Mount and migrate a file system for instant recovery to any target

The file system mount and migrate feature is available for recovery of Linux file systems that are backed up into a logical volume manager (LVM) based staging disk—as LVM is used for the online migration during recovery. If the source file system is less than 1 TiB or is not on a logical volume manager, a flag Prefer LVM on Staging Disk needs to be set to force logical volume manager onto the Backup and DR staging disk. Backups of file systems that are larger than 1 TiB are automatically backed up in logical volume manager format, regardless of whether the Prefer LVM for Single Staging Disk option is set or not.

Known limitations

The target volume group extent size must be identical to the production volume group at the time of backup. If the production system does not have LVM, the staging disk uses a default extent size of 4 MB.

Use mount and migrate to restore data back to the same server location

The following must be true for images from any file system application to be restored using the mount and migrate option:

  • The Application and Details setting Prefer LVM on Staging disk is set to Yes.
  • The production application data is resident on an logical volume manager logical volume.

Complete the following to restore an application back to its original location.

  1. From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Applications from the drop-down menu.

    The Applications page opens.

  2. Select the application with the image that you want to restore using mount and migrate capability. Then select Access from the drop-down list at the bottom of the Applications page.

  3. Select the image you need, and select Restore from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the page.

    The Restore page opens.

  4. Select the Mount and Migrate option to restore with near-zero downtime.

  5. Optionally, in Label, enter a label for the cloned application. By default, the label is filled with the Clone - M&M label.

  6. Click Pre-Flight Check. You see a status message about the progress of the pre-flight check. If the pre-flight check fails, you see an error message explaining why the pre-flight check failed. Fix the issues in the error message and run the pre-flight check again. Once the pre-flight check passes, the Submit button is enabled.

  7. Click Submit. The mount and migrate process is initiated, which results in a couple of jobs running in the background: the mount job and the migrate job.

    The mount job mounts the selected point-in-time image of the file system application back to the same host and location from where the data was captured. Once the image is mounted, the data becomes available almost instantaneously to the business application, thus providing near-zero RTO.

After the successful completion of the mount job, the system auto-initiates the migrate job, which starts migrating the application data from Backup and DR disks onto the product storage in real-time— including the data changes.

Use mount and migrate to restore (migrate) data to an alternative server location

Images from any file system application can be restored using the mount and migrate option if the following is true:

  • The Application and Details setting Prefer LVM on staging disk is set to Yes.

  • The production application data is resident on an logical volume manager logical volume.

Use these instructions to restore an application back to a different server location.

  1. From the Backup and DR Service management console, click App Manager and select Applications from the drop-down menu.

    The Applications page opens.

  2. Select the application with the image that you want to restore using mount and migrate capability. Then select Access from the drop-down list at the bottom of the Applications page.

  3. Select a point-in-time that you want the application to restore.

  4. Select Clone from the list of access operations.

    The Clone page opens.

  5. Select a host where the file system application is to be restored.

  6. Optionally, in Label, enter a label for the cloned application. By default, the label is filled with the Clone - M&M label

  7. From the Target VG Name drop-down list, select the Volume Group that you want to migrate. The selected Volume Group must have enough unallocated space in it to hold the volume.

  8. Click Pre-Flight Check. You see a status message about the progress of the pre-flight check. If the pre-flight check fails, you see an error message explaining why the pre-flight check failed. Fix the issues in the error message and re-run the pre-flight check. Once pre-flight check passes, the Submit button is enabled.

  9. Click Submit.

    The mount and migrate process is initiated. This results in two jobs; the mount job and the migrate job.

    The mount job mounts the selected point-in-time image of the file system application back to the same host and location from where the data was captured. Once the image is mounted, the data becomes available almost instantaneously to the business application, thus providing near-zero RTO.

    After the mount job has succeeded, the system auto-initiates the migrate job, which starts migrating the application data from Backup and DR disks onto the product storage in real-time—including the data changes.

The file system administrator guide to Backup and DR Service

This page is one in a series of pages specific to protecting and recovering filesystems with Backup and DR Service. You can find additional information in the following pages: