PowerProtect Data Manager 19.17 Virtual Machine User Guide

TSDM only available for virtual machine crash-consistent policies and SQL application-aware policies

Use of the TSDM protection mechanism is only supported for crash-consistent virtual machine protection policies and SQL application-aware protection policies. Also, if the policy is a virtual machine crash consistent policy, the Exclude swap files from backup or Enable guest file system quiescing must be disabled.

Unsupported virtual machine platforms and configurations

TSDM virtual machine protection is not supported for the following virtual machines, configurations, and platforms:

• Physical RDMs
• Virtual RDMs
• Fault Tolerant virtual machines
• Azure VMware Solution (AVS) on Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) on Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• VMware Cloud (VMC) on Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Virtual machines with Site Recovery Manager enabled.
• Virtual machines that contain more than 40 disks.
• Virtual machines in a stateless or nonpersistent environment where backend systems are automatically restored to a previously saved state after a restart. Unsupported environments include stateless ESXi servers and cloud equivalents.

The VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) protection mechanism is not supported for virtual machines with shared SCSI controllers or disks.

Full synchronization performed under certain conditions

The following conditions result in a full synchronization operation for TSDM-enabled virtual machine protection policy backups:

• PowerProtect Data Manager is updated from a previous release.
  NOTE:The full backup completes successfully but with exceptions to indicate that the backup was forced to maintain the integrity of the data in the backup chain.
• The full synchronization is scheduled as part of a PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy.
• A manual backup is performed of the protection policy using Backup Now in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.
• The most recent virtual machine backup has been deleted.
• Disks were added to the virtual machine.
• Disks that were previously marked as excluded are added to the protection policy backup.
• The VMware DPD service is removed and then readded to the virtual machine. For example:
  • The virtual machine is removed from a TSDM-enabled policy and then added to the same or a different TSDM policy.
  • The virtual machine protection mechanism is manually changed from TSDM to VADP and then back to TSDM.
• The ESXi host, virtual machine, or daemon becomes unresponsive and crashes.
• The vSphere version is updated to 8.0 or later on the vCenter and ESXI hosts.
• A restore to a managed snapshot.
• The virtual machine encryption and decryption settings are changed.

Manual removal of the lastSdmDiskBackupPath.json file is required before deleting the storage unit of a virtual machine backup

During a TSDM-enabled virtual machine backup, the file lastSdmDiskBackupPath.json, which contains snapshot metadata, is created in the virtual machine. This file is required to perform in-place backups of the virtual machine. However, the file is not automatically removed when the virtual machine is no longer part of the protection policy. As a result, the storage unit containing these virtual machine backups cannot be deleted.

When deleting the storage unit where the virtual machine backups are located, ensure that you manually remove the lastSdmDiskBackupPath.json file.

Site Recovery Manager unsupported for TSDM-protected virtual machines

Enabling of VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM) for virtual machines that are protected in PowerProtect Data Manager with Transparent Snapshots Data Mover (TSDM) is not supported. Ensure that you disable SRM protection for any virtual machines that use the TSDM protection mechanism, or manually configure any SRM-enabled virtual machines to use the VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) data mover instead.

VADP restore of TSDM backup restores disks as thick-provisioned in some circumstances

If a VADP data path is used to restore a virtual machine that was backed up using TSDM, the disks are restored as thick-provisioned. PowerProtect Data Manager uses VADP data path for restores in the following circumstances:

• The virtual machine is restored in a vSphere environment running with a version previous to 7.0 U3.
• The virtual machine is restored to an ESXi host that does not have the TSDM vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) installed.
• The virtual machine is restored directly to the ESXi host, since the vCenter server is not used for a Direct Restore to ESXi.

Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) limit for virtual machines protected with TSDM

TSDM-based protection supports a maximum of 40 VMDKs per virtual machine. If this limit is exceeded, backups fail with the error Unable to back up the asset … because the included number of … disks exceeds maximum supported disks of 40 by transparent snapshot datamover.

For virtual machines with more than 40 VMDKs, you can override the protection mechanism at the asset level to use VADP. The section Migrating assets to use the Transparent Snapshots Data Mover provides more information.

The displayed size of thin provisioned files created by vSphere during TSDM operations is not accurate

VMware vSphere creates files that are displayed as two times larger than the VMDK files of the TSDM-protected virtual machines. The file names end in -flat.ses, and the files are in the same VMFS volume and directory as the VMDK files of the protected virtual machines. The files are thin-provisioned and part of normal TSDM operations.

To determine accurate data sizes, use the du command, or update to vSphere version 7.0 U3f or later.

vMotion of TSDM protected virtual machines

vSphere disables the vMotion migration of virtual machines to an ESXi host version previous to 7.0 U3 when the virtual machine is protected with TSDM. To migrate the virtual machine to an ESXi host that does not support TSDM, disable the VMware DPD service that is attached to the virtual machine. To disable the filter, remove the virtual machine from the TSDM protected virtual machine protection policy. Once the virtual machine is removed from the policy, a job is automatically initiated to disable the filter.

After the vMotion migration, add the virtual machine back to the protection policy.

Virtual machines with managed snapshots

A PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policy cannot be configured to use the TSDM protection mechanism when the virtual machine already contains managed snapshots. Verify that no managed snapshots exist for the virtual machine, and then retry the configuration job from the Jobs > System Jobs window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Once a virtual machine has been configured for TSDM protection, you can create managed snapshots on the virtual machine with no impact to data protection operations.

Note the following additional limitations to managed snapshots:

• When adding or removing a virtual machine with an existing managed snapshot, a TSDM-enabled protection policy fails with the following error:

  The IO Filter policy cannot be changed when snapshot disks are present.

• In ESXi version 7.0 U3, if a managed snapshot is taken while an active TSDM backup is in progress, the backup fails with the status CancelSnapshotRequired.