FLR - "Restore to" vs "Copy to"

[m.levisson]

Hello,

In our company we have as a policy to never restore any files to the original location since that can trigger automatic flows to re-run certain jobs. Which in the past has forced us into the option of "Copy to" whenever we've performed an FLR.
After the v12.3 upgrade however, I noticed that there is a new restore option called "Restore to".

Since I got curious about this I had to test it out and noticed there are a couple of extra steps included where you can choose which VM and later which location on that VM that you want to place the file. You also get the option to choose from any saved credentials within the VBR credential database.

I'm currently able to do restores in both manners but I'm a bit confused about which option is the better to use. The "copy to" option is only really an option when you have SMB allowed between the mount server and the destination, which in itself can be an issue in the current IT climate with micro segmentations and whatnot. The copy to option however is very simple to use as you can specify the network location where you want to put the file(s) and if you currently have no access to the location from where you run the console you get prompted to enter credentials to the destination, no saved credentials required in the Veeam Credentials Database.

I dug around a bit but was unable to find an article that actually describes this new feature, what is the pros and cons of using the "Restore to" option instead of "Copy to"? Is it potentially faster? Different protocols involved?

Br, Magnus

[Mildur]

Hello Magnus

Both options are documented in our helpcenter:
- Copy To: Copy files and folders to a local disk on the machine with the Veeam Backup & Replication console or SMB share in your network
- Restore To: Restore files and folders to another machine in the virtual infrastructure

If you want to restore directly to the original VM an not network connection, then you can do that with "Restore To" and VIX. With VIX, the mount server only needs to be able to talk to the vCenter/ESXI host.
"Restore To" over network requires different network ports to be opened between the Mount Server and target VM.

I expect "Restore To" over network to be faster than through VIX.

Restore To - Considerations

[For restore to original location] The mount server must have access to the VM guest OS (if restore is performed over the network) or vCenter Server and ESXi host where the target VM runs (if restore is performed over VIX API/vSphere Web Services).

Best,
Fabian