Backup and restore types

Data Protection for VMware provides the following types of backup and restore functions:

Incremental forever backups

Data Protection for VMware provides incremental forever backup. Rather than scheduling weekly full backups, this backup solution requires only one initial full backup. Afterward, an ongoing (forever) sequence of incremental backups occurs. The incremental forever backup solution provides these advantages:
  • Reduces the amount of data that goes across the network.
  • Reduces data growth because all incremental backups contain only the blocks that changed since the previous backup.
  • No comparison with the backup target is needed since only changed blocks are identified.
  • Minimizes impact to the client system.
  • Reduces the length of the backup window.
  • No need to schedule an initial full backup as a separate schedule: the first issue of an incremental forever backup automatically defaults to an incremental forever full backup.
In addition, the restore process is optimized, as only the latest versions of blocks that belong to a restored backup are restored. Since the same area on the production disk is recovered only one time, the same block is not written to multiple times.

Full VM backups

Back up an entire VM in your VMware vCenter to Tivoli® Storage Manager storage. This is an entire VM image snapshot, which is a single snapshot that contains all of the VM disks. All data is backed up at the disk block level. The data can then be restored to a disk, or mounted as a virtual volume to restore a file. These backups are managed and retained according to storage policies set up by the Tivoli Storage Manager administrator.

Incremental VM backups

Back up only the VM data that has changed since the last full backup completed. All data is backed up at the disk block level. When a full backup has not been issued for the VM, Data Protection for VMware issues a full backup by default.

You can also use Data Protection for VMware to interface with the Windows backup-archive client in order to use the Change Block Tracking capabilities provided by the vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP).

File restore

Use the Tivoli Storage Manager file restore interface to restore files with a web-based interface. File owners can search, locate, and restore files from a VM backup without administrator assistance.

Instant restore

With instant restore, you can restore the content of a single volume from a snapshot. This restore uses the snapshot data that is generated by the backup-archive client. Instant restore can be done from a full or incremental VM backup. You can use the volume immediately, while the restore process continues in the background. Instant restore requires an in-guest installation.

Full VM restore

Restore a full or incremental VM backup. The entire VM is restored to the state it existed in when originally backed up.

Full VM instant restore

With full VM instant restore, the restored VM becomes available for instant use, either for validating the backed up VM or for restoring the VM to permanent storage. The restored VM is available for instant use in read/write mode.