Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Backup and Restoring Files With Tintri - Could It Be Any Easier?!?!

Hi Friends,

I'd like to dedicate this post to all the backup and recovery administrators out there, for without them, we would be in big trouble!  It's not the topic that usually gets tons of attention, but when a super important file(s) gets deleted, they're your best friends!

Today I want to show you how super simple it is to backup a virtual machine and then how easy it is to get a deleted file(s) back if the virtual machine is on a Tintri VMstore.

Here we have a virtual machine named NG-Server3.  In a folder called "Stuff" on the desktop I have a file called "Super Important File - Don't Delete!!!!"  Well, naming it that was a mistake....




























Let's head over to the Tintri GUI and make a backup of the virtual machine before somebody deletes our super important file.

Right click on the virtual machine, take a snapshot and you're done!  Here I'm taking a manual snapshot, but this can be a snapshot taken on a schedule too.  You'll notice there's a choice, Crash-consistent or VM-consistent.  This choice is completely up to you and I won't get into why you'd choose one over the other, but the cool thing is you can.














Oh NO!  Some jerk has just deleted our file.  Guess they didn't read the file name...












































Well...  What to do now?  No need to stress, you've got Tintri!  You DO have Tintri RIGHT?!?!

Of course you do!  I knew I liked you!!

Let's head back to our VMstore GUI and restore that file.

Right click on the virtual machine, select Restore VM/files... and PRESTO!




























Here are some cool options.  We can restore the whole machine OR we can select if we just want to restore certain files.  Choose your snapshot and if you'd like to detach the disks after 48 hours.

Let's dive into this a little deeper.  What's going to happen is Tintri is going to clone the VMDKs that are on the virtual machine, mount the clones on the machine, you go into disk management and select which disk you want to mount.

I know what you're thinking....  "But Brain, won't Windows be confused that two disks with the same disk signature will be on the same machine?"  Yes my friends, this would normally be the case, but Tintri changes those disk signatures so they can exist on the same machine.  Pretty awesome huh?

And the 48 hour deal.  Let's face it, humans hate cleaning up after themselves.  If you select this, you don't have to!  :-)  Tintri will remove those cloned disks after 2 days.  This is a super cool feature if you're providing self service restore to a user.  They have 2 days to get to the file and don't have to worry about removing those cloned disks.  Or if you're just lazy and don't want to have to clean up!
















We're back on NG-Server3 and I've opened up Disk Management.  Notice Disk 8 is the same size as my C: drive.  Yep, that's a clone of my OS drive, which has the super special file!

























Right click on the disk, Online it and.............


























We've got a new disk I: and you'll notice it looks a lot like C:.

























Getting our super important file is now as easy as browsing the I: drive, finding our file and copying it to our original Stuff folder.

Notice the drive letter is I: from the source.



Now that you've got your file back you can either un-mount the disk(s) or you can just let Tintri remove them after 48 hours if you selected that option.

Who's the coolest Backup and Recovery Administrator?

This Guy!!


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