Implementing image-based bare metal protection

For best results, it is recommended that you plan your strategy for disaster recovery before an asset fails. Following is a high-level overview of the steps you must complete to implement image-based bare metal protection for your Windows assets. It identifies steps to complete before and after an asset fails.

Note:  For most assets, you can recover from regular file-level or image-level backups by using Windows unified bare metal recovery. It is recommended to use unified bare metal recovery where possible. To determine which to use for your asset, see Which bare metal method should I use?.

Perform the following before a asset fails

Step 1: Review Prerequisites for Windows image-based bare metal recovery to verify that the asset's operating system is supported and other requirements have been met.
Step 2: Create the ISO and boot media as described in Creating the ISO and boot media. (You must create this media for each asset you are protecting with image-based BMR.)
Step 3: Test the boot media as described in Testing bare metal media for image-based recovery.
Step 4: Run periodic hot bare metal backups. A successful bare metal backup is required to recover the asset. For details on creating a backup job, see To create a file-level backup job.

Note:  You must install a separate Windows bare metal agent to run bare metal backups. Install the agent as described in To install the Windows bare metal agent.

Step 5: (Optional/recommended) Perform a test recovery as described in Testing bare metal media for image-based recovery.

To recover a failed asset

Step 6: Perform image-based BMR using the procedures in Performing image-based bare metal recovery.

Consider the prerequisites for imaged-base BMR as you plan your disaster recovery strategy.

Requirement

Description

Supported operating systems

Recovery to physical and virtual machines is supported for these operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit, WinPE 1.5). Recovery to identical hardware is supported. Recovery to dissimilar hardware is not supported.
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit, WinPE 1.5):
– Recovery to identical hardware is supported.
– Recovery to dissimilar hardware is supported for some distributions. See the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix for supported distributions. Recovery to dissimilar hardware is NOT supported for servers with dual-boot or multi-boot configurations.
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (WinPE 1.5)
• Vista (32-bit and 64-bit, WinPE 2.0)
• Windows 7 (WinPE 2.0)
• Windows 8 (WinPE 2.0)
• Windows 8.1 (WinPE 2.0)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit, WinPE 2.0)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (WinPE 2.0)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit, WinPE 2.0)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (WinPE 2.0)

An eligible bare metal backup

These requirements must be met:

• The backup used for recovery must be a successful bare metal backup. For details on running a bare metal backup, seeTo create a file-level backup job.
• Local access to the appliance where the backup resides must be unblocked to perform the recovery. If local access has been blocked through the Block Local Access feature in the UniView Portal, temporarily unblock local access until you have recovered your Windows asset. For details, see Blocking or unblocking local access to an appliance in the UniView Portal Guide.

Bare metal ISO and boot media

To recover the asset, you must boot the recovery target machine from the asset's bare metal boot media. Custom media is required for each asset. You cannot create the boot media after an asset has failed. To prepare for image-based BMR, create the media as described in Creating the ISO and boot media and keep it in a safe place.

 

Recovery target machine

You can recover to a physical or virtual target machine. The recovery target must meet the requirements described in the rows below.

Firmware interface type

Supported for BIOS-based assets.

(For UEFI-based assets, use Windows unified bare metal recovery instead.)

Disk configuration
• Basic disks are supported. Disks must be MBR partitioned.
• Dynamic disks and GPT partitions are not supported.

Note:  Assets with UEFI BIOS are automatically partitioned with GPT. Use Windows unified bare metal recovery to protect these assets.

Memory
• The target must have enough memory to satisfy Microsoft’s support guidelines for the operating system being recovered.
• The recovery requires that at least 256MB of RAM is available.
• If recovering to a virtual machine, the VM must have at least 2 GB of RAM.

Disk size

The target disk must be at least as large as the source disk you are recovering.

Graphics card

The target must have a graphics card supporting a minimum 800X600 resolution.

Network adapter
• Wireless network adapters cannot be used for the recovery.
• If recovering to a VMware VM, you must use the E1000 NIC.
• If recovering an older asset (Windows 2003/R2 or earlier) to a Hyper-V VM, you must use the Legacy NIC to boot into WinPE 1.5. (For instructions, see To configure the Hyper-V VM to use the legacy network adapter below).

Drivers

Drivers needed for image-based BMR are determined by the operating system of the asset you are recovering and the operating system and hardware of the recovery target machine. You might need to add drivers during different stages of the recovery:

• If recovering to identical hardware, you do not need lo load drivers.
• If recovering to dissimilar hardware, you will need to load drivers to access the network and storage hardware on the recovery target machine.
• If recovering to a virtual machine, you will need to load the guest storage driver,

During recovery, you boot into WinPE 2.0 (Vista and later operating systems) or WinPE 1.5 (earlier operating systems). If you are recovering to dissimilar hardware you will need to load the drivers described below.

• Drivers needed for dissimilar recovery of supported Vista and later operating systems (WinPE 2.0):
– The WinPE 2.0 bare metal boot environment requires that you load 32-bit Windows Vista, 2008, or 2012 drivers to access the underlying network and storage hardware. Load the applicable drivers onto a USB drive or CD that you can access the recovery.
– Upon booting the bare metal image, the Windows Bare Metal Interface displays. You use this interface to load the network and storage drivers into the WinPE image and then start the recovery.
– After recovering the bare metal backup, you will load any additional required drivers.
• Drivers needed for dissimilar recovery of supported Windows 2003 operating systems (WinPE 1.5):
– The WinPE 1.5 bare metal boot environment requires that you load 32-bit Windows 2003 drivers to access the underlying network and storage hardware. Load the applicable drivers onto a USB drive or CD that you can access the recovery.
– Upon booting the bare metal image, the Windows Bare Metal Interface displays. You use this interface to start the recovery and then load the network and storage drivers.
• Recovering to a virtual machine target: You will recover the bare metal backup and then load the networking driver and the guest storage driver (ESX, Hyper-V, or XenServer) right from the Windows Bare Metal Interface.

Dissimilar recovery for Windows 2003

Dissimilar recovery is supported for some Windows 2003 distributions. (See the Compatibility and Interoperability Matrix for details.) These additional requirements apply:

• Dual-boot and Multi-boot configurations are not supported.
• You must not remove the boot media from the machine once the system has booted. The CD contains important Windows bare metal system files. This is a restriction of Microsoft Windows PE.

You must create a custom ISO image and boot media for each Windows asset. It is recommended to create a new ISO and boot media in these cases:

• After upgrading the Windows agent
• After modifying the operating system and/or system critical volumes.
• After installing or removing programs.
1 Log in to the Windows server and launch the Bare Metal Media program:

From the Start Menu, select All Programs > Unitrends Agent, then right-click Bare Metal Media and select Run as Administrator.

2 Enter the following in the Unitrends System Settings fields:
• System Name - The hostname of the Unitrends appliance that is protecting this Windows asset.
• System IP - IP of the Unitrends appliance that is protecting this Windows asset.
• Select a device in the Select a backup device list. If you are storing backups on the default device, select D2DBackups.
3 Review the Asset Settings. These are populated by default, and will be the network settings that your server will have after the recovery process.
4 If necessary, check the DHCP checkbox. This will cause the asset to reach out to a DHCP server and grab an available IP address upon booting from the bare metal CD. Leave the firewall and resolve asset IPs boxes unchecked. These features are deprecated and should not be used.
5 Review the path in the Save Windows Bare Metal ISO to area. If desired, you can change this path to save to a different location. The default location is C:\PCBP_BM\WinBm.dir\cdrom_images.
6 Review the Save Windows Bare Metal ISO As area to see the name of the ISO that will be created. If desired, you can modify the ISO file name.
7 Click Create ISO.
8 On the Continue page, check for the message All tests are successful, then click Yes to continue.

If you do not see a success message, modify settings as required, then Create ISO.

9 Do one of the following (to determine whether WinPE 2.0 or 1.5 is used for your asset, see Supported operating systems above):

For...

Procedure

WinPE 2.0 (Vista and later)

The system creates the ISO. Proceed to step 10.

Note:   You will have the ability to inject any drivers while performing recovery.

WinPE 1.5 (2003/R2 and earlier)

You are asked if you would like to insert additional drivers:

• Click Yes to inject drivers. Browse to your driver(s), select them in the box on the right, and click Add. Be sure to check the Mass storage device checkbox if drivers are being added for a mass storage device. Click Continue.
• Click No if you do not want to inject drivers.
10 The system creates the ISO and the Success page displays.
• If this is a physical asset (or if you will recover to a physical asset), burn the ISO to CD. Refer to the documentation for the burner you are using to walk you through the process of creating a bootable CD from an ISO image, which is not the same as burning an ISO image to a CD. Store the boot CD in a safe place.
• If this is a virtual machine (VM) asset (or if you will recover to a VM), store the ISO image in a safe place.
11 Test the media as described in Testing bare metal media for image-based recovery.

To ensure the boot media you created functions properly, use this procedure to verify that the disk can be used to connect to the Unitrends appliance and recover a bare metal backup.

1 Shut down your Windows server and boot it from its ISO CD.

The server boots and launches the Integrated Bare Metal Recovery Wizard. This can take a few minutes.

2 Click Bare Metal Hardware Confirmation in the top right. The Bare Metal Hardware Confirmation dialog displays.
3 Check these boxes to select the test options: Ping server, Quick connect server, and Disk read (MBR).
4 Click Start to begin the test.
5 The results of your test display. If you see Success, click OK and reboot your server into its operating system. If you see Windows Bare Metal Quick Test Failed, do one or all of the following:
• Ensure that your server and the Unitrends appliance are able to communicate on your network.
• Verify that the Windows server's hostname and IP address in WinPE matches the settings on the Unitrends appliance:
– To view settings in WinPE, select Bare Metal Setup from the main menu.
– To view settings on the Unitrends appliance, log in to the appliance, go to the Configure > Appliances page, select the appliance and click the Network tab below. On the Network tab, select the adapter (typically eth0) and click Edit Hosts File.
• Verify that the Windows server uses MBR partitions. To do this, boot into the Windows operating system, open the Start menu, right-click Computer, click Manage, expand Storage, and click Disk Management. For each of the disks (Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.), right-click and select Properties > Volumes, and verify that Partition Style is Master Boot Record (MBR).