Restore from incremental backup of Vmware policy

[NBU35]

Hi 

Master -- solaris 10, 7.6.0.3

Media -- HPUX , 7.6.0.3

Backup host -- WINDOWS2008, 7.6.0.3

VMclient windows.

Policy Type- Vmware (quiescing enables, All disks included)

Is it possible to restore a vitual machine (restore-- restore from virtual machine backup) by using only a incremental backup?

Thanks in Advance !!!!

[sdo · Accepted solution]

Was there ever a preceding full backup?

If not, then your incremental was really a full.  And so you should be ok:

https://www.veritas.com/community/forums/vm-restore-incremental-backups

...and also see:

https://www.veritas.com/community/forums/full-vmdk-vmware-restore-incremental-backup

[NBU35]

There was a preceding full backup, but that has expired.

Now can this vm be recovered with this incremental backup? 

I know answer will be no, but is there any way out ?

[Marianne]

Something very wrong with your retention levels if incrementals have no full backup...

[sdo]

I'm not sure on functionailty, if I ask this question:

1) Was the VM originally backed-up using BLIB and Accelerator?

...this question will trigger Marianne/Mark/Riaan/Martin/Ram/Revaroo in to thinking about whether a lone surviving incremental backup image would contain an accelerator based 'full' restore position?

.

And another question on a different vain is...

2) Was the since expired/no-longer-present/lost full backup image on tape?  If so, do you know which tape?

[Marianne]

I have no 1st-hand experience, but it seems there is concensus that a Full is needed to perform VM restore.

Example:
Vm Restoration

[sdo]

This is where Backup Exec has the up on NetBackup.  BE will hang on to any previous fulls whilst a dependent incremental exists.  This is why a Backup Exec admin can configure two week retention on their weekly full and two week retention on their daily incrementals... whereas... if a NetBackup configures two week retention on daily incrementals, then they should really configure three week retention on their weekly fulls to get the same time frame coverage as Backup Exec. Plus, if you think about this a bit more... in Backup Exec land if the weekly fulls keep failing, but the daily incrementals keep working then the most recent dependee weekly full will not get expired.   Whereas with NetBackup, when the time is up for an image... it's up.

Personally, I'd really like to see a global 'tick box' in NetBackup which says "Do not expire full whilst a dependent incremental exists".

[NBU35]

We are able to recover machine.. 

BLIB was used in policy.

[sdo]

Good news.  Well done.