HP StoreServ Application Suite for VMware Media manual About Virtual Copy Management

3PAR Management Plug-In and Recovery Manager 2.1.0 for VMware vSphere User’s Guide

2.7 About Virtual Copy Management

NOTE: 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere is not functional without the 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere license. Additionally, the 3PAR Virtual Copy license is required for virtual copy operation, as well as the 3PAR Virtual Lock license for using the volume retention policy.

3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere allows you to take LUN-level virtual copies of Virtual Machines (VMs) and datastores. A datastore is created on one 3PAR volume, and a VM is created on one or more datastores. During virtual copy creation, Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere will identify all the underlying 3PAR volumes and take virtual copies simultaneously for all volumes to ensure consistency. Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere manages this set of virtual copies as a single entity.

NOTE: VMware Tools must be installed on the Guest OS in order for 3PAR Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere to create successful VM/Application consistent virtual copies. Refer to VMware documentation for more information about VMware Tools setup instructions.

2.7.1 Virtual Copy Data Consistency

Several types of data consistency are possible for VM virtual copies and backup.

NOTE: The current version of Recovery Manager for VMware vSphere supports both file system crash and VM consistent and application consistent virtual copies.

■Crash Consistent - A simple virtual volume virtual copy without quiescing the memory blocks inside the guest OS results in a crash consistent virtual copy of the VM. Un-flushed data will be lost, but all data written to the file system will be available. Sanity checking of file system (fsck) is needed after recovery.

■VM Consistent - All file system blocks are flushed from a VM's memory before a virtual copy is taken. This ensures that no file system data is lost if the VM crashes. No fsck is needed after recovery. No application data is flushed from memory before the virtual copy is taken

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About Virtual Copy Management