Image Integrity Check: Ensuring Data Reliability for Backups

Image Integrity Check

KB ID: 115079
Overview
The Vembu BDRSuite Backup Server offers a data integrity check for your backup data to ensure its reliability. This check verifies the health of your backup data and can be configured to run at regular intervals.
Requirements
To utilize this feature, ensure the following conditions are met on the machine where the BDRSuite Backup Server is installed:
1. The Hyper-V role must be enabled on Windows-based servers.
2. KVM must be installed on Linux-based servers.
3. Additionally, you need to have an ESXi/vCenter Server. If you cannot meet the first two conditions, you can use the ESXi/vCenter Server (Local & Remote) and enable the data integrity feature.
Data Integrity Verification
Once the Data Integrity option is enabled, the system will perform the following checks on the last successful incremental backup data:
1. Mount Check: Verifies the mount status of your backup data, applicable only for Windows servers.
2. Boot Check: Verifies the boot status of your backup data on Hyper-V Manager (Windows Server), KVM (Linux Server), or VMware ESXi/vCenter server. This check is applicable only for backups containing OS partitions.
Target Hypervisor
You can select the target hypervisor for the boot check:
1. VMware: Recommended for ESXi Server usage. Adding and using the vCenter Server for data integrity may lead to NFS Datastore issues.
  1. Target ESXi/vCenter: Select/add the ESXi/vCenter server.
  2. Target Datastore: Choose the target datastore.
2. Hyper-V: Use Hyper-V role enabled in the BDRSuite Backup Server machine for boot checks. Remote Hyper-V hosts are not supported for boot checks.
  1. Target Host/Server: By default, the IP address of the BDRSuite Backup Server machine is used.
  2. RAM Size: Defines the allocated RAM size for the VM created during the boot check.
  3. Boot Check Timeout: Defines the timeout period for checking the boot status.
Note: The screenshot for the check may vary based on the type of VM and the presence of VMware tools.
Integrity Check Frequency
Set the time interval between consecutive Integrity Check operations based on your preferences. Integrity checks are performed for VM/Image level backups, and the results are available in the Data Integrity Reports section. If email notifications are enabled, you will receive updates via email as well.
Supported Schedule Types
Image integrity checks are supported for 'Run Every' and 'Run Daily' schedule types.
Limitations
Image integrity checks are not supported in the following cases:
  1. 'Run Weekly' schedule type.
  2. If the backup is suspended for an extended period (no schedules were run).
  3. For non-OS disks, only mount tests can be performed, and boot tests will be tagged as "NA."
  4. For Ubuntu VMs with disk sizes exceeding 2TB, boot checks are not supported in Hyper-V Manager.
  5. Mount checks are not supported in KVM Manager.
  6. For GPT-partitioned VMs, boot checks are not supported in KVM Manager.
Process
1. A newly configured backup job will undergo its first integrity check 24 hours after the successful completion of its full backup. A backup schedule post-24-hour cycle is required to initiate the first integrity check.
2. After the initial 24-hour cycle, successive integrity checks will occur at 24-hour intervals, starting from the successful completion time of the last integrity check.
3. Integrity checks are performed on the last known successful backup data.
Example
1. A backup is configured at 9 AM on Monday, and its full backup completes at 9:10 AM.
2. The first integrity check will be performed the next day (Tuesday) after 9:10 AM, when the first backup schedule post-9:10 AM completes.
3. The first integrity check completes at 9:40 AM on Tuesday, and subsequent checks occur at 24-hour intervals, beginning at or after 9:40 AM on Wednesday. This cycle repeats daily with the completion time of the integrity check as the starting point.