To configure a SAN-direct backup for a UEB on VMware system

Note: For UEB on VMware systems, no configuration of the Unitrends storage subsystem is required. All configuration is done in the VMware and SAN environments.

1        Verify that these additional requirements have been met:

     Both the UEB system and the VM to back up must be added through a vCenter. Directly adding UEB or the guest VM to the ESX host is not supported.

     The VMware vSphere version must be either 5.1 or later, or an earlier version with an advanced license that supports the hotadd feature. (See VMware documentation for details).

2        Configure the ESX server(s) to access the datastore(s) on the SAN LUNS.

     In clustered environments, all ESX servers in the cluster must be configured to access the datastores.

     The following figure gives an example of how datastores should be configured for access by the UEB on VMware system. In this example, the system can run a SAN-direct backup of both VM1 and VM2 because the UEB hypervisor is configured to access their datastores. However, VM3 cannot use the SAN-direct method because the UEB hypervisor cannot access its datastore.

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3        Physically connect the ESX host machine to the SAN using an iSCSI or Fibre Channel cable.

4        Run backups for the desired guest VMs as described in Executing VMware backups.

     vProtect detects the SAN storage configuration and uses the SAN-direct transport method during backup.

     Note that when restoring SAN-direct backups, VMware determines the most efficient transport method. Data is usually restored directly to the ESX server as the VMFS data store must be utilized.

Caution: If vProtect cannot directly access the SAN, the backup runs using the network connection, moving the guest’s data from the external SAN through the ESX file system to the backup system. If using network bandwidth is a problem during certain hours, schedule your backups accordingly.

5        To check whether SAN-direct was used for a given backup, see To verify the SAN-direct method is used.