How instant recovery for VMware works

To perform VMware instant recovery, you select a recovery point associated with a full, incremental, or differential backup and the Unitrends appliance creates a new virtual machine from the recovery point. The new virtual machine can then assume the role of the original and is available for use immediately. While the virtual machine is operational, Unitrends leverages Storage vMotion to copy data from a disk image on the appliance to the ESX server hosting the new virtual machine.

You can perform VMware instant recovery in two modes: audit mode and instant recovery mode. Audit mode is used for verifying recovery points and instant recovery mode is used to replace a corrupt or failed virtual machine.

See the following topics for details:

     Audit mode

     Instant recovery mode

Audit mode

Performing VMware instant recovery in audit mode enables you to verify that a virtual machine can be created from a recovery point. The digram below illustrates how audit mode works. When you select a recovery point to audit, the appliance uses data from the recovery point to create a disk image on the appliance and a new virtual machine on the selected ESX server. Although the virtual machine resides on the ESX server, it runs from the disk image created on the appliance. All other resources, such as the processors and memory, reside on the ESX server.

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A virtual machine in audit mode is not intended for production use. It does not have network connectivity and changes made to the virtual machine in audit mode are not backed up on the Unitrends appliance. Applications on the virtual machine requiring network access are not fully functional in audit mode. After verifying that the virtual machine has booted and its data is accessible, you should delete it from the ESX server and tear down the disk image from the appliance to free the system resources used to run the virtual machine in audit mode.

To perform VMware instant recovery in audit mode, see Performing the audit process for VMware instant recovery. For information on recovery points, see Point-in-time restore.

Instant recovery mode

Performing VMware instant recovery enables you to replace a corrupt or failed virtual machine. When you select a recovery point, the appliance uses data from the recovery point to create a disk image on the appliance and a new virtual machine on the datastore of the ESX server. As soon as the virtual machine is created, it is available for use. The Unitrends appliance utilizes Storage vMotion to copy the data from the disk image on the Unitrends appliance to the target ESX server. Once the migration is complete, the disk image is no longer needed on the Unitrends appliance and it can be torn down. For details, see Performing VMware instant recovery. For information on recovery points, see Point-in-time restore.

The diagram below illustrates the instant recovery process:

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