Welcome to the new UBSi – Commvault service! This page will walk you through the process of transitioning to the new service from UBI.
Step 1 – Inventory your UBI nodes
Log into the UBI Self-Service Portal (https://ubi.apps.psu.edu/) and examine your current list of nodes.
- Identify any nodes which are regular VMs, which might not require you to install the UBSi client.
- Make special note of any details which may require you to install and configure a client in UBSi:
- physical servers or NAS devices
- data that requires non-default backup retention
- applications which benefit from application-specific backup agents
You may also have nodes which are performing litigation hold backups to UBI. We are not yet ready to provide litigation hold backups in UBSi, but are working on solutions for this data. You can still configure normal “DR” backups of these systems in UBSi if you would like, but we may need to make changes once litigation hold functionality is available. Please watch for future updates so that you can transition your litigation hold nodes at that point.
Step 2 – Plan your Tenants; Identify or create User Managed Groups
Consider the group(s) of people who should have access to your backups. In UBI we used the concept of a “UBI Group” to manage access to nodes. You can view the membership of these groups in the UBI Self-Service Portal.
In UBSi – Commvault we use “Tenants” or “Companies” based on User Managed Groups (UMGs) to provide access to clients. You can create and use one or more tenants depending on your organizational requirements. All users in the UMG will be given “Tenant Admin” rights over the associated tenant’s clients and backup data. You can then manually add additional users with more limited access if needed.
If you have VMs in VM Hosting, they are already tied to one or more UMGs. When you create a UBSi tenant using one of those UMGs, you will automatically gain access to the backups of those VMs.
When you install the Commvault client, you can chose which tenant it will be linked to (by entering an “authcode” that identifies the tenant).
If the client is installed on a VM, you should select the same tenant that the VM already appears in, to ensure that the different backup agents are linked together correctly.
If the client is installed on a physical server, you can select any tenant you wish. You may wish to add these clients to a tenant that also contains VMs. If you prefer to create a separate tenant for these clients, you can create a new UMG (or find a preexisting one) using the User Managed Groups tool (https://accounts.psu.edu/manage/umg) and then create the tenant using that group.
- Identify any VM Hosting UMGs that you will use for access to your VM backups
- Create or find other UMGs that you want to use for non-VM tenants (if any)
Step 3 – Create your new Tenant(s) in UBSi
Following our “Onboarding” instructions, create new tenant(s) in UBSi for each of the UMGs that you identified above:
https://sites.psu.edu/ubsi/onboarding/
Step 4 – Verify that your VM backups are visible
Browse though your tenants and examine the VMs listed under the “Protect -> Virtualization” menu. Verify that all of your VMs appear in the interface. Check their backup history, and test browsing for VM Guest Files.
See also: https://sites.psu.edu/ubsi/vm-hosting-backups-and-restores/
Step 5 – Install the filesystem client (if needed)
We are already performing VM-level backups of all VM Hosting VMs by default. The Commvault software allows you to perform self-service restores of files from within those VM backups. Therefore, in most cases you will not need to configure an additional file-level backup of your systems.
However, there are a few scenarios where you may wish to install and configure the Commvault client as you transition away from UBI:
- You will need to configure backups of any physical servers or NAS devices. Since they are not VMs, they would not already be included in the VM backups.
- The automatic VM backups occur daily and use a default 31 day retention, which cannot be modified. If you need to use a different retention plan for certain files, you can configure the client to select only those files for the desired retention.
- The Commvault software can perform application-aware backups of certain applications, including most database products and some cloud services. If you wish to take advantage of the application-aware functionality, you would need to install and configure the appropriate backup agent.
- VMs with independent-mode disks are excluded from backups. Snapshots cannot be performed on VMs with independent-mode disks, so it is not possible for us to perform VM-level backups of these systems. This is a rarely-used feature, so it will affect a very small number of VMs. Some clustered applications may require that you share a set of virtual disks between multiple VMs, which may require independent-mode disks. If your VMs must use shared independent-mode disks, you should install the filesystem client inside the VM(s) and perform file-level backups of any important data. If this applies to one of your VMs, you will see its backup jobs failing with the error “Virtual machine [example] is configured with shared virtual disks. Snapshot operations are not supported for shared disks. Use an in-guest agent to protect virtual machines with shared disks.”
- File restores use the backup client to push the restored files onto the desired system. You probably do not need to install the client on every server in advance. But you may wish to preemptively install the filesystem client in “restore” mode on specific machines – perhaps a management server or a server which needs to perform frequent DR testing.
For physical servers or other cases that require it, follow our instructions to install the filesystem client:
https://sites.psu.edu/ubsi/installing-the-filesystem-client/
Locate the client(s) under the “Protect -> File Servers” menu. Complete any remaining configuration – select the backup content and retention plan, and set any required application-specific settings.
You can either perform the first backup manually, or wait for it to run on the normal daily schedule.
Step 6 – Test a restore
We recommend testing a restore for any critical clients, to ensure that you understand the process and have an opportunity to ask questions before moving away from UBI.
Step 7 – Clean up UBI
Once you have verified that your backups and restores are functioning correctly in UBSi, you can disable any backups to UBI by stopping the Spectrum Protect scheduler service(s) or disabling cronjobs or other scheduler configuration.
For any non-VM clients, you may wish to retain your UBI nodes for a brief period while you build up backup history in UBSi. Once you have sufficient history in UBSi, the UBI node will no longer be relevant.
When you are ready, please submit a “Delete UBI node” request to the UBI administrators:
https://pennstate.service-now.com/sp?id=sc_cat_item&sys_id=b7f0248f0f11b6002c4900dce1050eb8
Or, if your entire UBI group is ready to be deleted, you can select “Request information about UBI” on the same form, and request that the entire UBI group(s) be deleted, along with any nodes and backup data that remains.
Once your records have been removed from UBI, you will stop receiving our periodic warnings about the UBI shutdown.
Step 8 – Enjoy UBSi – Commvault
That’s it! We hope you find the new functionality in UBSi – Commvault useful. We’ve worked hard to try to make this service more user-friendly, and to give you better self-service control of your backups and restores. If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to contact us: