INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS

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Use the INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS option to enable application protection during backup operations of guest virtual machines (VMs) that host application data.

The INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS option notifies applications on the guest VM that a backup is about to occur. This option allows the application to truncate transaction logs and commit transactions so that the application can resume from a consistent state when the backup completes. An optional parameter can be specified to suppress the truncation of Microsoft SQL Server transaction logs.

When a VM is included by this option, application protection is provided. That is, the data mover freezes and thaws the VSS writers and, optionally, truncates the application logs. If a VM is not protected by this option, application protection is provided by Hyper-V, which freezes and thaws the VSS writers, but does not truncate application logs.

Important: Before you begin application protection backups, ensure that the application database, such as the Microsoft SQL Server database or Microsoft Exchange Server database, is on a non-boot drive (any drive other than the boot drive), in case a diskshadow revert operation is needed during restore.

Options file

Set this option in the data mover options file. This option cannot be set by the preferences editor or on the command line.

Syntax

Parameters

vmname

Specifies the name of the VM that contains the applications to quiesce. The name is the VM display name in the Hyper-V Manager. Specify one VM per INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS statement. For example, to include a VM named Windows VM3 [2012R2], use the following syntax in the options file:

INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS "Windows VM3 [2012R2]"

To protect all VMs with this option, use an asterisk as a wildcard (INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS *). You can also use question marks to match any single character. For example, INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm?? protects all VMs that have names that begin with vm and are followed by any two characters (vm10, vm11, vm17, and so on).

Tip: If the VM name contains special characters, such as bracket characters ([ or ]), the VM name might not be correctly matched. If a VM name contains special characters, you can use the question mark character (?) to match the special characters in the VM name.

There is no default value for this parameter. To enable application protection, you must include VMs to be protected on one or more INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS statements. Make sure that you do not exclude a disk on a VM (by using the EXCLUDE.VMDISK option) if the disk contains application data that you want protected.

OPTions=KEEPSqllog

For Microsoft SQL Server only: If the

OPTions
KEEPSqllog

parameter is specified on an INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS statement, the parameter prevents SQL server logs from being truncated when a data mover that is installed on a data mover node backs up a VM that is running a SQL server.

Specifying this parameter allows the SQL server administrator to manually backup, and possibly truncate the SQL server logs, so that they can be preserved and be used to restore SQL transactions to a specific checkpoint, after the VM is restored.

When this option is specified, the SQL log is not truncated and the following message is displayed and logged on the server:

ANS4179I IBM Storage Protect application protection 
did not truncate the Microsoft SQL Server logs on VM 'VM'.

You can remove the OPTIONS=KEEPSQLLOG option to enable truncation of the SQL logs when a backup completes.

Note: The client does not back up the SQL log files. The SQL administrator must back up the log files so that they can be applied after the database is restored.

Examples

Options file

Configure application protection for a VM that is named vm_example:

INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm_example

For SQL Server: Configure application protection for vm11, vm12, and vm15:

INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm11
INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm12
INCLUDE.VMTSMVSS vm15 options=keepsqllog

Command line

Not applicable; this option cannot be specified on the command line.