Create LiveClone Backup and DR Workflows

LiveClone Backup and DR Workflows are used when the production data contains sensitive information. It lets you define a LiveClone from production data and then scrub the LiveClone's data before mounting it.

A LiveClone Backup and DR Workflow can do the following:

Generate a new, or updates an existing, LiveClone from a selected production image that is marked as sensitive.
Define a schedule for updating the LiveClone with the latest production data. Scheduled Backup and DR Workflows can also be run on demand.
Employ scripts to scrub the LiveClone of sensitive data.
Mark the scrubbed virtual application as non-sensitive.
Either mount the scrubbed data—standard mount—to a specific host, or mount the scrubbed image as a virtual application—application aware mount—to a specific host.

Note: Management console users, when assigned with Workflow Refresh rights but not with Backup and DR Workflow run or Backup and DR Workflow manage rights, can only refresh the existing virtual application and cannot run, edit, delete, or disable the Backup and DR Workflow.

Use these instructions to create a LiveClone Backup and DR Workflow:

In the App Manager, select a managed application or consistency group.
Right-click and select Manage Workflows to open the Backup and DR Workflows Application Dashboard. Click Add Workflow and add basic configuration details like Name and Appliance of where you want the Backup and DR Workflow to run.
Select LiveClone for the Workflow Type.
Select Scheduled or On Demand for the Schedule Type. For scheduled Backup and DR Workflows, define a schedule to run the Backup and DR Workflow. The time selector uses a 24-hour clock. Scheduled Backup and DR Workflows can also be run on demand.
Complete the LiveClone Settings section.
- Select the latest snapshot image from the policy that produces the image to scrub for the Source Image. If you selected On Demand, the user running the Backup and DR Workflow selects the source snapshot image at run time.
Note: You can also select the latest StreamSnap image from a specific snapshot policy.
- Enter an identifiable name in the LiveClone Label field.
- Select the diskpool to hold the LiveClone—as well as the differences from subsequent mounts of the LiveClone—for Diskpool. Ensure enough storage space is allocated to accommodate the LiveClone.
Optionally, enable the Mount for Pre-Processing option. This ensures that the LiveClone is mounted to a host and one or more scripts run on the mounted image to scrub or mask sensitive data.
1. Enable the Mark data as non-sensitive option if your selected application contains sensitive data and you want it be scrubbed and made non-sensitive. This allows non-sensitive data users to access the Backup and DR Workflow and provision their work environments.
2. Select the host on which to mount the LiveClone from the Host drop-down.
3. Optionally, enable the Map to All Cluster Nodes option. You can see this option when one or more target hosts are a cluster node or a cluster host.
4. You can see the following options only when one or more target hosts are VMware VMs:
  1. For Mount Mode, select one of the following:
    - NFS: By default NFS mode is selected. Backup and DR presents the data as a VMDK in an NFS datastore mounted from the backup/recovery appliance.
    - vRDM (virtual raw device mapping): VMware snapshots treat mounted vRDMs as independent and are not included in snapshots. Because of this, by default, Backup and DR does not include vRDMs when protecting a mounted VM. Backup and DR does provide an option where you can mark vRDMs as dependent. Although rarely used, when this option is enabled, vRDMs are included in VMware snapshots. Backup templates capture vRDMs marked as dependent. Note that this mount mode needs the ESXi host to have an iSCSI initiator, which by default is not enabled in Google Cloud VMware Engine.
    - pRDM (physical raw device mapping): For file-level restore operations, select this mode. Note that this mount mode needs the ESXi host to have an iSCSI initiator, which by default is not enabled in Google Cloud VMware Engine.
  2. From Map to ESX Hosts, select one of the following options. You can see the Map to ESX Hosts option only when you have selected vRDM or pRDM in the Mount Mode field.
    - 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. When selecting Two, you can 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 for the job.
5. Enter the location for the mounted drives in the Mount Location field. For example, M:, D:\testdb1.
6. Select an option to mask sensitive data in the Scripts Options section.
  - Select the Optim Privacy Data Masking option if you are using Optim Data Privacy software for data masking. The Masking Set drop-down is populated automatically, so you can specify the corresponding timeout in minutes in Masking Set.
  - Select the Custom Scripts option if you are using Backup and DR custom scripts. Specify at least one pre- or post-processing script and the corresponding timeout in seconds. For more information, see Custom scripts.
7. Click the Create New Virtual Application option to perform an application aware mount. This option is available only for IBM Db2, MySQL, Oracle PostgreSQL, SAP ASE, and SQL Server applications.
  
  Note: You may need to create a new database (perform an AppAware mount) if the scripts to scrub sensitive data can only be run when the database is powered up and running.
Click Next.
Specify the mount details for the LiveClone image.
- For Mount Label, provide a name to make it identifiable.
- In the Hosts section, select one host on which you will perform the AppAware mount. You cannot perform an AppAware mount on multiple hosts.
- In Mapping Options section, for Mount Location, enter the location for the mounted drives—for example, M:, D:\testdb1, or /oracledata/db1data.
- In the Scripts Options section, add any pre- and post-scripts that are needed to use.
- (Databases only) Enable Create New Virtual Application if you want to perform an application aware mount (a virtual database). This option is available only for IBM Db2, MySQL, Oracle PostgreSQL, SAP ASE, and SQL server applications. The displayed settings vary according to database type. If you don't select the Create New Virtual Application option, you can instead get a file system mount to your target hosts.
- Optionally, enable Remove Mounted Image After Done if you employ one or more scripts to process the mounted data as a one-time task after which the mounted data is no longer needed, such as extraction of data into a data warehouse. Once the script finishes its task this option unmounts and deletes the virtual application.
Click Add to create the Backup and DR Workflow.

The VMware administrator's guide

This page is one in a series of pages specific to protecting and recovering VMware VMs with Backup and DR. You can find additional information at: