Unitrends system resource considerations for Windows Instant Recovery

SUMMARY

To provide information advising customers how to check to see if their appliance can run instant recoveries.

ISSUE

The Unitrends appliance has the ability to run a Windows instant recovery, but the virtual failover client (VFC) residing on a Recovery-Series appliance uses the appliance's resources and impacts system performance. Processors, memory, and storage are assigned to the VFC, so less system resources are available for functions such as backups, archiving, replication, and deduplication. Retention is also impacted, as storage allocated for instant recovery cannot be used for backups.
 

RESOLUTION

Before creating a VFC on a Recovery-Series appliance, check the system load and utilization to determine whether the appliance has adequate resources to perform other functions while also running the VFC.

TASKS

Determine the system load and utilization (HTML5 user interface)

1. On the Reports page, select the Appliance category and select the Load Report. You can choose the appliance and set the date range you want to view. Verify the system load is at an acceptable level.
2. If VFCs are currently residing on the appliance, go to the Recover page, click on the Instant Recovery tab, select a VFC, and then click Edit to see resource utilization snapshots for processor, memory, and storage.

1. In the Navigation pane, select the backup system or replication target where the VFC will run.
2. Click on Settings > System Monitoring > Load and verify that the system load is at an acceptable level.
3. If VFCs are currently residing on the appliance, select Settings > Instant Recovery > Windows to see resource utilization snapshots for processor, memory, and storage.

NOTES

If the system is consistently in the Alarm Area for prolonged periods of time or if backups are not completed in the desired backup window, reconsider the number of VFCs on the appliance.