Backup-archive client updates

For more information about this new method, see Tagschedule.

For more information on Linux x86_64, see Installing the Linux x86_64 client.

For more information on Windows 64-bit, see Upgrading the Windows client and Silent installation.

For more information about this new method, see Csv.

For more information about this new option, see Vmvstorcompr.

For more information, see Clustersharedfolder.

For more information, see Vmmaxrestoreparallelvms.

For more information, see Automatic backup-archive client deployment.

The NetApp API runtime files are no longer installed by default

The NetApp API runtime files that are used for snapshot differential backups are no longer installed in a typical installation. You must install them with the custom installation option.

For more information, see:

• Installing the Windows client for the first time
• Upgrading the Windows client

Separate installation of the backup-archive client is no longer required for Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V

Starting in V8.1.4, the installation of IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V is integrated into a single, simplified installation process with the Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V suite installer. Separate installation of the backup-archive client is no longer required.

For information about installing Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V and protecting Hyper-V virtual machines, see Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V.

Information about Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V is deprecated in the backup-archive client documentation.

After the IBM Spectrum Protect server is upgraded to V8.1.2 and configured with the improved security protocol, and the backup-archive client is upgraded to V8.1.2, the security settings for the client must be configured to work with the security enhancements on the server. For more information about the configuring the client for different security scenarios, see Configuring the client security settings to connect to the IBM Spectrum Protect server version 8.1.2 and later.

The following changes are available in this release:

New sslacceptcertfromserv option, changes to three existing SSL-related options

To simplify the process of distributing server certificates, IBM Spectrum Protect now includes a new sslacceptcertfromserv option to control whether the backup-archive client or the API application accepts and trusts the IBM Spectrum Protect server's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) public certificate the first time they connect.

In addition, three SSL-related options ssl, ssldisablelegacytls, and sslarequired have changed. Their operation varies depending on whether operation is with IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.2 or with IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.1 and earlier V8 levels, and V7.1.7 and earlier levels.

For a description of these option settings and important version information, see Sslacceptcertfromserv, Ssl, Ssldisablelegacytls, and Sslrequired.

The IBM Spectrum Protect password location is changed

Beginning in V8.1.2, the IBM Global Security Kit (GSKit) keystores are used to store all IBM Spectrum Protect passwords. When you upgrade to IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1.2 backup-archive client, the existing passwords are automatically migrated to new locations on the client system.

For more information about the new password location and related considerations, see Secure password storage.

A new way of importing server certificates is available with the dsmcert utility. For information about importing server certificates, see Configuring IBM Spectrum Protect client/server communication with Secure Sockets Layer.

Because of the use of the new secure password storage, new procedures for granting password access to non-administrative users are available.

For UNIX and Linux clients, see Enable non-root users to manage their own data.

For Windows clients, see Backup-archive client operations and security rights.

Automatically deploy backup-archive client updates

The IBM Spectrum Protect server administrator can use server commands to schedule updates for one or more backup-archive clients. The updates can be fix packs or new releases. This feature was available in previous releases of IBM Spectrum Protect, but an improved procedure is available for V8.1.2. For more information, see Schedule automatic updates for backup-archive clients.

Deprecated functions

The following functions are deprecated in this release:

lanfreessl and replsslport options

Two SSL-related options, lanfreessl and replsslport, are deprecated and unavailable if you are connecting to an IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.2 and later. These options are still valid and available if you are connecting to an IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.1 and earlier V8 levels, and V7.1.7 and earlier levels.

Trusted communications agent (TCA)

The trusted communications agent (TCA), previously used by non-root users in V8.1.0 and V7.1.6 and older clients, is no longer available. Root users can use other methods to allow non-root users to manage their files. For more information, see:

• The trusted communications agent is no longer available
• Enable non-root users to manage their own data

IBM Spectrum Protect web client

You can no longer use the web client to connect to the IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1.2 or later server. However, you can still use the web client to connect to IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1.1, V8.1.0, or V7.1.7 or earlier servers. For more information, see Using the web client in the new security environment.

NDMP command-line and web client operations

If you are connecting to IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.2 or later, you can no longer use the client command-line interface or web client to back up or restore NAS file servers using Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP). Alternatively, you can use IBM Spectrum Protect server commands with the administrative command-line client (dsmadmc) to restore NDMP data. For more information, see the NDMP information in Using the web client in the new security environment.

Open registration

If the client is connecting to IBM Spectrum Protect server V8.1.2 or later, the open registration feature is no longer available. To connect to the IBM Spectrum Protect server, you must use closed registration. For more information, see Closed registration.

Open registration is still available if the client is connecting to IBM Spectrum Protect V8.1.1, V8.1.0, or V7.1.7 and earlier servers.

For more information about security improvements on the server, see Protect your storage environment with an improved security protocol.

Back up virtual machines by using resilient change tracking (RCT)

To improve the scalability and performance of virtual machine (VM) backups, resilient change tracking (RCT) is used for all VM backup operations of Hyper-V hosts that run on the Microsoft Windows Server 2016 operating system.

For more information, see Virtual machine backups with resilient change tracking (RCT).

Exercise more control over backup operations on VMs with physical disks

You can control whether full Hyper-V RCT VM backups are processed if the VM has one or more physical disks (pass-through disks) provisioned.

For more information, see the following options:

• Vmprocessvmwithphysdisks
• Vmskipphysdisks

Specify the number of snapshot attempts and the level of data consistency for backup operations

To determine the total number of snapshot attempts to try for a virtual machine that fails during backup processing due to snapshot failure, use the INCLUDE.VMSNAPSHOTATTEMPTS option. You can choose to attempt application-consistent or crash-consistent snapshots.

For more information, see INCLUDE.VMSNAPSHOTATTEMPTS.

Exclude VM disks from or include VM disks in backup operations

You can use the exclude.vmdisk option to exclude a VM disk (VHDX) from VM backup operations or use the include.vmdisk option to include a VM disk in VM backup operations.

For more information, see the following topics:

• Exclude.vmdisk
• Include.vmdisk
• Domain.vmfull
• Backup VM

Scalability and reliability of VM backups are improved

VMs are logically grouped into a single snapshot to reduce or eliminate snapshot conflicts at the Hyper-V host level. Improved snapshot retry processing simplifies scheduling and improves reliability across cluster nodes.

• To control the number of VMs to include in a snapshot, use the vmmaxpersnapshot option. For more information, see Vmmaxpersnapshot.
• To control how many snapshot retries are attempted, use the vmmaxsnapshotretry option. For more information, see Vmmaxsnapshotretry.

Use these grouping and retry improvements along with the vmmaxparallel option to help improve performance.

For information, see Tuning scheduled VM backups for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 clusters.

To use enhanced VVOL features, use the options that are described in the following sections:

Specify the location for virtual machine backup and restore operations: local, server, or both

For virtual machines that are hosted on VVOL datastores, you can now specify one of the following backup locations for backup and restore operations: local, server, or both. A local backup is a persisted snapshot on the hardware storage.

To specify the backup location for the Backup VM or Restore VM command, use the vmbackuplocation option. For more information, see Vmbackuplocation.

You can also specify the backup location or locations to query when you run the Query VM command. For more information, see Query VM.

The Local Backup Management (IBM Spectrum Protect) tags are available for local backups. For more information, see Supported data protection tags.

Create a schedule group

You can use the schedgroup option to create a group that contains multiple schedules. You can then use the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in to assign the schedule group to an object in the VMware vSphere Web client rather than an individual schedule. An example of the use of this option is to group multiple daily local backup schedules with a single IBM Spectrum Protect server backup schedule.

For more information, see Schedgroup.

For instructions about setting the option settings, see Vmmaxrestoreparalleldisks.

For a description of the option settings and important information about migrating from prior client versions, see Snapdiffchangelogdir.

For more information, see Meet IBM Spectrum Protect.

This product update does not affect existing client nodes, but can affect the process of registering new client nodes, including but not limited to nodes for IBM Spectrum Protect backup-archive clients. In some cases, you might have to create an administrative user ID when you register a node. You can create the administrative user ID by issuing the REGISTER NODE command and specifying the USERID parameter. For information about the types of clients that are affected, see technote 7048963.

If you plan to use the web client, you must manually create an administrative user ID when you register a new node. For more information, see Register your workstation with a server.

For more information about starting the web client, see Starting a web client session.

New data protection tags are available for tagging support

New data protection tags are added to help you manage virtual machine backup operations with the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in in the VMware vSphere Web Client. In addition to using tags to exclude virtual machines from scheduled backup operations and assign retention or management classes, introduced in V7.1.6, you can assign the new tags to vSphere inventory objects to do the following tasks:

• Include virtual machines in scheduled backup operations
• Assign a data mover to a virtual machine
• Specify a list of virtual disks to back up
• Assign a backup schedule to virtual machines in a container
• Specify the data consistency to achieve for snapshot attempts during virtual machine backup operations
• Provide application protection to virtual machines that run Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft Exchange Server software

For more information, see Supported data protection tags.

Set a default data mover for tagging

You can set a default data mover for protecting virtual machines in vSphere inventory objects that are tagged with data protection tags. New virtual machines that are added to the tagged container and are protected by a schedule but do not have a data mover tag are backed up by the default data mover.

For more information, see Vmtagdefaultdatamover.

Data protection tags can be inherited from higher-level vSphere inventory objects

You can use tag inheritance to manage data protection for virtual machines in your vSphere inventory.

For more information, see Inheritance of data protection settings.

Virtual machines can be added to a backup schedule by using the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in

You can select a backup schedule for virtual machines from the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in in the VMware vSphere Web Client. The backup schedule specifies how often and when to automatically back up the virtual machines in a vSphere inventory object.

For more information, see Selecting a schedule for backing up virtual machines.

You can also view and manage backup schedules from the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in. For more information, see Managing backup schedules in the vCenter.

Virtual machine operations on the backup-archive client

Virtual machine operations are available only if you are using the client as a data mover for the IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments products (Data Protection for VMware or Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V).

You can no longer run virtual machine operations without installing IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments.

VMware vStorage API is no longer part of the client installation

The VMware vStorage API runtime files component that is used for VMware operations is no longer part of the backup-archive client installation. It is installed as part of the Data Protection for VMware installation package.

Virtual machine operations that are discontinued for the data mover

File-level virtual machine backups

You can no longer run file-level VMware virtual machine backups on the data mover. Instead, use incremental-forever full or incremental-forever incremental backup operations.

Periodic full backups and incremental backups

You can no longer run periodic full backups and incremental backups of virtual machines on the data mover. Instead, use incremental-forever full or incremental-forever incremental backup operations.

VMware vCloud Director support

You can no longer back up or restore vCloud vApps with the data mover. To back up or restore vApps, you must use Data Protection for VMware V7.1.

Online system state restores

You can no longer restore the system state on a system that is online. Instead, use the Automated System Recovery (ASR) based recovery method to restore the system state in offline Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE) mode.

For more information, see:

• Restoring the Windows operating system with Automated System Recovery
• Restore Systemstate

Adaptive subfile backup

Adaptive subfile backup operations are discontinued, but you can still restore existing subfile backup data.

Data Encryption Standard (DES) 56-bit data encryption

For increased security, use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128-bit or AES 256-bit data encryption for backup and archive operations.

For more information, see Encryptiontype.

GPFS™ support for the Windows client

The Windows backup-archive client can no longer back up or restore files in a Windows only GPFS cluster. However, you can still use the AIX or Linux backup-archive client to protect data in GPFS clusters that contain mixed nodes, which can include AIX, Linux, and Windows.

Data Protection for IBM Domino® plug-in

The Data Protection for IBM Domino plug-in is stabilized at V7.1.0 and is no longer supported by the backup-archive client. If the Data Protection for IBM Domino plug-in is installed and configured on the same server as the IBM Domino Server and the V8.1 backup-archive client, you can no longer back up and restore IBM Domino databases and transaction log files with the web client.

The guitreeviewafterbackup option

The guitreeviewafterbackup option is no longer supported in this release and is removed from the Preferences Editor. If this option is present in the client options file when you run the client, the option is ignored and no client error messages are displayed.

The following operating systems are no longer supported by the backup-archive client:

• Windows 32-bit operating systems (client and API).
• Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7, and Windows 8 operating systems.
• HP-UX operating systems. You can still use the IBM Spectrum Protect API on an HP-UX operating system.
• Linux on Power Systems (big endian). You can still use the IBM Spectrum Protect API on Linux on Power Systems (big endian).
• Solaris SPARC operating systems. You can still use the IBM Spectrum Protect API on Solaris SPARC operating systems.