Populating the Arcserve Backup Database › Populate the Database Using Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool

Populate the Database Using Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool

Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool is a data collection utility that lets you populate the Arcserve Backup database with the information about the VMs on your VMware ESX Host systems. This tool integrates with a command-line utility named ca_vcbpopulatedb, which runs in the background, to populate the Arcserve database with information about the VMs.

After you install the agent, you must populate the Arcserve Backup database with the information about your VM systems. To accomplish this, you must execute the Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool on the backup proxy system.

Note: Windows 32-bit proxy is not supported for Agent for Virtual Machine backups.

After you execute Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool, and submit a successful backup job of the data that resides in the VMs, Arcserve Backup automatically populates the Arcserve Backup database using the information about the VM that was specified when you executed the configuration tool. The Auto-populate option helps ensure that you can accurately browse the Backup Manager and back up the most current data in your VMs. By default, Arcserve Backup automatically populates the database with updated information in 24-hour intervals after the backup job is complete.

The configuration tool collects the following information:

• Names of the backup proxy systems
• VMware ESX Host names or VMware vCenter Server names
• VM Host names
• Volume names contained within the VMs on Windows systems

Be aware of the following behavior:

By default, the configuration tool populates the Arcserve database with information about all of the the virtual machines in your backup environment. However, when the configuration tool cannot identify the host name of virtual machines, the Arcserve Managers display UNKNOWNVM as the host name of the virtual machine. When you do not want to display UNKNOWNVM in the Managers, you can configure the tool to skip over unidentifiable virtual machines. To skip over the unidentifiable virtual machines, create a keyword named SkipPopulateUnknownVMs in the following registry key and define the value of the keyword as 1.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ComputerAssociates\CA ARCServe Backup\ClientAgent\Parameters

Follow these steps:

1. Ensure that the VMs in the VMware ESX Host systems are in a running state.

   Note: If the VMs are not in a running state, the Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool will not populate the Arcserve Backup database with data, and you will not be able to accurately browse and back up the VMs in the VMware ESX Host systems.

2. Log in to the backup proxy system and open the Backup Agent Admin.

   To open the Backup Agent Admin, click Start, Programs, Arcserve, Arcserve Backup, and click Backup Agent Admin to open the Backup Agent Admin.

3. From the drop-down list, select Arcserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines and click Configuration on the toolbar to open the Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool dialog.

   

   Note: (Optional) You can open VCBUI.exe from the following directory on the backup proxy system:

   • x64 systems

     C:\Program Files\CA\ARCserve Backup Client Agent for Windows\x86
     

   

4. Complete the following fields on the Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool dialog:

   Arcserve Primary Server Details

   The following options apply to the Arcserve Backup primary or stand-alone server:

   • Server (Name or IP)--Lets you specify the name or IP address of the Arcserve Backup primary server.
   • Arcserve User Name--Lets you specify the user name, with caroot privileges, for the Arcserve Backup primary server.
   • Password--Lets you specify the password for the Arcserve Backup User Name.

   vCenter Server or VMware ESX Host Details

   The following options apply to the VMware Virtual Infrastructure in your environment:

   • Server (Name or IP)--Lets you specify the name of the VMware ESX Host system or the vCenter Server system.
   • User Name--Lets you specify the name of the VMware ESX Host user or the vCenter user with Administrator privileges.
   • Password--Lets you specify the password for the VMware ESX Host User Name or the vCenter Server User Name.
   • Protocol--Lets you specify the communication protocol between the backup proxy system and the VMware ESX Host system or the vCenter Server system.

     Note: If you omit this argument, the tool assumes that https is to be used as the communication protocol.

   Miscellaneous

   Specify the following Miscellaneous options, as required, to populate the Arcserve Backup database:

   • Mount--With the Mount option enabled, the configuration tool populates the database with the names of the VMs that are mountable.

     Note: If you run the configuration tool with the Mount option enabled, the utility takes longer to run because it performs a mount and unmount operation of each running VM.

   • Remove Configuration--Lets you delete the VMs available in the database for the specified VMware ESX Host system or vCenter Server system for a specified backup proxy system.
   • Debug--Lets you write a detailed debug log. The log will be created in the Client Agent for Windows installation directory. By default, this directory is as follows:

     C:\Program Files\CA\ARCserve Backup Client Agent for Windows\LOG
     

     Note: The name of the log file is ca_vcbpopulatedb.log.

   • Retain VM Information--Lets you retain data (backup information) for VMs that are not available when you execute this tool.

     By default, this tool captures information from VMs that are available when you execute this tool. If a VM is not available (for example, the VM is powered off or deleted from the environment), Arcserve Backup deletes the data relating to the VM from the Arcserve Backup database. With this option enabled, Arcserve Backup captures information from VMs that are available, and retains the backup information from VMs that are not available.

     Consider the following best practices:

     • You should specify the Retain VM Information option in environments where the VMs will be in a powered off state when the populate operation executes. This approach helps ensure that Arcserve Backup backs up the VMs the next time the backup job runs.
     • You should not specify the Retain VM Information option in environments where the VMs migrate from one ESX Server or vCenter Server system to another to support load balancing operations. This approach helps ensure that backups of ESX Server and vCenter Server systems do not fail.
   • Stop Auto-population--Lets Arcserve Backup stop automatically populating the VM-related information automatically for the ESX Server or vCenter Server system.

     As a best practice, you should use this option under the following scenarios:

     • The Arcserve Backup database was populated with information about the ESX Server or vCenter Server systems, and you want to stop the Arcserve Backup database auto-population process.
     • An ESX Server or vCenter Server system was disabled. After the system was returned to service, the Arcserve Backup database was populated with information about the ESX Server or vCenter Server system. You now want to stop the Arcserve Backup database auto-population process.
     • A new ESX Server or vCenter Server system was installed in your backup environment. The Arcserve Backup database was populated with information about the ESX Server or vCenter Server system. You now want to stop the Arcserve Backup database auto-population process.

     With the Stop Auto-population option enabled, the auto-population process does not execute the next time Arcserve Backup is scheduled to populate the Arcserve Backup database. The auto-population process populates the database with updated information in 24-hour intervals (default) after the backup job is complete, or based on the frequency that you specified for the Auto-populate VM option.

   Auto-populate VM

   Lets you specify how frequently Arcserve Backup will automatically populate the Arcserve Backup database with VM-related information.

   Default: 24 hours

   Range: 1 to 99 hours

   Temporary VM Mount Location

   Lets you define where Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool temporarily mounts (stores) the backup information for the VMs while the tool is running.

   By default, Arcserve Backup mounts the temporary backup information in the following location:

   C:\Program Files\CA\ARCserve Backup Client Agent for Windows
   

   Note: You must click Set to apply the location.

   For example, you may need to move the Temporary Mount Path because there is an insufficient amount of free disk space to mount the backup on the volume. For more information, see Specify a Temporary VM Mount Location.

5. Click Execute.

   Note: You cannot click Execute unless all required fields are complete.

   The Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool populates the Arcserve Backup database. The results of the execution display in the Results field on the Arcserve VMware Configuration Tool. To view detailed log information, open the log file labeled ca_vcbpopulatedb.log located in the Client Agent for Windows installation directory on the backup proxy system.