IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent configurations

Off-host file restore

These configurations do not require the IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent to be installed in each virtual machine guest. Instead, an off-host instance is responsible for file restore of multiple virtual machines. With this configuration, the mount process exposes a virtual volume from a selected disk partition. For GPT disks, the whole disk must be exposed to make the partitions available, and the disk must be iSCSI connected. Use the recovery agent GUI to accomplish this task.

You must register a node that is associated with the recovery agent. The recovery agent node must be granted proxy authority to access the data node (or nodes) where the snapshots are stored. When a snapshot is mounted to the off-host server, the virtual volume can be network-shared to make it accessible to the virtual machine guest. Or, you can copy the files from the mounted volume to the virtual machine guest by any file-sharing method.

In-guest file restore

These configurations require IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent to be installed in each virtual machine guest. The mount and restore process is performed for a single partition from the backed up disk.

The IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent node name is typically granted access only to the virtual machine where it is running with the IBM Spectrum Protect backup-archive client dsmc set access command. The restore process is typically begun by a user who logs in to the guest machine of the virtual machine.

For these configurations, be sure to compare the specific virtual machine guest operating system requirements with the supported levels of IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent. If a specific operating system is not supported, determine if the off-host disk / block device exposure configuration can also be used for file restore. Use the IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent GUI to accomplish this task.

Off-host iSCSI target

This configuration exposes an iSCSI target from the instance of the off-host IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent and manually uses an in-guest iSCSI initiator to access the disk snapshot. This configuration requires an iSCSI initiator to be installed within the virtual machine guest. This approach exposes an iSCSI LUN, rather than the off-host file restore, which exposes an individual disk partition. Use the IBM Spectrum Protect recovery agent GUI to accomplish this task.

In this configuration, the user specifies the virtual machine guest iSCSI initiator name for the system where the iSCSI device is accessed. After a disk snapshot is mounted, it can be discovered and logged in to by using the iSCSI initiator in the virtual machine guest.