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True Image Restores (TIR) with VMware backups

vksingh
Level 4

I wish to implement Full + Incremental backup policy for VMware backups using NBU 7.5 and policy type "VMware". One of the requirements is TIR and based on my testing in lab it does not look like TIR is possible with Full + Incremental backups of VM.

Only alternative I can think of is do a full backup every day - might be using accelarator be a good option. 

Does anyone has another solution?

4 REPLIES 4

Nicolai
Moderator
Moderator
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TIR does not apply to VMware backup. TIR is a file based tracking of renamed and moved files, but VMware is about backing up a VMDK file.

Accelerator is supported for VMware as of Netbackup 7.6

If you want TIR functionality either run full VM backup every day or deploy and run file system backup inside the VM.

That said - TIR restore is used very rare. So consider the pro/cons.

vksingh
Level 4

Yeah. Client is stressing wants TIR kind functionality from VMware backups. I know about accelerator and can go to 7.6 but even than the size of catalog will be quite big with daily full backups. 

Posted here thinking if someone has done something smarted/tricky/hack to get TIR kind functionality without the cons. 

Nicolai
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP   

I don't think catalog will grow that large - a VMware backup is after all very few files (the VMDK ones) where as a "normal" backup will have many more files compared to VMware backup.

Retention has a impact on size of catalog as well. 

vksingh
Level 4

If you enable file level recovery from VMware backups catalog will be large as it will do the entry for all files in the VMDK in catalog.