CA Technologies

CA ARCserve® Backup Agent for Virtual Machines r16 Update Release Notes

5.0 Issues Corrected for the CA ARCserve Backup r16 Client Agent for Windows

1.0 Welcome

Welcome to the CA ARCserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines r16 Update Release Notes file. This Release Notes file contains important information about the January 2012 update.

With this update, the agent lets you do the following:

Recover virtual machines through vCenter Server to specific ESX Servers systems using vCenter Server credentials, given that the ESX Server system is registered to the vCenter Server system.
Note: This new functionality prevents Recover VM jobs from failing when the target ESXi Server system is managed by a vCenter Server 5.0. For more information, see Troubleshooting in the Agent for Virtual Machines guide.

Recover different VMDK source data to different data stores for an ESX Server system. You perform this task using the Recover VM screen.

Recover source virtual machine distributed switch networks (vDS) to vDS networks in the destination vCenter Server system. You can now browse the vDS switches and the respective port groups that belong to the ESX Server systems.
Note: When the vDS network is not configured or not available, the agent restores the source vDS networks to a normal virtual networks.

For all non-vDS network recoveries, recover non-vDS networks as non-vDS networks.

2.0 Prerequisite Tasks

Before you install this update, verify that the following applications are installed on all of the required servers:

CA ARCserve Backup r16 Service Pack 1

CA ARCserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines r16 Service Pack 1

To back up and restore CA ARCserve D2D sessions with this update, upgrade your CA ARCserve D2D implementations to CA ARCserve D2D r16 Update 3.

3.0 Installation Instructions

To install this update:

Download RO40595 from the CA Support web site.

Install the update.

4.0 Known Issues

The following list provides information about issues that are known to exist in the CA ARCserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines Update:

The agent does not support recovering the VMware vCenter 5.0 feature named VM Storage Profile.

Agents older than CA ARCserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines r16 Update do not support recovering virtual machines using vCenter Server. However, agents from the previous releases support recovering virtual machines using ESX Server.

When a Recover VM job fails and the "Overwrite VMware VM, if it exists" option was specified, the virtual machine on the production server will not be accessible after the job fails. This behavior occurs because the agent tries to delete the original virtual machine during the Recover VM operation, which renders the virtual machine on the production server inaccessible. The solution to this problem is to clear the check mark next to the "Overwrite VMware VM, if it exists" option, and resubmit the Recover VM job.

The agent does not support recovering virtual machines to data stores that are named using the special characters * (asterisk) and @ (at).

When you recover a virtual machine to a specific ESX Server system, the version of VMware that is installed on the source virtual machine must be supported by the version of ESX Server that is running on the destination ESX Server system.
Example: You back up a virtual machine running VMware version 7.0 using an ESX Server system running ESX Server version 4.1. You submit a Recover VM job to an ESX Server system running ESX Server 3.5. In this example, the recovery operation fails because ESX Server version 3.5 does not support VMware version 7.0.

As a best practice, you should not try to recover VMDK files to multiple data stores when the initial backup was performed using VCB. Specifically, VCB backups divide VMDK files into small chunk files. When you recover the VMDK chunk files to multiple data stores, there is a high probability that the Recover VM operation will corrupt the virtual machine.

For VDDK backups, the agent always restores source virtual machines residing on non-vDS networks to ESX Server and vCenter Server systems as non-vDS networks, regardless of whether the vDS Switch option is specified on the Recover VM screen.

The vDS Switch Option on the Recover VM dialog does not support recovering data that was backed up using VCB. For VCB backups that you recover using vCenter Server, the agent always restores source virtual machines configured with vDS networks as non-vDS networks, regardless of whether the vDS Switch option is specified on the Recover VM screen.

For virtual machines running ESX Server 3.5 that were backed up using VCB, the agent does not support recovering the virtual machines through vCenter using VMware Converter. The solution to this behavior is to recover the virtual machines through ESX Server or Recover through vCenter Server using VDDK instead of using VMware Converter.
Note: This limitation does not affect virtual machines running ESX Server 4.0 and 4.1. The agent facilitates recovering ESX Server 4.0 and 4.1 using VDDK, regardless of whether VMware Converter is installed.

When recovering virtual machines through ESX Server systems using the VMware stand-alone converter 5.0, the recovery operation may fail and return the following error message in the Activity Log:
```
E8522 <Backup Server Name> <Date/Time> <Job ID> Failed to receive data from the agent.
```
The solution to this behavior is to uninstall the stand-alone converter and then recover the virtual machines using VDDK.

Recovery operations using the hot-add transport mode may fail and return a message similar to the following in the Activity Log:
```
AE0069  <Backup Server Name> 01/06/2012 09:56:12 PM 106  19  Restore failed for file/directory: <VM Name>.vmdk
```
The solution this behavior is to change the transport mode from the hot-add mode to the NBD mode. To change to the NBD transport mode, modify the following registry key:
- Key
```
HKLM\Software\ComputerAssociates\CA ARCserve Backup\ClientAgent\Parameters
```
- Value name
```
VDDKTransportMode
```
- Data Type
```
REG_DWORD
```
- Data
  0 - VDDK determines the optimal transport mode.
  
  1 - NBD transport mode only is used.
  
  2 - Advanced transport modes such as SAN/HOTADD only are used.
  
  Specify 1 to use the NBD transport mode.

Recover VM operations can fail without specifying a reason for the failure. For information how to troubleshoot and solve this problem, see the troubleshooting topic "Recover VM Operations Fail with Unknown Errors" in the CA ARCserve Backup Agent for Virtual Machines Guide.

5.0 Issues Corrected for the CA ARCserve Backup r16 Client Agent for Windows

This update corrects critical issues relative to CA ARCserve Backup integration with CA ARCserve D2D.

When you back up CA ARCserve D2D r16 (Update 3) sessions using CA ARCserve Backup r16 SP1, the following behaviors occur:

CA ARCserve Backup does not copy the D2D files to tape when D2D contains only one full backup. In addition, the job appears to complete successfully.
With this update:
- CA ARCserve Backup backs up the D2D data successfully.
- You can restore the data from the backup sessions successfully.

When you try to recover Microsoft Exchange Server sessions from CA ARCserve Backup media, the recovery process fails and generates license failure errors.
With this update, the recovery process completes successfully. In addition, you can recover Microsoft Exchange Server data from backup sessions that were created before or after you apply this update.

6.0 Contact CA

Contact CA Support

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