Vmdatastorethreshold

Use the vmdatastorethreshold option to set the threshold percentage of space usage for each VMware datastore of a virtual machine.

When you specify this option, space usage is checked before a virtual machine snapshot is created. If the threshold is exceeded, the virtual machine is not backed up. By setting this option, you can prevent out-of-space errors when you back up virtual machines.

VMware operations are available only if the client operates as a data mover for IBM Spectrum Protect™ for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware.

Supported clients

Linux operating systems You can use this option with supported x86_64 Linux clients.

Windows operating systems You can use this option with supported Windows 64-bit clients.

Options file

Linux operating systems You can specify this option in the client system-options file (dsm.sys) or on the command line by using the backup vm command. You can also include this option on the IBM Spectrum Protect Version 7.1.5 or later server in a client option set. You cannot set this option in the Preferences Editor.

Windows operating systems You can specify this option in the client options file (dsm.opt) or on the command line by using the backup vm command. You can also include this option on the IBM Spectrum Protect Version 7.1.5 or later server in a client option set. You cannot set this option in the Preferences Editor.

Syntax


>>-VMDATASTORETHreshold----percent-----------------------------><

Parameters

percent

Specifies the threshold percentage of each VMware datastore of the virtual machine to be backed up. You can specify an integer from 0 - 100. The default value is 100. If you do not set this option, the client begins a virtual machine backup without first verifying the existing space usage.

Requirements:

Ensure that the threshold is low enough so that the snapshot does not use up all the available space in the VMware datastores. Otherwise, you will run out of space on the VMware datastores and the snapshot will not be created.
If you use multiple clients that act as data mover nodes, you must add this option to the options file for each data mover.
The client checks the data usage of the VMware datastore that contains the virtual machine disk snapshots. By default, the snapshots are created in the same directory as that of the parent virtual disk (.vmdk) file.
If you change the snapshot location to a new directory on the same datastore or on another datastore with the workingDir option in the VM configuration file, ensure that the path of the working directory is correct. If the path is incorrect, the client might validate the data usage of the wrong datastore.

If you use the EXCLUDE.VMDISK option to exclude one or more disks from a backup, the threshold check is still run on these disks. Even though these disks are not backed up, VMware still takes a snapshot of these disks.

Independent disks are not checked during space verification processing because a snapshot of these disks does not use any VMware datastore space.

Example 1

Virtual machine vm1 spans datastore1 and datastore2. Set the vmdatastorethreshold option to 90 to ensure that both VMware datastores are at most 90% full before the virtual machine is backed up.

Options file:: vmdatastorethreshold 90
Command line:: dsmc backup vm vm1 -vmdatastorethreshold=90

Example 2

The datastore threshold of datastore2 is set to 85. The datastore threshold is exceeded during the backup of virtual machine vm5. The following error message is displayed:

ANS14200E The virtual machine 'vm5' could not be backed up because the 
data usage of datastore 'datastore2' exceeded the datastore threshold 
of 85%.

Increase the value of the vmdatastorethreshold option to 95 and restart the backup.

Options file:: vmdatastorethreshold 95
Command line:: dsmc backup vm vm5 -vmdatastorethreshold=95