Information covered

Purpose

IDrive BMR local and cloud virtualization is an effective solution to combat technical breakdown in an organization, thereby avoiding downtime. With this feature, you can instantly virtualize your backed up physical machines and host them locally or on the IDrive cloud, achieving high availability of your backed-up machines.

Description

IDrive BMR allows you to create local and cloud virtual instances of your protected machines within a few seconds without any additional software or hardware installation. You can also virtualize your physical machines which are no longer accessible due to a disaster or ransomware attack. In this case, you will have to use a recovery point created before the attack to create a virtual instance.

You can host the virtualized physical machines locally and continue backing up their data without any break. The latest backed up data from the virtual instance of your physical machine can be retrieved as and when needed via a bare-metal restore.

Note

When you create a virtual instance of a physical machine on the IDrive BMR device, the device will detect the backup agent in the virtualized instance and continue to perform backup according to the schedule.
In case you are performing a test restore by creating a virtual instance of a backed-up machine, you need to ensure that the original source machine is not online at the same time in the same network. This can cause network conflicts and the IDrive BMR device may backup data from either one of the machines as a part of its schedule, causing inconsistencies in the backup. To avoid this, it is recommended to create the test virtual instance on disconnected or NAT (Firewalled) mode.
The backup of virtualized VMware machines is not currently supported. This feature will be coming soon.

Create a local virtual instance of a physical machine

To create a local virtual instance of your physical machine,

Sign in to the IDrive BMR device web interface.
Go to the Local Virtualization tab and click the Create a Virtual Machine button.
A pop-up screen opens with the Physical Machines tab selected by default. Select the required client from the Choose a System drop-down list.
Choose a recovery point.
Select the number of processors for the virtual machine.
Allocate the required memory for the virtual machine in the RAM field.

Note: Memory value should be greater than 512 MB. You can decide the memory value depending on the available memory displayed below the RAM field.
Select a network source based on your requirement.
Next, select the appropriate virtual network model.
Choose the required storage controller for the virtual machine.

Note: The recommended storage controller is SATA.
Select a graphics option from the drop-down menu.
Click Build Virtual Machine.

Once you complete these steps, your virtual machine will be created. Next, you can connect to and access the machine.

Note : When a machine with dynamic disks is virtualized, the created virtual instance will have basic disks with randomly assigned drive letters. You may have to sign in to the VM and change the drive letter associations as necessary.

Create a cloud virtual instance of a physical machine

To create a cloud virtual instance of your physical machine,

Sign in to IDrive BMR’s device web interface.
Click the Create a Virtual Machine button on the Cloud Virtualization tab.

A new popup will appear.
Navigate to the Physical Machines tab and select the required client from the Choose a System drop-down list.
Choose a recovery point.
Select the number of processors for the virtual machine.
Allocate required memory for the virtual machine in the RAM field, taking into account the memory available for cloud virtualization.
Select a network source, and select the appropriate network model.
Choose the required storage controller for the virtual machine. The recommended storage controller is SATA.
Select the graphics option from the drop-down list, and click Build Virtual Machine.

Once this is completed, your virtual machine is built. You can now connect to it and continue working.

Note: When a machine with dynamic disks is virtualized, the created virtual instance will have basic disks with randomly assigned drive letters. You may have to sign in to the VM and change the drive letter associations as necessary.

Connect to the new virtual instance

To connect to your newly-built virtual instance,

In the Virtualization page, navigate to the new virtual instance and click the Copy VNC Password button on the right-hand side.
Click Connect corresponding to the virtual machine.
In the new window that appears, paste the password. Click Send Password.

A remote connection to the virtual machine will be established.

Note: All the created virtual instances will be unmounted and the changes made in the virtual machine will be lost when you restart your IDrive BMR device. You can also click to unmount and delete the virtual machine manually.

Activating Windows license after creating a virtual instance

Windows licensing links your purchased product key to the hardware configuration of the backed-up machine. In the case of virtualization, IDrive BMR presents an emulated hardware to the virtual instance which is different from the hardware of the original backed-up machine. So, Windows may prompt you to reactivate your license.

The solution depends on the type of your Windows license.

Solution for retail license: Windows allows retail licenses to be transferred to another machine. You can simply enter the product key on the new machine and reactivate the Windows license.

Note: Retail licenses can only be installed on one machine at any particular time. Avoid activating Windows on multiple computers with the same product key.

Solution for OEM license: OEM license is non-transferrable and links your purchased product key to the motherboard. To secure license activation for a restored machine, you will need to contact your OEM-license provider. IDrive BMR cannot assist you with third-party licensing issues.