The Active Mounts page in App Manager lists all active images (mounts) available in the management console. From this page, you can view information such as the application name, application type, source and mounted hostname, label, source image, and image name associated with an active image. You can also check if an active image is marked sensitive and its expiration date.
From the Active Mounts page, you can perform the following actions:
- Forget an active mount
- Unmount an active image
- Unmount and delete an active image
- Remount an image that was previously unmounted
- Delete a mount that was previously unmounted
- Mount and migrate operations from the active mounts page
After you are finished with a mounted backup image, you can remove it from the appliance without deleting the instance from the cloud.
Active images are handled differently depending on how they were mounted:
- Persistent Disk: Backups on Persistent Disk (Compute Engine, Cloud SQL, and HANA and Db2 databases backed up to Persistent Disk) are mounted on a new Persistent Disk or Google Cloud Hyperdisk and attached to the selected VM. These backups can be forgotten or unmounted.
- Backup and DR snapshot: Backups are mounted on a new volume (virtual snapshot) in the backup/recovery appliance snapshot pool and attached to the selected VM. These backups can only be unmounted.
Forget active mount (only for backups on Persistent Disk)
The disk remains attached to the VM but Backup and DR no longer manages it. You will still be billed for the storage under Persistent Disk in Compute Engine. To delete the disk and avoid charges, choose (Unmount and delete).
Use these instructions to forget an active mount:
From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Active Mounts from the drop-down menu.
The Active Mounts page opens.
Select the active mount that you want to forget.
Select Forget Active Mount from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page.
The Forget Active Mount page opens.
Click Submit. You can view the status of the job in the Monitor. Go to Monitor Jobs.
Unmount an active mount
To remove a mount from a host and retain it for later use, you can choose to unmount it without deleting it.
Use these instructions to unmount an active image:
From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Active Mounts from the drop-down menu.
The Active Mounts page opens.
Select one or more active images that you either want to unmount.
Select Unmount from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the page.
Click Submit to complete the unmount operation. You can view the status of the unmount and delete job in the Monitor. Only use the force option if advised by Support.
Backups from Persistent Disk can also be unmounted. The disk is detached from the VM but it is retained. It is still considered an Active Mount, and it can be remounted back to the VM at a later date.
Unmount and delete an active image
When you no longer require an active image, you can unmount and delete it.
- For mounts from a Backup and DR snapshot, the volume is unmounted from the VM and the snapshot is deleted from the backup/recovery appliance snapshot pool.
- For mounts from Persistent Disk, the disk is detached from the VM and deleted.
In both cases, there will be no further cost for the disk.
Use these instructions to unmount and delete an active image:
Go to App Manager menu and select Active Mounts.
The Active Mounts page opens.
Select one or more active images that you want to unmount and delete.
Select Unmount and delete from the drop-down menu.
Click Submit to complete the unmount operation. You can view the status of the unmount and delete job in the Monitor. Only use the force option if advised by Support.
Remount an unmounted image
Remounting an unmounted image re-attaches the volume to the target VM. This can only be performed on an image that was previously unmounted.
When you unmount an image, the underlying storage (either a snapshot in the appliance pool or a persistent disk) is retained, and you continue to be billed for it. Remounting does not incur additional storage costs, but you are still responsible for the cost of the retained storage.
To remount an unmounted image, follow these steps:
From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Active Mounts from the drop-down menu.
The Active Mounts page opens.
Select one or more images that you want to remount, they should have the Image Status of Unmounted.
Select Remount from the drop-down menu.
The Remount page opens.
From the Host drop-down list, select a target host.
For VMware hosts only:
For Mount Mode, select from the NFS (default), vRDM (virtual raw device mapping) or pRDM (physical raw device mapping) options.
From Map to ESX Hosts, select one of the following options:
- One: Select One if you want to map only to the ESX host running the target VM.
- Two: Select Two if you want to map to two ESX hosts, but not all ESX hosts in the cluster. On selecting Two, you are given the option to choose the second host, or choose Auto-select. Auto-select chooses the second host based on logical pairs of ESX hosts and always selects the partner ESX host for the one running the target VM.
- All: Select All if you want to map to all the ESX hosts present in the cluster. Note that selecting All may increase the duration of the job.
Enter a unique name in Label.
Enter an unused drive letter in Mount Drive. The Mount Drive is where backup/recovery appliance tries to put the data. If the selected drive letter is occupied, then the data is put in the next available letter approaching A.
Enter a Mount Point. This is where the new data exists after it is mounted to the host.
Click Submit. A job is submitted to mount the image to the selected host, and the image becomes Active.
Delete an unmounted image
Images take up storage space, so if you find there are unmounted images that are no longer required, you can delete them to free up that space. Periodically check for and delete unused images.
Use these instructions to delete an unmounted image:
From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Active Mounts from the drop-down menu.
The Active Mounts page opens.
Select one or more unmounted active images that you want to delete.
Select Delete from the drop-down list at the bottom of the page. You can also right-click on the item in the list and select Delete from the menu.
Click Submit. You can view the status of the delete job in the Monitor.