IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2 extends capabilities that currently exist in IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.

Highlights include:

• Centrally managed data protection for VMware hypervisors
• Quick and efficient incremental block-level backups utilizing VMware’s vStorage APIs for Data Protection and Changed Block Tracking features
• Automatic detection of newly created virtual machines to help ensure compliance with a backup policy
• Capability to offload the backup workload to one or more vStorage backup servers
• Use of a non-disruptive snapshot at the virtual machine image level to help minimize disruptions to virtual guests
• Multiple recovery options from a single-pass image-level backup that can help with: Granular file level recoveries; Near-instant volume recoveries; Full virtual machine recoveries
• Advanced capabilities such as compression and deduplication to help reduce network and storage capacity requirements

Over the past few years, virtualization technologies have been transforming the way data centers and remote offices are managed. These technologies have helped reduce floor space, drive up utilization metrics, and enable new levels of service management and operational flexibility. However, the amount of data created and managed continues to grow.

Although technology has made it easier to create new virtual machines, the sprawling numbers of virtual machines have created challenges for managing data protection. Backing up and restoring data for dozens of virtual machines that may reside on an enterprise server can bring all other operations on that server to a halt.

While IBM Tivoli Storage Manager already delivers an offering for the backup challenge, the new IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2 compliments Tivoli Storage Manager by offering additional improvements for backup and recovery capabilities for VMware hypervisors.

Using Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2, the burden of running backups on a virtual machine can be eliminated by offloading backup workloads from a VMware ESX or ESXi-based server to a centralized vStorage backup server. The vStorage backup server takes full and incremental snapshots of virtual machines, processes backups, and sends the results to a Tivoli Storage Manager V5.5, or later server.

Incremental backups occur at a block level, thereby leveraging VMware’s Changed Block Tracking capability, and periodic full backups take a non-disruptive snapshot at the virtual machine image level. Near-instant recovery can be applied at a file level or disk volume level. Virtual machine image level can be restored through the vStorage server. These capabilities can provide end users with recovery flexibility from a single-pass image-level backup. Tivoli Storage Manager for Virtual Environments V6.2 helps simplify day-to-day administration with a single, centralized console.

Planned availability date

• March 11, 2011: Electronic
• March 18, 2011: Media