[FEATURE REQUEST] Instant restore of a VMDK

[electricd7]

Hello,

We have run into a need on many occasions where it would be advantageous to be able to do an instant restore of a VMDK and mount it to either the original server it was backed up from, or a new server. In our scenarios, we split our SQL MDF/LDF files onto mount point disks so that each DB and Log exist on their own VMDKs. This is a hold-over from our SnapManager for SQL days with Netapp, however it is nice to be able to work with a single DB disk without affecting others. This also keeps a single DB from filling the disk and affecting other databases, if it fills its disk, it only affects itself. We have SQL servers with many many databases which are maintained by many different vendors.

So in my head, I would be able to choose "Instant restore of VMDK" and then select a VM, select a restore point, select 1 or more vmdks, select a VM from inventory to mount them to, and answer a warning about having the same serial number disk attached, and finally finish and wait for the disks to be mounted by PowerNFS.

Once we are happy, we could either unmount the instant restore, or do a selective storage-v-motion to move the backed up VMDKs into production datastore. Would make a few things we do regularly a whole-lot better. Thanks!

Chad

[Delo123]

Hi Chad, in a way you can actually do that right now. Just do an instant-recovery of an entire vm, ignore the "to recover" vm, don't power it on and then add the vmdk you want to an existing vm from the PowerNFS (it will be available as a mountpoint on the esx server were you mounted the recovery vm, once added you can vmotion the disk...

[plandata_at]

You said you are using Netapp? In case you also make netapp storage snapshots with veeam and use veeam with vss vor application consistant snapshots, why not just make the netapp snapshot directory on the datastore visible, and than you can browse to any snapshot you like and pick any vmdk you need? (copy it and attach it to any VM you like)
Of course this is a bit "low level" and does not include veeam, but it works fine! (we use this with netapp NFS datastores, but should work with FC/ISCI LUNs as well)

[electricd7]

Delo123 - We have done this a few time in the past, and it works. Just think it would be easy to add to the Veeam "restore" dialog to aid those in the environment who are unable to mount/umount VMDKs from within vCenter. We do not allow everyone to be able to do this as it could get dangerous if they don't know what they are doing

plandata_at - We are no longer using the Netapp as we have migrated (or are in the process of migrating) all Netapp VMs to VMware vSAN.

[dellock6]

@Delo, I haven't tried this in a while, but I remember you also have to edit the uuid of the virtual disk as the original one is still in place:

http://www.virtualtothecore.com/en/rest ... -recovery/

Has it changed in the meantime from VMware? I guess no, but I'm asking to be sure.

[Delo123]

Hi Luca,

no, I don't think it has, but this only happens when you connect the disk to the same vm as it original was, personally I would never do that, who knows what could happen
For this reason we have a standby VM which we boot when needed to do restore tasks like this, it's a basic 2012r2 with deduplication enabled.

Guido