Creating full backups for VMware virtual machines

A full backup of a VMware virtual machine is a backup of an entire virtual machine, including the virtual disks and the virtual machine configuration file. This type of backup is similar to an image backup. To create the full backup, you configure the backup-archive client on the vStorage backup server. The vStorage backup server must run a Windows client or a Linux client.

Before you begin

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

Procedure

To prepare the environment, complete the steps in the following topic:
Preparing the environment for full backups of VMware virtual machines
To configure the backup-archive client on the vStorage backup server, complete the following steps:
1. From the welcome page of the backup-archive client GUI, click Edit > Client Preferences.
2. Select the VM Backup tab.
3. Select VMWare Full VM.
4. In the Domain Backup Types list, select Domain Full VM.
5. In the Host field, enter either the host name of each ESX server or the host name of the Virtual Center. If you specify the Virtual Center, you can back up virtual machines from any of the VMware servers that are managed by the Virtual Center.
6. Enter the user ID and password information for the host that you specify in the Host field.
7. Optional: If you want to override the default management class for full virtual machine backups, specify the management class that you want to use.
8. In the Datastore Location field, enter the path to the directory where the files are stored.
9. Click OK to save your changes.
To create a backup of one of the virtual machines, complete the following steps:
1. At the command line of the vStorage backup server, run the following command:
```
dsmc backup vm my_vm_name -mode=iffull -vmbackuptype=fullvm
```
  Where my_vm_name is the name of the virtual machine.
2. Verify that the command is completed without errors. The following message indicates successful completion:
```
Backup VM command complete
Total number of virtual machines backed up successfully: 1
virtual machine vmname backed up to nodename NODE
Total number of virtual machines failed: 0
Total number of virtual machines processed: 1
```
To verify that you can restore the files for the virtual machine, complete the following steps:
1. At the command-line interface of the vStorage backup server, run the following command:
```
dsmc restore vm my_vm_name
```
2. If errors occur in the restore processing, view the client error log for more information.
  Tip: The log file is saved to /opt/ibm/Tivoli/TSM/baclient/dsmerror.log
To verify that you can restore the files for the virtual machine, complete the following steps:
1. At the command-line interface of the vStorage backup server, run the following command:
```
dsmc restore vm my_vm_name
```
  The default location of the restore is in the following directory: c:\mnt\tsmvmbackup\my_vm_name\fullvm\RESTORE_DATE_yyyy_mm_dd[hh_mm_ss].
2. If errors occur in the restore processing, view the client error log for more information.
  Tip: The error log is saved to the following file:
```
c:\Program Files\Tivoli\TSM\baclient\dsmerror.log
```