizard will automatically place an underscore between the prefix and the rest of the node name. Select the desired Policy Domain and then click NEXT.

6) This step will register the Vcenter node in the TSM server. The first field will be pre-filled with a node name for the vCenter node in TSM. It consists of the node prefix if specified earlier followed by ‘_VC’ followed by the vCenter name as shown in the vCenter.  You may modify the name if desired or use the generated default name. Check the ‘Register Node’ box and enter a password for the new node. The new node will be registered in TSM  server automatically with the specified password & then clickNEXT.

7) Similarly, you have to create the VMCLI node and register in the TSM server as above.

8) Select the datacenter to be managed, you will see all the available datacenters to be managed on the right side. Select the datacenter and click NEXT

9) This step will create the Datacenter Node and initial TSM Data Mover Node. The datacenter node name consists of the specified prefix followed by an underscore followed by the datacenter name. The Data Mover node name consists of the datacenter node name with a suffix of ‘_DM’. Each of these may be modified by highlighting the line containing the name and then either clicking on the node name or clicking on ‘Edit Node Name’.

Then you have to set the TSM node passwords for the Datacenter and Data Mover nodes. To set the password for a node, either highlight the line and click on ‘Set Password’, or click on ‘Not Set’. Enter a password for the selected node and click OK as shown below.  Repeat the Set Password process for the other node(s) until all nodes show ‘Change’ in the Password column. 

10) In this step, you have to decide whether to allow the wizard to create the Data Mover services. Note the ‘Create Services’ column with a checkbox for each Data Mover node. When this box is checked, the wizard will create the required option file and TSM client services for the Data Mover node. Remember that this checkbox should only be used for Data Mover nodes to be created on the vStorage backup server where this GUI is installed. Since this is the first Data mover node, tick the create services box and click NEXT.

When the ‘Create Services’ box is checked for a particular Data Mover, the wizard will create the required option file and TSM client services for the Data Mover node. This is optional. You may still create the option files and services manually. If you want to add a secondary vStorage backup server, the Data Mover option file and services should be created manually. If you leave the ‘Create Services’ box checked when creating the additional Data Mover node definition, the option file and services will be created on the original vStorage backup server rather than on the new server.

11) Here, the summary page will show all the nodes which are registered in the TSM server i.e  vCenter Node, VMCLI Node, Datacenter Node and Data Mover Node.

12) In the next step, you should see the Data Mover verification successful. If you receive a failure on the ‘Verify Data Mover nodes’ task, it is likely due to the creation of the TSM services not yet being completed. If you receive a failure on the ‘Verify Data Mover nodes’ task, the Datacenter will show a warning icon.

There is a known issue in the older version of vCenter plug-in which does not set the vCenter credentials. This will prevent the datamover from being successfully validated. If you got stuck in this stage, you must log into the vStorage backup server, start the BA Client GUI using the generated dsm.<datamover>.opt file and set the credentials using the preferences editor. Restart the CAD service for the datamover, then retry the validation. This is not an issue with the web browser GUI.

13) Next, open the BA Client Preference editor by using dsmc -optfile=dsm.opt and update the  Vmware Virtual Center User and Password in the VM Backup tab as shown below.

14) To check the configuration, you can login to TSM server and run query node and query proxy commands which shows the proxy relationship between the nodes which we have configured earlier.

15) A client option file will be created with the naming format dsm.<datamover>.opt in the default BA Client directory, You need to Copy the generated file to a file called dsm.opt. This the default option file used by the BA Client GUI and command line interfaces. This will allow the BA Client GUI and command line interfaces to be used for VM guest backup and full VM restore. 

Edit the dsm.opt file and add the asnodename parameter with the node name of the datacenter node as shown above. This means that the backup will be performed by Data Mover node and the actual backup will be stored under the Data Center node name in TSM server.

Next, you can start taking manual VM backups or schedule backups through DP for Vsphere GUI.

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How to backup VMware Virtual Machines (VMs) using TSM for VE ?

To protect your VMWare infrastructure, you can either take manual backups through BA Client GUI or command line or define a backup schedule through Data Protection for VMware Vsphere GUI.  The following are some the advantageous parameters which you can use to schedule your VM backups. You need to consider these parameters according to your VMware & TSM infrastructure.

Multiple VM Backups

• The TSM backup-archive client now has the ability to backup multiple virtual machines simultaneously from the same backup instance. Simplified configuration by eliminating the need to configure multiple backup instances as a means to process more than one virtual machine backup simultaneously. Instead, multiple threads are used within one backup instance to process virtual machines in parallel up to a user specified limit. The limit is specified with the new vmmaxparallel option. Data Protection for VMware provides parallel backup processing: a single data mover node can back up multiple VMs at the same time. 

• It can also optimizes backup throughput by load balancing across multiple threads from the entire domain of virtual machines to backup. New options vmlimitperhost and vmlimitperdatastore are available to control the maximum number of virtual machines that can be simultaneously processed on a given VMware host or datastore. These three parallel processing options are only valid in the dsm.opt file (Windows) or dsm.sys file stanza (Linux) that is defined for each data mover node.

• To take multiple VM's backup the TSM server must be configured to allow multi-session backups. You need to define MAXNUMMP node parameter and server MAXSESSION option for allowing sufficient number of sessions for the multi-session VM backups.

Using the ASNODE Capability

The TSM Backup-Archive client and server provide the ability to grant a proxy relationship between two nodes such that one of those nodes can be used for purposes of authentication while the other is used to store backup data. This proxy relationship is defined with the grant proxy command on the TSM server, and the node transition is controlled using the -asnode option on the backup-archive client. In addition, the Data Protection for VMware solution uses several nodes to represent VMware elements such as the Virtual Center. There are two types of nodes involved in a proxy relationship

• Agent node - An agent node is used to authenticate to the TSM server, and is also associated to a specific defined schedule on the TSM server using the define association command. An agent node should be created for each TSM backup instance which in most cases will be one agent node for each datamover. The agent nodes will have proxy granted to a common target node.

• Target node - The target node is used to store backup data for all virtual machines in a group. A group should correspond to one of the grouping types within VMware, such as, a datacenter. By having the backup instance for each VMware cluster store backups to the same target nodename, problems such as redundant backups are avoided in cases where a virtual machine is migrated from one VMware host to another. Since VMware does not allow for migration across datacenters, the VMware datacenter becomes the best level of grouping to use for a target node.

Incremental-forever backup Strategy

Incremental-forever backup uses TSM grouping technology to create new synthetic-full recovery points by combining required blocks from previous backups with the changes from daily incremental backups. Eliminates the requirement to take a periodical full backup which eliminates the need to manage two separate schedules for weekly full and daily incremental backups. It also reduces the number of vStorage backup servers required due to the reduction in the volume of data to backup.

Taking VM's backup using BA Client GUI & Command-line

Use backup VM command to backup the VM's in the VM infrastructure. You can either backup single VM or multiple VM's at a time. For example

backup vm <vmname>

You can also customize the type of VM backup you want with the backup VM command. Use -vmbackuptype and -mode options along with backup VM command to choose the type of backup you want. Check the above link for more options.

backup vm vmname -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=full

You can also use BA client GUI to backup the VM's. Open the BA client GUI and click ACTIONS tab.

Then, just like a regular BA client backup window, you will see all the VM's which you you can select to be backed-up as shown below.

Taking VM's backup using Data Protection for VMware Vsphere GUI

Data Protection for VMware provides the ability to schedule backups of a large collection of VMware virtual machines providing an automated backup solution that allows for the automatic discovery of newly created virtual machines as well as providing parallel backup of multiple virtual machines. This can be implemented in a way which minimizes the impact to any single VMware ESX or ESXi host. The combination of the new incremental-forever and multi-session backup capabilities enables a larger VMware environment to be protected with fewer vStorage backup servers.

The vCenter plug-in interface provides the ability to create these backup schedules from a convenient interface where you can select the VMware components to include in the backup scope. The vCenter plug-in interface provides a wizard that simplifies the process of defining the backup schedules. To launch the wizard for schedule creation, select the Schedule a Backup link from the backup tab of the vCenter plug-in as shown below.

Next, you need to choose the VM's which need to be backup and in the below screen you can schedule the timing for the backup to be run in regular intervals.

Manually defining the VM backup schedules on TSM Server

You can also manually configure VM backup schedules on the TSM server. A single schedule can be defined to perform incremental-forever backups. During the backup, TSM automatically performs a full backup when needed for cases like the initial full backup of a virtual machine of for incidental full backups of some virtual machines when required by VMware's changed block tracking. 

The following commands can be issued to the TSM server to define schedules that perform VMware incremental-forever backups once per day. One or more associations should be defined to associate this schedule with each datamover node.

DEFINE SCHEDULE vmdomain vm_ifincr TYPE=CLIENT ACTION=BACKUP SUBACTION=VM OPTIONS='-ASNODENAME=dc_prd -MODE=IFINCR' STARTDATE=23/01/2015 STARTTIME=23:00 SCHEDSTYLE=ENHANCED DAYOFWEEK=ANY

DEFINE ASSOCIATION vmdomain vm_ifincr dm_prdvm

Customizing VM backups

You can customize the VM backups by using certain parameters with backup vm command. Below are some of the options you can use to manage the VM backups depending on your requirement.

• Use management classes to determine how to manage your VM backups on the Tivoli Storage Manager server. Use the vmmc option to store the VMware backups with a management class other than the default management class. The vmmc option is only valid when vmbackuptype=fullvm. 

dsmc backup vm "vmname" -vmmc=vmmgmt

• You can use include options to specify the VMs that you want to include for backup services. When VMware virtual machine data is backed up, it is bound to a management class that is specified by the vmmc option. You can use the include.vm option in the options file to override the management class that is specified by vmmc and bind the backed up data for a virtual machine to a different management class. 

include.vm vmtest* MCFORTESTVMS

• You can use  include and exclude statements to control the disks to be processed. Use this feature to exclude a virtual disk during a backup operation. When the VM is restored, the excluded disk is created on the restored VM. However, no actual disk data is restored. Only the disk definition is restored. Therefore, make sure that the disk is properly formatted before using. 

EXCLUDE.VMDISK <vmname> "Hard Disk 3"

• A secondary method for excluding a virtual disk is to specify the -vmdk option in the backup-archive client command-line interface. For example

dsmc backup vm "<vmname>:-vmdk=Hard Disk 3"

• Use the INCLUDE.VMDISK statement to back up only certain disks. When the include disk statement is specified, this statement implies that only disks specifically included are backed up. As a result, other hard disks are not backed up.

INCLUDE.VMDISK vm5_fin_com "Hard Disk 1"

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How to backup or protect the applications which are installed in the Virtual Machines (VMs) ?

 Data Protection for VMware can protects Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Active Directory Domain Controllers that run inside VM guests. In prior releases (before V7), Data Protection for VMware used VMware functions to quiesce applications that run on the VM guest. 

During backup processing, the application server was not notified that the backup to the Tivoli Storage Manager server completed successfully. As a result, logs were not truncated on the application server. Data Protection for VMware V7.1 backs up VM guests with both guest level application consistency and log truncation which is not available in previous versions. You can back up these VM guests with the following interfaces

• Data Protection for VMware vSphere GUI

• Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client command-line interface

• Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client Web client

• Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client GUI based on Oracle Java

However, to implement this function, you must specify the following Tivoli Storage Manager backup-archive client V7.1 option in the dsm.opt file (Windows) or dsm.sys file stanza (Linux).

INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vmname

This option notifies VM applications that a backup is about to occur. This notification allows the application to truncate transaction logs and commit transactions so the application can resume from a consistent state when the backup completes. By default, this option is not enabled. You must set this option to enable application protection for a VM.

When a virtual machine is included by this option, Tivoli Storage Manager, provides application protection. That is, Tivoli Storage Manager freezes and thaws the VSS writers and truncates the application logs. If a virtual machine is not protected by this option, application protection is provided by VMware, and VMware freezes and thaws the VSS writers, but application logs are not truncated.

The vmname value specifies the name of the VM that contains the applications to quiesce. Specify one VM per INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS statement. To protect all VMs with this option, use an asterisk as a wildcard (INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS *). You can also use question marks to match any single character. For example, INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm?? protects all VMs that have names that begin with "vm" and followed by any two characters (vm19, vm27).

After a backup is completed, you can use the QUERY VM command with the -Detail option to view the status of application protection for your VM backups

Choosing the protection type for database & applications inside the VM's

With TSM for VE you can protect database and application products that are typically hosted in VMware virtual server environments and gives guidance on choosing between three generic types of data protection.

• Off-host data protection solutions that feature a backup/recovery agent that can be hosted on a machine other than the hypervisor host, for example, Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments (Data Protection for VMware) and Tivoli Storage FlashCopy Manager for VMware.

• In-guest data protection solutions that require the deployment of a backup/recovery agent in the guest machine, for example, Tivoli Storage Manager for Mail (Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server) or Tivoli Storage Manager for Databases (Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server).

• Hybrid solutions that use elements of both off-host data protection and in-guest data protection solutions.

There are several considerations that need to be taken into account when choosing the appropriate data protection solution, for example:

• Recovery time objectives (RTO) - block-level recovery from an off-host backup may give shorter recovery time as compared to recovery from an in-guest backup.

• Recovery point objectives (RPO) - recovery of transaction logs produced by in-guest backup may minimize data loss in a recovery scenario.

• Type of storage - raw device mapping disks in physical compatibility mode cannot be the target of a VMware snapshot operation and would be better suited for in-guest solutions.

• Other considerations including storage vendor, data layout, Tivoli Storage Manager server configuration, long-term recovery requirements, and so on.

Also you should consider that the following types of virtual disks do not support VMware snapshot operations. If you have data stored on these types of disks, it is generally recommended to use in-guest agents to protect the data on these disks

• Raw device mapped volumes created in physical compatibility mode (pRDM)

• Independent disks

• iSCSI disks attached directly to the virtual machine

Restoring a full VM that was backed up with self-contained application enabled, is the same as restoring a full VM that did not have self-contained application protection enabled. When the VM is powered on after a restore, the applications resume automatically, unless they are configured to be started manually.

Protecting Microsoft SQL Server database inside the VM

Off-host solutions such as Data Protection for VMware are well suited for single instance deployments of Microsoft SQL Servers that don't have strict recovery point objectives. For more sophisticated Microsoft SQL Server deployments that have many databases and/or require more granular recovery points, it might be desirable to use a cooperative solution that allows an in-guest agent to recover a single database without disrupting the entire Microsoft SQL Server or virtual machine. Such a cooperative solution can also be used to allow an in-guest agent to manage log backups so that recovery can be accomplished to any specific point in time.

Finally, in-guest agents need to be used in situations where disks cannot be protected by off-host solutions (for example, physical raw device mapped volumes) or there are very specific recovery use cases.

When to use only Off-host data protection

If one or more SQL databases are configured in full recovery mode, Data Protection for VMware is recommended as it provides the ability to truncate logs after a successful backup operation. However, use of the self-contained application protection feature of Tivoli Storage Manager is required to truncate logs. Choose Off-host data protection if you have below settings.

• Microsoft SQL Server database files are already stored on disks that can be protected by virtual machine snapshots.

• Not having AlwaysOn Availability Groups, AlwaysOn Failover Clusters, or SQL servers deployed in cluster configurations.

• No requirement to recover to any specified point in time and databases are configured in simple recovery mode.

• SQL databases are configured in full recovery mode but log roll-forward is not a requirement.

• No need to recover individual databases or already protecting Microsoft SQL Server database in some other way.

• If you can use a global policy on a per-virtual machine or per-datastore basis to manage retention of Microsoft SQL Server data

When to use Hybrid solution using off-host data protection with an in-guest agent

With the hybrid solution, full database backups are contained within the Data Protection for VMware virtual machine backups & Data Protection for Microsoft SQL Server can be deployed in-guest to recover an individual Microsoft SQL Server database from a virtual machine backup. Choose  hybrid solution (Off-host & in-guest) data protection if you have below settings.

• If you have Microsoft SQL Server database files stored on disks that can be protected by virtual machine snapshots.

• If you don't have AlwaysOn Availability Groups, AlwaysOn Failover Clusters, or SQL servers deployed in cluster configurations.

• If you need to recover individual databases without disrupting other databases on the same server.

• If you need to recover to any specified point in time using transaction logs

When to use only In-guest data protection

Choose  only in-guest data protection if you have below settings.

• If you have Microsoft SQL Server databases deployed on physical compatibility raw device mapped (pRDM), independent, or direct iSCSI mounted disks.

• If you have AlwaysOn Availability Groups, AlwaysOn Failover Clusters, or Microsoft SQL Server deployed in a cluster configuration.

• If you need to define policy at an individual database level

Protecting Microsoft Exchange Mail Server inside the VM

Off-host solutions such as Data Protection for VMware are well suited to help optimize recovery of an entire virtual machine into a DAG by seeding the Microsoft Exchange Server databases on the virtual machine so that the native Microsoft Exchange Server database facilities don't have to resynchronize entire databases but only the set of changes since the latest recovery point.

If you require frequent mailbox or mailbox item recoveries beyond what native Microsoft Exchange Server features provide, it might be desirable to use a cooperative solution that allows an in-guest agent to recover individual mailbox or mailbox items.

Finally, in-guest agents need to be used in situations where disks cannot be protected by off-host solutions or there are very specific recovery use cases.

When to use only Off-host data protection

For Microsoft Exchange Server databases not using continuous replication circular logging, Data Protection for VMware is recommended as it provides the ability to truncate logs after a successful backup operation. Choose Off-host data protection if you have below settings.

• If you have Microsoft Exchange Server database files stored on disks that can be protected by virtual machine snapshots.

• If you don't need to recover an individual database.

• If you can use a global policy on a per-virtual machine or per-datastore basis to manage retention of Microsoft Exchange Server data.

• If you are using native Microsoft Exchange Server features to satisfy individual mailbox/mailbox message recovery or you do not need to recover individual mailbox/mailbox messages.

• If you do not have any special recovery point objective requirements that would necessitate log recovery or if you are using continuous replication circular logging.

• If you need to be able to recover an entire virtual machine to rebuild a Microsoft Exchange Server configured in a database availability group. 

When to use Hybrid solution using off-host data protection with an in-guest agent

You can protect full database backups by using Data Protection for VMware  & Data Protection for Microsoft Exchange Server can be deployed in-guest to recover individual Microsoft Exchange Server mailboxes and mailbox items from a virtual machine backup. Choose  hybrid solution (Off-host & in-guest) data protection if you have below settings.

• If you have Microsoft Exchange Server database files stored on disks that can be protected by virtual machine snapshots.

• If you have no special recovery point objective requirements that would necessitate log recovery or you are using continuous replication circular logging.

• If you can use a global policy on a per-virtual machine basis to manage retention of Microsoft Exchange Server data and any of the following conditions are met.

• If you need to perform frequent individual mailbox or mailbox item recovery operations and concerned with recovery time objectives.

• If you need to be able to recover an entire virtual machine to rebuild a Microsoft Exchange Server configured in a database availability group.

When to use only In-guest data protection

With In-guest data protection, you can have below advantages

• Recovery of individual databases and/or servers can be coordinated with other resources (for example, for clustered servers or database availability group configurations).

• Recovery to specific point-in-time states based on log recovery can be achieved to satisfy recovery point objective requirements.

• Mailbox and mailbox item recovery is integrated in the native in-guest agent interfaces

Choose In-guest data protection, if you

• Have Microsoft Exchange Server databases deployed on physical compatibility raw device mapped (pRDM), independent, or direct iSCSI mounted disksneed to perform frequent individual mailbox or mailbox item recovery operations.

• Have special recovery point objective requirements that would necessitate log recovery.

• Need to perform frequent recoveries of individual databases.

• Need to define policy at an individual database level

Protecting File/web/print server/workstation (unstructured data)

Protecting virtual machines that are primarily managing unstructured data such as file servers, web applications, or workstations.

Off-host solutions such as Data Protection for VMware are well suited for most backup and recovery use cases as they provide efficient block-level, incremental backups to reduce the steady-state backup windows and provide administrators with the ability to perform recoveries of the entire virtual machine or recoveries of only specific files and directories.

In-guest agents need to be used in situations where disks cannot be protected by off-host solutions (for example, physical raw device mapped volumes) or there are very specific recovery use cases.

Protecting Microsoft Active Directory

Off-host solutions such as Data Protection for VMware are well suited to help optimize recovery of an entire virtual machine into a site that has a pre-existing domain controller by seeding the Active Directory databases on the virtual machine so that the Active Directory database replication facilities dont have to resynchronize an entire database but only the set of changes since the latest recovery point. 

Microsoft and VMware have provided built-in tools to facilitate recovery and replication with Windows Server 2012. Prior versions of Windows Server required explicit changes in the data protection products in order to ensure that Active Directory replication was aware when a machine was being recovered to a site with at least one pre-existing domain controller.

In-guest agents need to be used in situations where disks cannot be protected by off-host solutions or recovery of individual Active Directory objects is required.

Protecting Other applications

If you are using any other applications other than the above discussed applications, it is recommended to use In-guest data protection software to protect them. For example

• If you are using Lotus Domino, SAP ERP or Oracle Databases within the VM's, it is recommended to use In-guest data protection (TDP Domino, TDP Oracle etc.) to protect the application data.

• If you are using DB2 database, you can use only BA Client to configure the backup to TSM server.

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How to take TSM Database backup when the TSM Server is down

 You can take TSM DB backup by using DB2 commands even after TSM server is down. There are many situations where you need to take TSM DB backup offline to start the TSM server. For example some of the reasons are if

• You havent took TSM DB backup for while and your TSM server got crashed.

• Your TSM server got crashed while taking TSM DB backup.

• If your DB backup command gets hanged you need to manually restart TSM server.

In the above situations if  you try to restart your TSM server with dsmserv command, it does not start and might show you the below error

ANR7801I Subsystem process ID is 4117.

ANR0900I Processing options file /home/tsminst1/dsmserv.opt.

ANR7814I Using instance directory /home/tsminst1.

ANR4726I The ICC support module has been loaded.

ANR0990I Server restart-recovery in progress.

ANR0172I rdbdb.c(2356): Error encountered performing action ActivateDatabase.

ANR0162W Supplemental database diagnostic information:  -1035:SQLSTATE 57019: The statement

was not successful, because of a problem with a resource.

:-1035 (SQL1035N  The database is

currently in use.  SQLSTATE=57019

and in the db2diag.log file, it will show the following error message. The location of the log is /home/tsminst1/sqllib/db2dump directory.

2015-02-17-18.40.11.234235+330 I35531942E481       LEVEL: Event

PID     : 2515                 TID  : 140736896952064PROC : db2sysc 0

INSTANCE: tsminst1             NODE : 000

EDUID   : 1                    EDUNAME: db2sysc 0

FUNCTION: DB2 UDB, base sys utilities, sqeAppServices::ExecuteStopForce, probe:1000

DATA #1 : String, 47 bytes

[Force]->Number of applications to be forced :

DATA #2 : Hexdump, 4 bytes

0x00007FFFDCBEF1D4 : 0200 0000                                  ....

[tsminstn@DCMBACKUP db2dump]$ tail -20 tsminstn.0.nfy

ADM10502W  Health indicator "Database Backup Required" ("db.db_backup_req") is

in state "Manual backup required" on "database" "tsminst1.TSMDB1  ".

2015-02-17-18.00.44.237755   Instance:tsminst1   Node:000

PID:2509(db2star2)   TID:3969238816   Appid:none

base sys utilities  DB2StartMain Probe:911

In the above situation, you cannot restart your TSM server unless you take the DB backup. and we dont have any dsmserv utilities to take the TSM DB backup offline. 

Solution:

Since TSM uses DB2 database, you can take TSM DB backup using DB2 commands offline and then restart your TSM server. Please note that this backup cannot be used for DRM purpose, and you have to take TSM DB backup as soon as the server starts running fine. So here are the simple steps which might help you

1) First connect to DB2 database through command-line, Go to /home/tsminst1/sqllib/db2dump directory and run 

$ db2start

02/17/2015 18:42:59     0   0   SQL1063N  DB2START processing was successful.

SQL1063N  DB2START processing was successful.

2) Now, you have to take the DB backup by using the following command, in the below command tsmdb1 is the DB name and DBBACKUP2/dbb2 is the location where backup will be stored. make sure you have enough place for the backup to be stored in the directory.

$ db2 backup db tsmdb1 to /DBBACKUP2/dbb2

Backup successful. The timestamp for this backup image is : 20150217184833

3) After the backup is successfully completed, you can run the dsmserv command to start the TSM server as usual.

$ su - tsminst1

$ /opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/dsmserv

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