PHD’s road to the Cloud!
A few months ago I reviewed the 6.0 version backup tool from PHD Virtual. A couple of months later I wrote a post on what’s new in version 6.1 . PHD has introduced their next major update 6.2 and I finally had the chance to review this new major update.
The installation
The thing I really love about PHD Virtual backup is the simplicity of installation. Once you have downloaded and extracted the zip file, the installation of the PHD virtual Appliance is as simple as deploying a OVF. Just follow these steps:
In the vCenter Manager window choose File and click on Deploy OVF Template… In the popup window Browse for the PHDVBA.ovf file and click Next
In the OVF Template Details window click Next
In the Name and Location window provide a VM name, choose the inventory location and click Next
In the Hos / Cluster window select the Cluster which will host the VM and then click Next
In the Specify a specific host window select the host where the VM will land on and click Next
In the Storage window select the Datastore the VM will land on and click Next
make your choive for the Disk Format you want to use and click Next
In the Network Mapping select the network the VM will be on and click Next
In the Ready to Complete window check all settings, check the Power on after deployment checkbox and click Finish
That’s it… The OVF will be deployed and when this is done you must install the PHDVirtualBackup Client installation package. After this you should reconnect to your vCenter server.
Setup CloudHook
After installation you should change a couple of configuration settings to get be able to backup to one of the Cloud Storage providers supported by PHD:
- Amazon S3
- Google Cloud Storage
- Rackspace Cloud Files
- OpenStack/Swift
In vCenter right click the VM and go to PHD Virtual Backup –> Console
In the Console Choose Configuration –> Write Space and configure an attached virtual disk
After this is done go to Backup Storage and give in the cloud storage provider and fill in the details provided by the provider you’ve choosen.
After this I needed to finetune some settings on both sides and I was able to start doing a backup to the cloud…
Conclusion
First of all I would like to say to PHD: Job well done guys! As said in earlier posts “PHD Virtual provides mature, easy to install, and easy to use software.” Providing “Build in Data reduction”, “Assured security”,”Rollback Recovery”, “Flexible Retention” and “Forever Incremental Backups” you get a great product that works very well. PHD makes BAAS easy. Again, job well done.