Dell EMC Avamar for Windows Servers 19.7 User Guide

BMR of Windows to physical and virtual machines

Avamar supports BMR of various versions of Windows to physical and virtual machines: For supported versions, see the E-LAB Navigator at https://elabnavigator.dell.com/eln/elnhome.

• Physical machine to physical machine
• Virtual machine to virtual machine
• Physical machine to virtual machine (P2V): Windows Server only

When a disaster occurs, ensure that the hardware on the target computer is operational, and that the target computer is similar in make, model, and hardware configuration as the source computer to be recovered. You should also review the additional requirements in BMR requirements.

After you prepare the target computer, download the customized WinPE ISO image for BMR from the Avamar server to a functional Windows computer. The image that you download depends on the operating system and hardware.

The customized WinPE ISO image enables you to recover to the target computer without installing an operating system. Because the local disks are not in use by the booted operating system, you can replace files without conflict.

WinPE enables you to boot with a minimal subset of Windows features. This functionality includes access to network resources, disks, and other features through a command prompt.

You can burn the WinPE ISO image to a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, and then boot the target computer locally from the media. You also can copy the WinPE ISO image to a Windows Deployment Services (WDS) server, which enables you to perform a network boot of the target computer.

WinPE ISO image preparation provides details on downloading and preparing the image.

When you boot with the customized WinPE ISO image, the boot process automatically starts the Avamar Bare Metal Recovery Wizard. The Avamar Bare Metal Recovery Wizard provides a VSS recovery solution that uses the Automated System Recovery (ASR) writer and the customized WinPE ISO image to restore critical volumes and other components of the bootable System State. Restoring the computer to its original System State provides details on using the wizard to perform the restore.

Additional steps to recover the computer may be necessary, depending on the environment. Perform the steps in Performing post-BMR tasks to complete the restore.