Virtualization

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What is Virtualization in IDrive BMR?

Virtualization in IDrive BMR allows you to quickly create a virtual instance of your physical machines and VMware servers on your BMR server in case of any disaster. With the created virtual instance, you can access data backups so that your business can continue as usual with minimal downtime.

How do I create a virtual instance of my physical machines?

To create a virtual instance of your physical machine,

1. Log in to the IDrive BMR server web interface and go to the 'Virtualization' tab.
2. On the 'Physical Machines' tab, select the required client from the 'Choose a System' drop-down list.
3. Choose the recovery points for the given volumes.

4. Select the number of processors for the virtual machine from the 'Processor(s)' drop-down list.
5. Allocate storage space for the virtual machine in the 'Memory' field.
   

   Note: Memory value should be greater than 1024 MB. You can decide the memory value depending on the available memory displayed below the 'Memory' field. Click to recalculate the available memory.

6. Select the required storage controller for the virtual machine. The recommended storage controller is 'SAS-LSILogicSAS'.
7. Select the appropriate network option.
8. Select 'Yes' to enable user authentication for the virtual machine.
   

   Note: By default 'Enable user authentication' will be selected as 'No'.

9. Select username from the 'Username' drop-down list, and enter the password.

10. Click 'Build Virtual Machine'.

You have successfully created the virtual machine. You can now connect to it and access data.

To connect,

1. In the 'Virtual Machines' section, click against the virtual machine.

2. A ‘.rdp’ file will be downloaded. Open the file.
3. Click 'Connect'.
4. Click 'Yes' in the 'Remote Desktop Connection' popup window.

Remote connection to the virtual machine is established.

Note: All the created virtual instances will be unmounted and the changes made in the virtual machine will be lost when you restart your IDrive BMR server. You can also click to unmount the virtual machine manually.

How do I create a virtual instance of my VMware machine?

To create a virtual instance of your server,

1. Log in to the IDrive BMR server web interface and go to the 'Virtualization' tab.
2. On the 'VMware' tab, select the required server from the 'Choose Server' drop-down list.
3. Select the ESXi Host from the 'Choose ESXI Host' drop-down list.
4. Select the VM from the 'Choose VM' list.
5. Choose recovery points that will be used to create the virtual instance.
6. Specify the boot firmware.
7. Assign the number of processors for the virtual machine from the 'Processor(s)' drop-down list.
8. Allocate storage space in the 'Memory' field.
   

   Note: Memory value should be greater than 1024 MB. You can decide the memory value depending on the available memory displayed below the 'Memory' field. Click to recalculate the available memory.

9. Select a storage controller for the virtual instance. The recommended storage controller is 'SAS-LSILogicSAS'.
10. Select the appropriate network option.
11. Select 'Yes' to enable user authentication for the virtual machine.
    

    Note: By default user authentication is disabled.

12. Select username from the drop-down list, and enter a password which will be used for authentication.
13. Click 'Build Virtual Machine'.

You have successfully created the virtual machine. Connect to it and access data.

How many virtual machines can I create?

You can create up to four virtual machines, from the backups of your physical and virtual machines, at a time. The back-end file system used for storage consumes less memory and CPU resources, which enables multiple virtual machines to run smoothly.

Can I perform power operations on the virtual machine?

Yes, you can perform power operations on the virtual machine. In addition, you can restart the machine, send keyboard inputs such as Windows Start menu, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+Tab and F8 to the virtual machine.

To perform power operations,

1. Log in to the IDrive BMR server web interface and go to the 'Virtualization' tab.
2. Perform either of the following:
   • Click to power on the machine.
   
   1. • Click to power off the machine.
   

3. Click 'Yes' in the respective confirmation window.

To restart virtual machine, click in the menu of the required virtual machine. Click the required icons (Windows, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+Tab and F8) in the menu to send keyboard inputs to virtual machine.

What network is the virtual machine provisioned with?

The virtual machines created on IDrive BMR server are assigned to operate in 'Bridged Mode'. These machines will get the IP address from a router/switch in your physical network infrastructure. With this, you can access the VM from any machine in the same local area network.

Is it possible to backup data from the created virtual machine?

Yes, you can backup data from the created virtual machine. After the virtual machine is created, data backup continues according to the schedule automatically. You can also perform manual backup from the 'Dashboard' tab. Read steps to perform manual backup.

Are the full/incremental image backups dependent on each other in IDrive BMR? Does inaccessibility of these full/incremental image backups affect virtualization?

IDrive BMR does not follow the traditional data backup method in which every recovery point created during incremental image backup has some dependency on previous ones. In IDrive BMR, the created recovery points will be fully independent of each other and data can be reconstructed using any recovery point, even if the previous full/incremental image backup in the chain is lost. Thus, you can create a virtual machine with any available recovery point without depending on the integrity of the backup chain.

If I virtualize a machine, will the backed up data be affected?

No, the backed up data of a machine will not be affected if you virtualize that machine. The file system used in IDrive BMR server enables instant cloning of the originally backed up data. As the cloned data is used to create virtual machine, the original backup remains unaffected.

I have a client machine that is failing to virtualize in IDrive BMR. How can I recover my data?

There could be several reasons for virtualization to fail for certain machines. The causes include disk configuration on the client machine (example: dynamic disks, logical partitions, etc. are not supported), driver incompatibility with BMR's hypervisor platform, firmware type, multiple OS boot loaders on the client machine, etc.

If virtualization fails, contact IDrive BMR support as a first step. This will allow us to investigate the cause thoroughly and we may be able to support issues on a case-by-case basis.

However, you can use the following restore options for recovering data immediately:

• Use the 'File Restore' feature to recover necessary files from the client machine's backup.
• Use the 'System Restore' option to perform bare-metal recovery of the client machine.

I have a Windows 7 client machine backed up to IDrive BMR, which is failing to virtualize. What are the restore options available to me in this case?

There are 2 possible causes for this situation:

• If you are using a 4TB IDrive BMR unit, a combination of hardware and Guest OS compatibility can cause issues in virtualizing your Windows 7 client on the IDrive BMR's hypervisor. In this case, the virtual machine will hang during the boot process with a blank screen.
• If your Windows 7 client machine is running on UEFI firmware, it may fail to virtualize in BMR hypervisor. The newer versions of Windows OS (post Windows 7) work well with BMR hypervisor platform.

Restore options for recovering data immediately:

• Use the 'File Restore' feature to recover necessary files from the client machine's backup.
• Use the 'System Restore' option to perform bare-metal recovery of the client machine.

Can I create a virtual instance of a Mac OS X based VM?

Mac OS X runs on specialized UEFI firmware, thus, it may not be virtualized on the BMR server in all cases. However, you can restore the Mac OS X based VM to the ESXi server without any issue. Additionally, you will be able to perform a file-level restore from the VM, via IDrive BMR VMware's file restore feature.