Backing up VMware data

Use Data Protection for VMware to store backup versions of your VMware virtual machines on the Tivoli® Storage Manager server.

Restriction: The following restrictions apply to VMware VMDKs that are involved in a backup operation:

For incremental forever backup mode, each individual VMDK involved in a backup operation cannot exceed 8 TB. If a VMDK exceeds 8 TB, the backup operation fails. To increase the size of the VMDK to be larger than the default 2 TB, specify the maximum size with the vmmaxvirtualdisks option. For more information, see Vmmaxvirtualdisks.
For periodic full backup mode, each individual VMDK involved in a backup operation cannot exceed 2 TB. If a VMDK exceeds 2 TB, the backup operation fails.

To prevent a failure during either backup mode, you can skip processing the VMDK by specifying vmskipmaxvirtualdisks yes in the backup-archive client options file. For more information, see Vmskipmaxvirtualdisks.

For in-guest application protection, a VMDK involved in a backup operation must be less than 2 TB in size. If a VMDK is equal to, or greater than, 2 TB, the backup operation fails. To prevent such a backup failure, remove the INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS option for the virtual machine with a VMDK that is equal to, or greater than, 2 TB.