If you are running XenServer 5.6 SP2 or thinking of upgrading, you will need PHD Virtual Backup v5.2 -  version 5.1.x and earlier do not support XenServer SP2.

A PHD Virtual Hypervisor Support Matrix is available to help answer any questions on what hypervisor versions (both VMware and XenServer ) are supported with each PHD Virtual Backup release.

If you are running v5.1.x and would like to upgrade to v5.2, visit the FPHDVB Updates page.

Pete

The update patches are available on the Updates page of the PHD Virtual web site.

Each update patch consists of two main components:

1. A new MSI to update the PHD Console and hypervisor plugin.
2. An update file (.phd) for the PHD Virtual Backup Appliance. Updates can be applied to each VBA using the PHD Console’s Configuration > Support Tab.

Note: Note: PHD Virtual recommends running the same version of both the PHD Console and PHD VBAs (a v5.2 PHD VBA managed by a v5.2 PHD Console, for example). If you need to maintain multiple versions in a single environment, you can install multiple versions of the PHD Console to separate machines. For example, install a v5.2 PHD Console to 'Windows Machine1' to manage the v5.2 PHD VBAs, and install a v5.1 PHD Console to 'Windows Machine2' to manage your v5.1 PHD VBAs.

Release notes and additional documentation for v5.2 are located on the Resources pages of the web site:
VMware
XenServer

Some enhancements in v5.2:

• Support for a Second Network Adaptor for the VBA which now allows the backup storage to be on a seperate network then the VBA management.
• Ability to backup vAPP Virtual Machines.
• Restores now take priority over backups that are in progress.
• Usability improvements were made to the PHD Console – a PHD VBA restart is no longer required for many configuration changes.
• The delete process was improved and manual and automatic (trim) deletes will now perform much faster and with more efficiency.

PHD Virtual Raises the Bar for Performance and Scalability with its PHDVB 5.2 Release.

Pete

Additionally, the OVFs are compressed and easier to restore than virtual disks because they include all the VM configuration data.

See the PHD website for videos and additional information.

If you would prefer to use the Backup Data Connector – or would like to learn more about it – then please read on.

Joe Noonan, Product Management ***

PHD Virtual Backup 5.x is a disk-based backup solution for virtual images. However, even with this technology it is still important for many installations to take their image level backups to tape. To meet these requirements the PHDVB 5.x product enables its DeDupe backups to be accessed as raw virtual disk files using it’s Backup Data Connector technology.

The Backup Data Connector or BDC is a SMB/CIFS share that is exposed from the PHD Virtual VBA, so that third party tape solutions can access and pull the backups from it. These image backups are presented as native hypervisor virtual disk files, VMDKs for vSphere and VHDs for XenServer. One third party solution we have tested with is Symantec NetBackup with respect of how to set it up to work with the PHDVB Backup Data Connector (BDC).

Environment Tested With

• NetBackup Version – 7.0.1
• PHD Virtual Backup Version – 5.1.4
• Windows Server 2003 R2 Virtual Machine (Both NetBackup Master and Client running on the same Windows Server )

Two key areas were found to be required for NetBackup to access the PHD BDC share.

1. When defining your NetBackup Policy Backup Selection use the UNC (Universal Naming Convention ) path for the Data Connector share.
2. Ensure the proper credentials are entered for the NetBackup Client Windows Service so that it can access the BDC share. In this case it would be the ‘phd’ user account.

NetBackup Policy Definition and Setting the Backup Selection

NetBackup manages its backup through the use of Policies. This is where you define the PHD Data Connector share to be archived to tape through configuring a ‘Backup Selection’. This is a key point to ensure things work properly with NetBackup and is where you define the UNC path.

NetBackup Policy

In the ‘Backup Selections’ tab define the Backup Data Connector path you wish to back up. In this test I choose the ‘Today’ folder on the BDC but any PHD folder from the share can be used (see below for full list).

The key with this setting is that the UNC path for the VBA Data Connector share must be used. For this example the IP of the VBA is 192.168.30.35.

\\192.168.30.35\backups\Today

NetBackup Backup Selection

Folder Options available from the PHD Virtual Data Connector Include:

-        Last7Days

-        Last32Days

-        LatestOfEach

-        Yesterday

-        Today

NetBackup Policy

NetBackup Client Services Account Credentials

The second key area is setting the correct credentials for the NetBackup Client Windows Service to access the PHD BDC share. You must use the ‘phd’ user that was pre-defined in the VBA Data Connector share. 

PHD Virtual BDC Configuration

On your client server create a new user called ‘phd’ to match the user defined for the VBA BDC. In this example it is created on the Windows 2003 R2 server running the NetBackup client.

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management

Windows 2003 User Add

Set the password for the ‘phd’ user to match the password defined in the PHD VBA BDC configuration.

PHD User Creation

 Then add the ‘phd’ user to the Administrator group.  This is done to ensure the service has the credentials to run properly.

Windows Group Definition

With the Windows user created the next step is to modify the ‘NetBackup Client Service’ to use the ‘phd’ user.

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services

Windows Services

Right click on the ‘NetBackup Client Service’ and open the ‘Properties’.

Then go to the ‘Log On’ tab. In this tab click ‘This Account’ and set it to the ‘phd’ user with the appropriate password defined when the windows user was created. The default is ‘Local System Account’.

Setting Services Log On Account

Once the service has been changed you will need to restart the ‘NetBackup Client Service’ for the change to take effect.

This is the final step for setting up the PHD Virtual data Connector to work with Symantec NetBackup. At this point you should be able to run your NetBackup policy jobs and have it backup your virtual disk image backups from the PHD Virtual Backup Data Connector.

Pete

However, with VMware vSphere PHD Virtual can leverage the ability to run pre and post snapshot scripts using the Quiesce calls provided through VMware tools. For Windows Virtual Machines a snapshot with Quiesce enabled provides a file system consistent Virtual Machine state and also opens up the ability to run your own custom scripts before (pre) and after (post) the snapshot is taken.

From the PHD Virtual Backup perspective to use the functionality the only thing you need to do is enable the ‘Quiesce the VM before backing up’ option when you’re created your backup jobs.

PHDVB 5.1 Backup Wizard Quiesce Option

Additionally, the OVFs are compressed and easier to restore than virtual disks because they include all the VM configuration data.

See the PHD website for videos and additional information.

If you would prefer to use the Backup Data Connector – or would like to learn more about it – then please read on.

Joe Noonan, Product Management ***

PHD Virtual Backup Data Connector Overview

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 supports disk-to-disk backups for both Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere.  However, many users still require some form of tape compatibility for archival and compliance.  One method for selecting specific backups to be pulled off to tape is through the Backup Data Connector.

The Backup Data Connector (BDC) presents backups taken by PHDVB 5.1 as a CIFS/SMB share.  The share contains a few basic, dynamic views that allow users to pull data from a particular directory on a regular basis.  Therefore, third party software can be used to execute that pull process to a tape device that is compatible with that software.  Here is a screenshot of the particular views implemented today:

I’ll use an example to describe what I meant by the fact that these views are dynamic.  If you were to copy the “Yesterday” directory, then you will be copying all backups currently present on the PHDVB backup storage that were taken yesterday.  So, if it is Saturday, then all backups that started on Friday, completed successfully, and were not deleted manually or as part of your retention policy will be visible in that folder.  When Sunday comes around, the “Yesterday” folder will now contain all backups from Saturday.  Therefore, users do not have to keep updating the directories to archive the backups they need.

The backups in these views are still deduplicated and compressed when a user looks at the share and its directories and files.  However, when third party software or scripts attempt to copy from the share, the data is rehydrated on the fly by the Virtual Backup Appliance^TM and sent to the desired target.  The end result is that the user can utilize scripts or third party software to copy data off to other locations, such as tape, and the data will be stored as uncompressed virtual disk files.

Configuration of the BDC is very simple.  The User Guide provides additional details, but all you need to do is go to the “Connector” tab of the VBA Configuration interface, check the box to enable the share, record the share path (for when you configure it in your tape software), provide your credentials, and click Save.  The share path will always be \\[VBA ip address]\backups. See screenshot below:

Configuring the BDC to work with Backup Exec 2010 R2

To show an example of how the BDC can integrate with third party tape software, I used Backup Exec 2010 R2 because many of our users have Backup Exec for tape archival.  It was also easy to download a trial version of the product.

**I should use this chance to disclaim that the functionality PHD provides with the BDC is simply SMB access to its deduplicated, compressed backups in a tape friendly format (as a virtual disk file).  The processes and capabilities of other software products to access and pull data from the BDC will adhere to their own configuration rules and licensing policies.  PHD does not inherently support how other companies’ software utilizes our SMB share.

An important point to note with the BDC is that a remote agent cannot be installed on the VBA.  It is typical for some backup solutions to want an agent installed on any Windows shares or machines that it backs up.  However, even though you cannot install a remote agent, you can still configure Backup Exec to pull data from the BDC.

First, you’ll need to ensure that the agent for Windows is installed on the Backup Exec media server.  When the media server cannot detect a remote agent, the job logs will show that it fails over to its local agent.

Prior to creating a backup job, you’ll need to create a Selection List with the directory that you wish to back up from the BDC.  Because there is no remote agent installed on the VBA, you’ll need to add the resource using the “View Selection Details” tab:

Next, you’ll want to click “Insert” to add a new resource selection.  You can then type in the path for the particular directory or file that you wish to copy from the PHD Virtual BDC.  In the below example, I am copying all directories and files that live under the LatestOfEach view.  This will copy the latest available backup for all VMs.  Once you’ve entered the path, click “OK”.

**Note:You must enter the full path to the share.  While you can map the share to a local drive on the media server, that local drive will not work when entering the Resource Selection path.

The resource selection will now look like the below screenshot.  Next, you’ll need to give Backup Exec the proper credentials for accessing the BDC.  Click the Resource Credentials link on the left.

Select the “Change…” button to list the available logon accounts.  Click “New…” to add the new BDC credentials.

This is an important part. When entering the BDC credentials, ensure that you include the IP address of the VBA in the username.  Ensure that the username and password match those that you entered into the PHD Console when you configured the BDC on the Connector page – mentioned earlier.

Now you can click “OK” on the Edit Logon Credentials, Logon Account Selection, and New Backup Selection screens.  You have successfully created your backup selection list for the BDC.

**Note 1: If you attempt to test the credentials using the “Test All” or “Test Selected” buttons on the Resource Credentials screen, the test will fail.  This is due to the fact that no remote agent is present on the VBA.  You can ignore these failures.

**Note 2: If you decide to make any edits to the Resource Selection path, Backup Exec may reset the credentials for the new path back to the default System Logon Account.  As a general rule, if you make any edits to the Resource Selection, validate that the credentials are still set to the proper BDC credentials you created above.

Now that you have your Backup Select List for the BDC configured, you can create a backup job using the BDC Backup Selection List you just created.  There are no known requirements regarding Backup Exec backup policy creation for the BDC.  You’ll just need to be aware that any functionality that is specific to the use of a remote agent will not be available.  For instance, if you attempt to do a “Test Run” of the job, it will fail.  Also, the job may complete with exceptions because it could not detect a remote agent.  These alerts can be ignored.

You are all set to use Backup Exec to take your PHD Virtual backups off to a preconfigured tape device.  Simply run the job manually or set the policy to a periodic schedule that meets your archiving and compliance needs.

Joe Noonan, PHD Virtual Product Manager

PHD Experts FLR blog 3/18

Now let’s look closer at doing File Level Recovery using the PHDVB 5.1 iscsi target for a Linux VM. There are many different methods for working with iSCSI targets in Linux especially across Linux distributions. The process described here is using ‘Open ISCSI’. Open ISCSI is a high performance, transport independent, multi-platform implementation for ISCSI used on Ubuntu and Debian distributions. Another note the file system of the backed up VM was ext3.

Target Server – Ubuntu 8.0.4
Backup VM – Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop
File System – ext3

First let’s review creating the ISCSI target from the PHD Virtual Backup Console.

First go to the ‘File Recovery’ option from the PHDVB console and click ‘Create’. Then using the wizard select the appropriate Linux VM backup that you need for the file recovery.

One important step I recommend when doing Linux FLR is to choose ‘Custom credentials’. The reason being you will need those credentials when mounting the target on your Linux server, and it is much easier to remember credentials you created then taking the system defaults. One point to note is the password must be between 12 and 16 characters. In my example I used the user ‘phd’ but any user can be defined.

It will then create an iSCSI target that can now be mounted from your Linux VM. The important part to note here is the iSCSI target name defined as that will be needed for the recovery.

The first thing you need is to make sure is ‘Open ISCSI’ is installed on your Ubuntu Server you plan to do the recovery.

To install it use the standard ‘apt-get’ utility.

sudo apt-get install open-iscsi

If it is already installed you should see a message similar to the one below showing open-iscsi is already at the newest version.

The next step is to start the initiator on your Linux server

/etc/init.d/open-iscsi start

You are now ready to mount your PHDVB iSCSI target for File Level Recovery. All of the necessary actions to do this are using the command ‘iscsiadm’.

One nice trick open-iscsi provides is a way to discover what iscsi targets a server is presenting.

iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p ‘192.168.10.193’
(192.168.10.193 is a sample VBA IP)

In this example one iscsi target was returned for the VBA with the IP ‘192.168.10.193’

Next you need to run a few commands to set up the authentication for the iSCSI target. This is where the credentials you entered when creating the FLR target in the PHDVB console are important.

For each command make sure you use the iSCSI target name provided by the PHDVB as well as the IP of your VBA with port 3260

This command sets up the authentication method to be used.

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2010-09.com.phdvirtual:1f034d5a-eb61-4b49-a9e9-a19ff7d1ff42" --portal "192.168.10.193:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.authmethod --value=CHAP

This command sets the username for the iSCSI target. This is the username you defined in the PHD credentials. In my example I used ‘phd‘.

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2010-09.com.phdvirtual:1f034d5a-eb61-4b49-a9e9-a19ff7d1ff42" --portal "192.168.10.193:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.username --value=phd

This last command sets the password. It is the password you defined in the PHD credentials. In my example I made the password ‘phd1234567890’

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2010-09.com.phdvirtual:1f034d5a-eb61-4b49-a9e9-a19ff7d1ff42" --portal "192.168.10.193:3260" --op=update --name node.session.auth.password --value=phd1234567890

The last step is to login into the iSCSI target. You do this with the command: Remember the targetname and portal used in the above commands are the iSCSI target name from the VBA console and the VBA IP address.

iscsiadm -m node --targetname "iqn.2010-09.com.phdvirtual:1f034d5a-eb61-4b49-a9e9-a19ff7d1ff42" --portal "192.168.10.193:3260" –login

You will now see the iSCSI target drive attached to your Linux VM. If you run a fdisk –l you see the partition. In my example it was mounted as /dev/sdd.

At this point you are almost there. The last step is to mount the partition so you can browse the backup files from your Linux server. In my example I created a folder /iscsi_test that I will mount the partition on by running:

mount /dev/sdd1 /isci_test

Now just go to the folder where the iSCSI target is mounted (in my case iscsi_test) and you can now browse your backup files.

Here I was looking for files starting with hosts in the /etc folder.

You can copy any file directly to your Linux server maintaining owners and permissions.

When finished you can just un-mount the partition

umount /isci_test
Also stop the open iscsi service

/etc/init.d/open-iscsi stop

Pete

Some benefits include:

- True DeDupe Technology
- Flexible Backup Storage Options
- File Level Restore (FLR) Any OS, Any File System
- Backup Retention and Archiving

From our customer perspective the overall response has been very positive.

“Being a PHD Virtual customer from the beginning, they never cease to amaze me, with new Technology. One virtual appliance that can backup, restore and even Dedupe with a few mouse clicks. Can’t wait to see what they do next.”

PHDVB 5.1 Success Stories

Now the virtual community is starting to weigh in and are publishing reviews of the PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 solution. Many of these reviews are being written by VMware vExperts, who are individuals ackowledged by VMware for their excellence in the virtual community.

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 for VMware Product Review by Arne Fokkema, VMware vExpert

PHD Backup– The other people in Green.. by Chris Dearden, VMware vExpert

PHD Mentioned in Citrix Community Blog by John Humphreys

PHD Virtual Coverage Report from the 451 Group

Additional information on PHD Virtual Backup solutions for vSphere and XenServer can be found on the PHD Virtual web site.

PHDVB 5.1 for Vmware vSphere

PHDVB 5.1 for Citrix XenServer

Pete

Both version patches are available on the Updates page of the PHD Virtual web site.

Patch Download

To apply the patch you will need to two components.

1. Update your MSI install for the plugin.
2. Update your VBAs from the Configuration -> Support Tab. You can upload the patch (.phd file) from this tab.

Release notes on the 5.1.4 patch and additional documentation can be found on the documentation pages of the web site.

VMware:

XenServer:

Some enhancements in 5.1.4 include:

- The delete trim process was improved and now runs once per hour.
- The PHD Console can now be set to show configuration settings and information for a single PHD VBA, only.
- Additional improvements were made for backup performance, memory handling, CPU usage, and PHD VBA
startup.

Pete

PHD Virtual 5.1 offers this ability in a unique way compared to other virtual backup offerings. It does this by presenting an iSCSI target that then can be mounted by any like operating server to browse through the folders and files of that particular backup.

This offers a number of different benefits which include:

- Maintaining file permissions on restores
- Fast access to backup files using native tools
- Ability to search a backup for a particular file

The PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 User’s Guide goes into detail on the File Level Recovery Process but lets walk through an overview of how it works using Windows 7 as an example as the desktop running the PHDVB plug-in and doing the file level recovery.

PHDVB User Guide for VSphere

PHDVB User’s Guide for XenServer

The first thing to do is select the File Level Recovery option from the PHD Virtual Backup Console. You then would select ‘Create’ and the VBA that contains the backup you are looking for.

File Level Recovery Option

Next using the Wizard pick the image backup for which you are going to do File Level Recovery from.

File Level Recover Backup Selection Wizard

Once selected, you will then have the iSCSI target created and mounted automatically, if possible. Note, the iSCSI target can be mounted from any server running an iSCSI initiator.

PHD Virtual Backup iSCSI target

Since I was doing the recovery on a Windows 7 machine with an iSCSI initiator installed PHD Virtual Backup was able to mount the iSCSI share automatically. In this example the target was mounted as my ‘E Drive’. Now I can use the native Windows Explorer tool to browse the folder and files of my PHD Virtual backup as if there were local files. I can then copy and paste those files to my desktop or a network share or any place my desktop has access to for recovering the file.

Native FLR using Windows Explorer

Below is an important note from the PHDVB documentation regarding the iSCSI Software initiator as well as Linux file level recovery.

Note:To mount iSCSI targets on a Windows machine you will need the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator, which is
installed, by default with Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2008 Server. For earlier versions of Windows, the
Initiator can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site. To mount iSCSI targets on a Linux machine you must install an iSCSI Software Initiator for your Linux operating system, for example, on an Ubuntu machine, you can install the Linux Open-iSCSI Initiator.

Additional information on PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 features including File Level Recovery can be found on the PHD Virtual web site.

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 for vSphere

PHD Virtual Backup 5.1 for Citrix XenServer

Pete

These include :

- Virtual Backup Appliance Technology
- Source Side DeDuplication backups
- Integrated Hypervisor Management

Recently we announced a partnership with Virtacore Systems, am industry leader in hybrid cloud solutions. Virtacore has chosen PHD Virtual Backup as one of their data protection offerings for secure public and private cloud backup and recovery.

“Virtacore Systems partners with industry leaders, and we are proud to work together to provide integrated backup and recovery as part of their public and private cloud services,” stated Thomas Charlton, Chairman and CEO, PHD Virtual. “Our solutions continue to benefit from a significant competitive advantage for Service Provider environments due to the flexibility and scalability of our unique technology. The selection of PHD Virtual Backup by Virtacore highlights and reinforces this fact.”

Virtacore Press Release

Additional Information on PHD Virtual Service Provider Solutions

Pete