VMware recovery Explained

VMware virtualisation software has made waves in the computing world. Since its 1999 introduction, VMware has evolved into a virtualisation system used from the individual level, to multinational enterprises. Often the whole IT system or service of an organisation is staked on VMware's reliability and backup capabilities. When so much is at stake, it's important to have a recovery plan in place to deal with potential disaster.

As VMware recovery is a very complex procedure, it's all too easy to become bogged down in confusing acronyms and technical jargon that doesn't help you prepare your IT systems for data loss or failure. Let’s cut through the jargon and pin down the key terms you need to know about VMware recovery.

VMFS File System Corruption

VMFS stands for Virtual Machine File System, the method by which VMware organises and stores data. VMFS file systems are used by two popular VMware products: ESX server and the flagship VMware Infrastructure.

VMFS is a very flexible file system that doesn't work like a standard hard drive, and is cluster-based. It can extend over many servers and can grow in size without reformatting or loosing data.

In the unlikely event a VMFS file system is corrupted, it's important to have data recovery done by experts. The file system is quite complex and its cluster-based nature means recovery is often not as straight forward as simple HDD recovery.

VMDK Corruption

The VMDK file type may be more familiar than VMFS. The acronym stands for Virtual Machine Disk and is essentially a separate software-based hard disk on top of a physical one. The VMDK file type is used by VMware to store a virtual operating system, and contains all of the files, system settings and programs within that virtual layer.

VMDKs can be corrupted for a few reasons, ranging from software issues on the host computer to physical drive issues. Fortunately VMware recovery services can often recompile VMDK files, or retrieve data from within them.

RAID Failure

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) failure can cause data loss regardless of it being within a virtualised environment. However, if your virtualised operating system is running off a RAID storage solution then specialised VMware recovery is the way to go. RAID failure generally happens when the RAID controller has a problem with its redundancy patterns. A physical failure of one of the disks in a RAID array may also cause data loss.

Accidentally deleted files

It's not an uncommon problem on any computer system, but when a file has accidentally been deleted within a virtualised operating system traditional data recovery techniques will not always work.

As virtualised systems use the VDMK file type to store all their data, it is sometimes possible to retrieve lost files from the file system without scanning the hard disk.

Be ready for VMware data loss

It's always a good idea to review your data security and backup systems regularly to circumvent the need for data recovery. However, if problems do occur within your VMware system it's worthwhile contacting Ontrack data recovery and inquiring about their range of VMware recovery solutions.