What is the role of the SureBackup Proxy appliance?

[pber]

Hi,

I know what the role the Proxy appliance plays with virtual labs, but is it used at all during SureBackup? The reason I ask is because we want to see if we can use SureBackup to do automated restore compliance testing, but the proxy is a concern with respect to security/compliance. We just want to test the restores without having the proxy ability.

[foggy]

Hi Patrick, SureBackup jobs use virtual labs and start a proxy appliance to route traffic to the isolated network, so yes, proxy appliance is involved.

[oleg.feoktistov]

Hi Patrick,

Technically, proxy appliance is not required, however, in its absence VBR will only be able to start VMs, but you will need to perform all the tests manually or apply custom scripts over target VMs.

Best regards,
Oleg

[pber]

What traffic does the proxy need to route? Are the tests performed from the non-isolated side or does the proxy perform the testing?

[pber]

I guess the tests run from the backup server. Sorry I asked, but online documentation on the testing process is vague. The only real spot I found that said just that was in the actual app in the Virtual lab setup under the proxy settings, and more indirectly in the SureBackup under linked jobs, then under test scripts, it indicates custom ones will run on the backup server.
So that answers that. On a related note, what exactly is a heartbeat test?

[oleg.feoktistov]

Correct, tests (including custom scripts) are triggered from Backup server.
From SureBackup job perspective, a heartbeat test is a check on whether the VMware Tools heartbeat signal is coming from the VM or not. It is considered coming if VMware Tools of the VM return green or yellow heartbeat status. As far as I recall, there are 4 in total:
green - VM is powered on
yellow - VM is powering on
red - VM has failed to power on
grey - VM is not yet powered on
If the VM has no VMware Tools, the test is not performed and the corresponding notification will be logged to the session details.
Thanks!
Oleg

[pber]

Perfect. Thanks.