NetBackup 7.5 - backup volume of VmWare VSphere machine

[dokhook]

Hi,

We are using NetBackup 7.5 enterprise solution for backup.

NetBackup VmWare backup tab options are funcioning and we managed to configure backup of machines but - this backup is entire machine and includes also volumes that have loads of data that are nott need to be stored. All unnecessary data are mainly placed on other volumes of virtual machine.

What I need to do is: backup only one volume of selected virtual machine.

According to Configure NetBackup policies for VMware guide page 51 - there is no option to select only one volume.

It's hard for me to belive that such a powerful tool don't support such an option.

Please help me to find a way to backup only one volume of virtual machine. Sugestions for the other tools are also welcome.

Thanks in advance for your help

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Have you seen this section on page 60?

About the Exclude disk options for Virtual disk selection

The VMware - Advanced Attributes dialog has an option called Virtual disk

selection. The default setting is Include all disks. You should use this setting in

most cases.

The other options are Exclude boot disk and Exclude data disks. These options

are intended for the virtual machines that have multiple virtual disks.

.....

......

[dokhook]

Marianne,

I've just red section 60 - and option to Exclude Data Disks - is turned on on VMWare > Advanced.. Virtual disk selection.

I'm guessing problem is that I don't full understand on witch basis NetBackup make difference what is data - and what is boot disk?

One case has more basic disks - and they are marked as Primary partition. Might be that this cause confusion to NetBackup.

Do you maybe know how disks needs to deffined in vm in order for NetBackup to see them as data disks?

Thank you for your help.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

I'm not sure how netbackup actually determine each vmdk is boot disk or not, but stated as below in NetBackup 7.5 for VMware Administrator's Guide.

---

The boot disk must include the following:

■ The boot partition.

■ The system directory (Windows system directory or Linux boot directory).

■ The full swap file (Windows pagefile.sys or Linux swap partition).

[grenief]

It might not be suitable for you, but for me, when I need to remove a vmdk from being backed up, I mark it as "independent" in vmware. Independent disks are not included in the snapshot so, netbackup doesn't backup them.