Recovering your VMware vSphere environment

Data backup is the primary method to maintain data safety and integrity. In an ideal and perfect world, their use would never be required. Unfortunately, the reality is that accidents and disasters do happen. If they do, it is paramount to minimize system downtime and get back up and running as soon as possible.

In the past, storing backups on high-performance storage or tape were feasible solutions. Today, enterprises are seeking to alleviate the capital and operational costs that are associated with physical on-premises storage by augmenting or even replacing it with Object Storage. However, with Object Storage, because backups are no longer on on-premises storage, restoring from them is no longer a matter of locating the necessary backup and restoring from it. Fortunately, you can use a hybrid solution that performs much of the legwork of restoring backups that are stored on Object Storage. The solution consists of

IBM Cloud® Object Storage
NetApp AltaVault Cloud Storage Gateway from NetApp (formerly Riverbed SteelStore)
Veeam Backup & Replication software

If a catastrophic event occurs and takes your primary environment offline, a secondary recovery site can be created within IBM Cloud® to recover it. You can deploy Veeam Backup & Replication software and an AltaVault cloud-integrated storage appliance to communicate with IBM Cloud Object Storage to access previous backups of the primary environment. The software connects with the storage appliance to restore the backups to a new location, bringing the primary environment back online, and averting any further loss of uptime.

On-premises IP addresses are retained when you restore the virtual machines (VMs) at the IBM Cloud recovery site. As a result, it is important to either change IP addresses upon successful recovery or design a BYOIP infrastructure. For assistance in either case, contact your IBM Representative.

The following procedure focuses on the coordinated use of a NetApp AltaVault Cloud Storage Gateway appliance, the IBM Cloud infrastructure, and Veeam Backup & Replication to fully restore a VMware vSphere environment failed. The software assumes that at least one backup of the environment was made by using the three preceding technologies and is on IBM Cloud Object Storage at the time of recovery.

“AltaVault appliance” is identified two different ways. The first is “on-premises AltaVault appliance,” which refers to the original, on-premises AltaVault appliance that failed and from which backups are recovered and or restored. The second is “IBM Cloud AltaVault appliance”, which refers to the AltaVault appliance that is used to recover backups from the failed on-premises AltaVault appliance. The IBM Cloud AltaVault appliance deploys to a vSphere environment by using a utility server.

Introducing a Hybrid Solution

Veeam Backup & Replication enables a hybrid solution to include NetApp AltaVault cloud-integrated storage appliance and IBM Cloud Object Storage. The primary concern is to create, maintain, and restore from backups of virtual environments. The NetApp AltaVault cloud-integrated storage appliance is a software solution to seamlessly integrate an on-premises environment with private or public clouds. When used together, Veeam Backup & Replication create backups that the AltaVault cloud-integrated storage appliance stores on local, on-premises storage and simultaneously replicate onto IBM Cloud Object Storage. Additionally, the IBM Cloud® pay-as-you-go pricing model and full integration with the Content Delivery Network (CDN) offers the ability to store and distribute data across 24 geographically diverse nodes.

IBM Cloud Object Storage

To access the data files that are backed up to IBM Cloud Object Storage, data files are requested by the following ways:

The AltaVault appliance already that is located on-premises
A secondary AltaVault appliance that is located within IBM Cloud

Follow this procedure to deploy a secondary AltaVault appliance within IBM Cloud to recover a primary, on-premises AltaVault appliance that failed.

The IBM Cloud environment consists of a single ESXi host with local storage to house and run the secondary AltaVault appliance. The infrastructure is representative of the basic single-site architecture with a single ESXi host that is managed by a vCenter server within an IBM Cloud virtual server instance.

If you have a more substantial infrastructure that requires shared storage and or support for these features

vSphere High Availability (HA)
vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
vSphere vMotion

Prerequisites

Verify that the following prerequisites are met before you proceed: Note: For this example, a trial version of an AltaVault AVA-v8 appliance was used with AltaVault Cloud-Integrated Storage 4.1.

Make sure that the existing environment consists of a single ESXi host that is managed by a vCenter server within an IBM Cloud virtual server instance.
Knowledge of VMware Sphere terminology and administering vSphere ESXi environments. This knowledge includes, but is not limited to, use of the vSphere web client, vSphere client, and assignment of hardware resources to include networking and storage.

Before you begin

Navigate to your console's device menu. For more information, see Navigating to devices.
Ensure you have any necessary account permissions and device access. Only the account owner, or a user with the Manage Users classic infrastructure permission, can adjust the permissions.

For more information about permissions, see Managing classic infrastructure access and Managing device access.

Order Two Portable Private Networks

AltaVault requires the network interfaces to be on different networks within the environment. Use the following steps to order two portable private networks through the IBM Cloud® infrastructure customer portal.

Click Account > Place an Order.
Select the Network section click Subnets/IPs > Order.
From the drop-down menu, select Portable Private. Selecting Portable Private triggers an option to select the number of portable private IP addresses to display. Note: IBM Cloud automatically reserves at least three IP addresses in the address block for each portable private network. The reserved addresses are for the network address, gateway address, and broadcast address. These addresses must be bound directly to the virtual LAN (VLAN). For more information about portable IP addresses, see About subnets and IPs.
Click Continue after you select the number of portable private IP addresses.
Select the VLAN where the portable private IP addresses to be routed and click Continue.
Complete the required contact information and click Place Order.
Repeat the ordering process to obtain the second required portable private network.
Click Network > IP Management > Subnets from the IBM Cloud infrastructure customer portal page to view your portable private networks and IP addresses after they are allocated. It is recommended to track your IP address assignments. Use the Notes section of the Subnets page for each IP address to reflect the machine to which it is assigned.

Configuring vSphere

You need to configure vSphere to reflect the addition of the portable private networks and make sure that they are logically segregated.

Go to your vSphere environment and create a virtual machine port group to reflect the addition of one of the portable IP blocks (two in total).

Virtual machine port group is labeled Share Network. One portable IP block is used for VMs that are placed on the default (primary) virtual machine port group. The other is used for data transfer between an AltaVault appliance and an exported Common Internet File System (CIFS)/Server Message Block (SMB) mount point.

AltaVault Cloud Storage Gateway

You can use AltaVault to integrate your on-premises environment with the cloud without the need to write scripts or applications by using REST APIs for IBM Cloud Object Storage. AltaVault exposes a CIFS/SMB or Network File System (NFS) mount point on the front end and securely connects to the IBM Cloud Object Storage interface on the back end. You can then mount or point to the mount points and copy data into and or recovering/restoring environments from the cloud securely.

Deploying AltaVault in a Disaster Recovery Configuration

Follow these steps to deploy AltaVault as a disaster recovery solution with IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Before you get started

Verify that the following prerequisites are met before you proceed:

Obtain a copy of AltaVault Virtual Appliance and make sure that it is on the utility server. It is a single file with an OVA file extension. Contact your NetApp representative for the appliance, or download a 90-day trial version from the NetApp AltaVault website .
Have an existing on-premises vSphere ESXi 5.5 environment with the minimum CPU, memory, and disk space requirements available for the AltaVault appliance. If you use the trial version, these are the resource requirements: four virtual CPUs (vCPUs), 24 GB of memory, and up to 8 TB of disk space.
Have two 10 Gbps network interface controllers (NICs) available within the vSphere environment. One NIC is used for data access, and the other is used for data replication to IBM Cloud Object Storage.
Have two portable private networks that correspond to the two NICs that are defined within the vSphere environment. The replication network cannot be assigned to the same network as the data access network, which can create a routing loop.
Have IBM Cloud Object Storage credentials. These credentials include an IBM Cloud username, IBM Cloud Object Storage username, and the API key that is associated with the IBM Cloud username.
Suspend data replication on the on-premises AltaVault appliance or disconnect it from the container/bucket that is used to access the backup archive in IBM Cloud if the on-premises environment is still intact.
- Use one of the two following methods to suspend or stop replication:
  - Turn off the on-premises AltaVault appliance.
  - Go to the AltaVault appliance web management console and click Storage > Cloud Settings > Replication. Select Suspend Replication.
  - Obtain a copy of the configuration file of the on-premises AltaVault appliance or have it accessible through a URL. The configuration file is a .tar file.
- Go to the AltaVault appliance web management console and click Configure > Setup Wizard > Export Configuration > Export Configuration. Save the configuration file (.tar file) and either transfer it to the utility server or make it accessible through a URL.
  - Knowledge of VMware Sphere terminology and administering vSphere ESXi environments. This knowledge includes, but is not limited to, use of the vSphere web client, vSphere client, and assignment of hardware resources such as networking and storage.

Deploying AltaVault OVA

Deploy the AltaVault OVA to the vSphere environment by using the utility server after all of the prerequisites are met. Instructions for OVA deployment can be found in the NetApp AltaVault Installation and Service Guide External link icon . The trial version of AltaVault comes configured with four virtual CPUs, 6 GB of memory, and a 150 GB primary disk. Use the Installation and Service Guide to do the following steps:

Increase the amount of memory to 24 GB.
Add a secondary disk storage device that is less than or equal to 8 TB to store deduplicated backup data.
Assign different portable private networks to the AltaVault appliance after the memory and disk configurations are changed.

The NICs are assigned the following interface functions:

Primary: Used for the AltaVault appliance management and data replication to the cloud. It is assigned the Primary Network port group in the example environment.
e0a: An optional interface that is used to replicate data from the AltaVault appliance to the cloud.
e0b: An interface that is used to export the mount point for the SMB/CIFS or NFS share. It is assigned the Share Network port group in the example environment.
e0c: An optional interface that is used to export the mount point for the SMB/CIFS or NFS share.

In the example configuration in this procedure, the AltaVault appliance uses the Primary interface as the replicate-to-cloud interface and the e0b interface to export a CIFS/SMB mount point. Note: You cannot use both A CIFS/SMB share and an NFS share to access the same data. The protocol that is used must be the same as the protocol that is used with the on-premises AltaVault appliance to replicate data to the cloud.

For more information on the deployment of the AltaVault appliance and configuration of the VM settings, see NetApp AltaVault Installation and Service Guide External link icon .

Configuring the AltaVault Appliance

You can power on the AltaVault VM after it is configured. It can take some time for the VM to start as the AltaVault appliance is formatting the auxiliary storage disk.
Log in to the AltaVault console by using admin as the Username and password as the Password after the appliance completes the boot process. You can change these credentials after you complete the initial configuration. See Table 1: AltaVault initial configuration values
After you log in to the appliance, you are asked whether you want to use the wizard for configuration. Enter y.
Use the information in Table 1 after you enter the wizard.
Press Enter to save your changes.

AltaVault initial configuration values
Question	Answer
Step 1: Admin Password?	Enter a new admin password (cannot be password).
Step 2: Hostname?	Enter the appropriate hostname.
Step 3: Use DHCP on primary interface?	Enter n or no.
Step 4: Primary IP Address?	Enter the primary network IP address. In the example configuration, this IP address is the network that is used for the management interface (for example, 10.120.108.132).
Step 5: Netmask?	Enter the netmask (for example, 255.255.255.192).
Step 6: Default gateway?	Enter the default gateway (e.g., 10.120.108.129).
Step 7: Primary DNS server?	Enter the primary Domain Name System (DNS) server in your environment.
Step 8: Domain name?	Enter the domain name of your environment (for example, testenv.org).

Configuring AltaVault for IBM Cloud Object Storage

The AltaVault appliance must be connected to the IBM Cloud Object Storage service after it is set up. In the on-premises configuration, the public DNS is used to connect to the Object Storage Service. In this configuration, the internal DNS name is used instead.

Open a web browser and enter the IP address of the AltaVault appliance.
Log in to the console with the admin credentials. Upon initial login, the Wizard Dashboard displays.
Select System Settings and verify that all network settings are correct and adjust the time zone to reflect the time zone of your environment.
Select Next > Save and Apply > Exit. You return to the Wizard Dashboard and are logged out of your current browser session.
Log back in to the AltaVault appliance and click Settings > Setup Wizard > Import Configuration and specify the location of the configuration file of the on-premises AltaVault appliance.
Select Import Shared Data Only, which imports only settings that are shared, such as cloud and email settings.
Enter the passphrase for the encryption key that is specified during the creation of the on-premises AltaVault appliance, if one was set, in the Key Passphrase text box.
Click Import Configuration > Exit.

You successfully imported the on-premises AltaVault appliance configuration to the IBM Cloud AltaVault appliance.

Use the following steps to modify the cloud settings of the {{site.data.keywrod.cloud_notm}} AltaVault appliance to give it access to the IBM Cloud Object Storage service through the private network.

In AltaVault, go to Storage > Cloud Settings > Cloud and modify the hostname to reflect the private address of the IBM Cloud Object Storage service.
- The private network name syntax is .objectstorage.service.networklayer.com, where designates the shortened data center name (example: mel01 for the Melbourne 01 data center).
Click Apply. The AltaVault appliance attempts to connect to the IBM Cloud Object Storage service. If this connection attempt fails, verify that the cloud provider settings are correct before you try to connect again.

After you connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage, the appliance needs to be placed in recovery mode to sync the metadata content of the original backup data from IBM Cloud Object Storage.

Use the following steps to place the AltaVault appliance in recovery mode.

The AltaVault appliance syncs data from IBM Cloud Object Storage. Note: The time it takes to complete the sync depends on the size and number of backups that are being restored.

Go to the AltaVault appliance, log in, and enter the commands that are shown in Figure 3:

Figure 5: Recovery mode commands
Return to the AltaVault appliance web console after the sync process completes.
Verify that the Storage Optimization Service is running and that it's Status is ready. It might take a few minutes for the Status to change to ready.

Configure the CIFS/SMB Mount Point in AltaVault

After the internal connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage is established, configured the e0b interface to access a CIFS/SMB mount point.

In the AltaVault web console, go to Settings > Data Interfaces.
Expand the e0b interface and select Enable Data Interface, if necessary.
Enter the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway that you want to use to mount the CIFS/SMB share. Make sure to use a different subnet than the one that is used for the primary interface.
Leave the default MTU value of 1500 bytes.
- Although the default maximum transmission unit (MTU) is 1,500, you can change it to 9,000 if you are using jumbo frames. Your ESXi host and physical infrastructure need to support jumbo frames. By default, IBM Cloud supports an MTU size of 9,000 bytes with no configuration changes needed.
Click Apply.

The AltaVault appliance is now configured to allow communications between itself, IBM Cloud Object Storage, and Veeam Backup & Replication.

Veeam Backup & Replication

Veeam Backup & Replication software provides complete backup, replication, and recovery capabilities for VMs and their data. Veeam Backup & Replication can be fully integrated with an AltaVault Cloud Gateway Appliance, making for a seamless backup and recovery experience.

Deploy Veeam Backup & Replication

A trial version of Veeam Backup & Replication Version 8 is used in the example.

Prerequisites

Before you proceed with deployment, make sure that the following prerequisites are satisfied:

Have an existing AltaVault appliance that is configured for use with IBM Cloud Object Storage and Veeam Backup & Replication.
Obtain a copy of Veeam Backup & Replication for VMware environments, which is a single executable file. Contact your Veeam Representative for a copy or download a 30-day trial version .
Obtain a license file for use with Veeam Backup & Replication. In most cases, this file is emailed to the email address that was used to download Veeam Backup & Replication. If you did not receive this file, contact your Veeam Representative.

The license file is used to activate full Veeam Backup & Replication functionality. If this file is not supplied during program installation, all features and functionality revert to the 30-day trial version.
Have a virtual server instance that is provisioned in IBM Cloud® with the specifications in Table 2. Note: The installed operating system must be a 64-bit version.

System requirements for IBM Cloud virtual server instance
	Minimum	Recommended
OS	A supported Windows server
# of cores or vCPUs	2	4
Memory	4 GB base RAM plus 500 MB for each concurrent backup and restore job.	16 GB base RAM plus 4 GB for each concurrent backup and restore job.
Disk space	2 GB for product installation, 10 GB per 100 VMs for guest system catalog folder (persistent data).	2 GB for product installation, 10 GB per 100VMs for guest system catalog folder (persistent data).
Network	1 Gbps LAN for onsite backup and replication, 1 Mbps WAN for off-site backup and replication.	1 Gbps LAN for onsite backup and replication, 1 Mbps WAN for offsite backup and replication.

Provision the virtual server instance within the same data center as the AltaVault appliance and vSphere environment. The virtual server instance must have access to the AltaVault appliance and vCenter.

Installing Veeam Backup & Replication

Use the following steps to install Veeam Backup & Replication to the IBM Cloud virtual server instance after all of the prerequisites are met.

Double-click the program file and click Veeam Backup & Replication – Install. The setup wizard opens.
- Click Next and select I accept the terms in the license agreement .
- Click Next and specify the location of the license file that is obtained under Deploy Veeam Backup & Replication.
- Click Next and select which Veeam Backup & Replication components that you want installed and their installation location on the Program Features screen. Note: Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Backup Catalog are required components.
- Click Next.
  The setup wizard runs a series of checks to make sure that all required program frameworks and supporting components are installed. If any components are missing, the setup wizard offers to install them.
Verify that all components Passed the systems check and click Next.
Select the Service (user) Account that you want the Veeam Backup Service to run. The default service account is the LOCAL SYSTEM account. Click Next.
Select the SQL Server Instance that you want to use to create and store Veeam Backup & Replication databases. For more information, contact your database administrator. Click Next.
Enter the Catalog service port (9393) and Veeam Backup service port (9392). Click Next.
Select the directories where you want to store the guest file system catalog (persistent data) and vPower NFS write cache (non-persistent data). Click Next.
Verify that all settings and values are correct and click Install. After the installation is done, click Finish.

Configuring Veeam Backup & Replication

After Veeam Backup & Replication installs, you are ready to connect with the AltaVault appliance.

Start Veeam Backup & Replication.
On the lower-left side of the screen, click Backup Infrastructure.
In the Backup Infrastructure window, click Managed Servers > Managed servers.
From the ribbon menu, click Add Server and double-click VMware vSphere.
Enter the private IP address of the vSphere server and click Next.
Enter the account credentials of a local account with administrator privileges on the vSphere server that is specified previously. Note: The account username must be in DOMAIN\USER format for domain accounts, or HOST\USER format for local accounts. To add an account, click Add and enter the appropriate username and password. Do not change the default VMware web services port unless your network administrator tells you to. Click Next.
- Veeam Backup & Replication attempts to connect to the vSphere server. If the connection attempt fails, check that the account exists and has administrator privileges on the vSphere server before you try again.
Click Finish.
Verify that the vSphere server is successfully added by clicking Managed Servers > VMware vSphere.

Adding a Backup Repository to Veeam Backup & Replication

Follow these steps to create a new backup repository to store restored backups on the AltaVault appliance. Note: A CIFS/SMB share is used for the example because the Veeam Backup & Replication backup server must be hosted on a machine that is running Windows. The share protocol that is used for restoring backups in the IBM Cloud AltaVault appliance must be identical to the share protocol that is used for those same backups in the on-premises AltaVault appliance, a CIFS/SMB share is used.

In the lower-left, click Backup Infrastructure > Backup Repositories.
From the ribbon menu, click Add Repository.
Give the repository a unique Name and give an appropriate Description. Click Next.
Select the share type that corresponds to the share type that is used in the on-premises AltaVault appliance. Example: if the share type that is used in the on-premises AltaVault appliance is CIFS/SMB, select Shared folder.
Specify the location where you want the backups of the CIFS/SMB share to be restored on the AltaVault appliance. The share has the same name as the share through which backups were processed on the on-premises AltaVault appliance. For example, if the share named cifs_test1 is used for backups in the on-premises AltaVault appliance, then specify the location of the cifs_test1 share on the IBM Cloud AltaVault appliance.
- Open a web browser and enter the IP address of the AltaVault appliance to determine the location.
- Go to Storage > CIFS and take note of the Share Path of the share. Note: This is NOT the same as the local path of the share. The share path format is \\<AltaVault appliance hostname>\<share name>. Replace the AltaVault appliance hostname in the Share Path needs with the IP address of the e0b network interface (the mount point of the share) of the AltaVault appliance.
- Click Settings > Data Interfaces in the AltaVault appliance management window to find the IP address of the e0b interface. For more information about configuring IFS/SMB mounts, see Configure CIFS/SMB Mount Point in AltaVault.
- The share path that is specified in Veeam Backup & Replication is \\10.120.108.133\cifs_test1, not \\restore-appliance\cifs_test1.
Return to Veeam Backup & Replication, input the share path of the mount point in the Shared folder field, and click Next. Veeam Backup & Replication attempts to establish a connection with the mount point. If the connection fails, go back and verify the network settings for the AltaVault appliance are correct before you try again.
Enter a value to Limit maximum concurrent tasks to the number of resources available on the New Backup Repository screen. This value is the maximum number of tasks a backup proxy can send to the selected share. The default number of concurrent tasks is four. AltaVault recommends that you start with five concurrent tasks and increasing or decreasing this value as resources allow.
Click Next.
Specify the optional vPower NFS settings on the vPower NFS screen. If the Enable vPower NFS server checkbox is not selected, then Veeam Backup & Replication uses vPower for recovery and recovery verification. Click Next.
Select Import existing backups automatically, unless you use manual selection of VM backups.
Verify that all settings are correct, and click Next.
- Click Finish to exit the wizard.
Click Yes to continue.

Veeam Backup & Replication is configured and you can begin restoring backups.

Restoring the Environment

Follow these steps to fully restore a VM restore.

In the lower left of the screen, click Backup & Replication.
From the ribbon menu, click Restore.
Select Entire VM (including registration). Note: Don't make any selection under Restore from replica. Click Next.
Click Add VM > From Backup. You see the VMs that were previously replicated to IBM Cloud Object Storage through the on-premises AltaVault appliance and the selected CIFS/SMB share. Click Add > Next.
Restore the VMs to a new location by selecting Restore to a new location, or with different settings. Click Next.
From the Host screen, select a target host for each VM that you are restoring. Select a VM and then click Host.
Select the target host from the Select Host and click OK.
Veeam Backup & Replication attempts to contact the target hosts to make sure that they are online and ready to receive data. If this attempt fails, verify that all network settings are correct before you try again. After the check completes, click Next.
Select an optional Resource Pool for each VM. Click Next.
Select a target data store and disk type for each VM that you are restoring. Click Next.
Veeam Backup & Replication attempts to validate the target data stores. If the validation fails, check that the data store has enough capacity for the VMs that are being restored and verify that all network settings before you try to connect again.
Select a destination folder on the target datastores for each VM that you want restore. Click Next.
Specify network connections and settings for each VM. Click Next.
Enter an optional Restore reason giving a reason why you are performing the restore operation. Click Next.
Veeam Backup & Replication attempts to validate the VMs that you are restoring. Wait for this validation to finish successfully before you proceed.
Verify the restore operations and settings in the Backup & Replication window and click Finish. Veeam Backup & Replication automatically begins restoring the selected VMs.

Next steps

For more information about the components of this hybrid solution, see the following iformation:

Utility server refers to a server that contains the VMware vSphere Client that is used to access a private environment and through which the AltaVault appliance that is used for data recovery operations are deployed.