About migrating from LUN protection to server-level backup
If you are upgrading, any existing LUN-based backup configurations will continue to work normally. However, you will not be able to modify any of the existing LUN-based backup configurations or create any new ones. To change any existing LUN-based backup configurations to server-based backups, you must migrate the configurations.
Core 4.6 can support both LUN protection and server-level backup at the same time. Therefore, it is not necessary to migrate all existing LUN protection configurations for all Edges at the same time. However, each Edge in the deployment can only be configured to use LUN protection or server-based backups, not both.
Migration can be achieved in a phased approach, one Edge at a time. Whether a phased migration is adopted or not, there are some key points to be aware of:
• All Cores, including HA peers, which will use server-level backups, must be running the same product version.
• Each Edge (including the HA peer if configured) to be protected with server-level backup must be running the same product version.
• During the Core upgrade, there is a procedure that is run to clean up the current LUN protection state on the proxy host and the storage array. This clean-up procedure does not affect existing LUN protection configurations, but it is required in order for these existing configurations and any subsequent migrations to operate successfully. Because the procedure communicates with the proxy, the proxy must remain connected to the Core during the upgrade. If the proxy is not connected, any protection operations attempted after the upgrade will fail. To resolve this problem, you must reboot the proxy host.
To configure the Core so that LUN protection settings are migrated to use server-level backup policies instead, add the ESXi or Windows servers on each Edge that require protection to the backup policy, and then associate the policy with the correct scope, which includes the relevant LUN(s) and proxy. It is important to understand that this action will automatically disable any existing LUN protection settings for that Edge. It will also clean up any LUN protection state on the storage array and the proxy host related to the Edge. Therefore make sure that all VMs and/or servers for the specific Edge are protected as required.