ESX on the IBM System i

VMware Consolidated Backup on System i - howto

dave@NLC — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:14:51 GMT

So I finally have this prefected - I had to do a lot of CL Programming, and had to do a lot of tweaking to get this working. I will try and put everything in here that I went through to get it working. What I can do is post everything I have in place today. I hope you're a good CL programmer, or know one

First, make sure all the VM's have the VMware Tools with the "Volume Shadow Copy Services Support " selected. This doesn't get installed by default.

Second, on the Integrated Server that will be your VCB Proxy do the following.

Install the VMware Consolidated Backup Framework
Created a secondary drive (I call mine the V:\ drive) We'll talk about the size of this drive later - so read this whole thing before you do anything
create a folder in the V:\ drive called mnt and share it
- Make sure you have share name in your QUSRSYS/QAZLCSAVL file - see here http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/scope/i5os/index.jsp?topic=/rzahq/rzahqflbackupsetup.htm for help
Create a Batch program to do the mounting, and another to do the unmounting - this is for file level backups
I put these in a directory called c:\vcb
- mount.bat - your vCenter Server probably isn't called vcenter.acme.com and the uid and pwd probably need to be changed too
  - "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbmounter" -h vcenter.acme.com -u Adminaccount -p adminspassword -a name:%1 -r v:\mnt\%1 -t file -m nbd
- unmount.bat - same rules apply here
  - "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbmounter" -h vcenter.acme.com -u Adminaccount -p adminspassword -U v:\mnt\%1
I also created a bacth program to do image level backups - use the same unmount program
- imount.bat
  - "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbmounter" -h vcenter.acme.com -u Adminaccount -p adminspassword -a name:%1 -r v:\mnt\%1 -t fullvm -m nbd
now we're ready to go to the green screen

Create a CL on the green screen, if I've lost you already, please PM me and we can talk, or go to your application group.

I called mine vmbackup

The VMNAME is the name of the virtual machine on the esx host and it is case sensitive. The NWSD, is the name of the integrated server.

/**MOUNT VMNAME TO THE VCB PROXY SERVER*******************************/

SBMNWSCMD CMD('"C:\VCB\MOUNT VMNAME"') SERVER(NWSD)

on the vcb proxy server, go to v:\mnt and you will see a folder with the same name as your Virtual Machine. Open it, you will see the folder letters, keep going, and you see the drive letters. Now just figure out what you want to save, and put that into the path you see below.

/**SAVE THE FILES YOU WANT TO SAVE***********************************/
SAV DEV('/qsys.lib/TAP02.DEVD') +
OBJ(('/qntc/nlcvcb/mnt/VMNAME/letters/*path*')) ENDOPT(*LEAVE)

/**UNMOUNT VMNAME FROM THE PROXY SERVER*****************************/
SBMNWSCMD CMD('"C:\VCB\UNMOUNT VMNAME"') SERVER(NWSD)

Now just repeat for all the VM's you want to backup. I like to do an *UNLOAD on my last save, that way I know everything worked ok.

This is very basic code, you may want to put a lot more logic in your code. And please test this. I like tesing mine to a save file.

Now, if you want to do an image level backup of a VM, it's all the same, but you call the IMOUNT

And for sizing, let me first explain that doing a file level backup doesn't copy files over the vcb proxy. Doing an image backup does. The files do get compressed a little, but I always say this, you should make your v:\ drive as big as your largest VM that you are going to backup.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

VCB Update

dave@NLC — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 03:22:31 GMT

So I have the VCB working, but not the way I had hoped. Right now I am using the LAN version, not the SAN version. I have opened up a case with IBM Tech Support, but this is a bad week if you need tech support! All the good people are on vacation

So I wrote a batch file on my VCB Server, well 2 of them actually, mount.bat & unmount.bat

Created my c:\mnt directory, shared it, added the member to that file in QUSRSYS that I can never remember the name of....QAZ........ something like that.....

Then I wrote a CL on the System i, used sbmnwscmd to call the mount, saved the files I wanted through /QNTC and then called the unmount. Lather, rinse, repeat.....until all my vm's are backed up.

Worked great! Now when I get the SAN part working, I'll post again.

Oh, on a personal note: I am making the switch to Ubuntu, I have the Notes 8.5 Beta 2 running, in my VM, and as soon as I get all the kinks worked out I'm using Ubuntu as my main OS, and will run Windows as the VM, for only when I need it. I might start another Blog on Ubuntu. Vmware really needs to get the vi client for linux working!!!!!

Some may think it's sad that this is how I am spending my New Years Eve, but with a 3 year old, 20 month, and 7 week old at home, and a bruised knee that has me gimping around, I think I'm doing pretty good

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

System i and VCB

dave@NLC — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:21:01 GMT

Anyone who knows me knows I get a little excited about new technology. So when I heard about all the great enhancements that v6r1 was bringing to the table, I jumped on it. I was excited about the obvious things, vMotion was supported. I got everything up and running, it works great, but how could I use the system i to back it all up. Well a couple of months have gone by, and I finally got around to reading the redbook! VCB works! And it's easy!

Before I get into VCB let me quickly tell you what I have learned. You should have your vCenter Server be an integrated Windows Server, this way you can shut down the VM's from the System i command line. If anyone needs to know how just ask. Have another Server, not integrated, that's running ESXi or something. There you should have another DC running, with DNS, DHCP, Directory Services, etc. That way if you need to bring the System i partition down, you still have something of an infrastructure, and you don't really need to back it up.

Now for VCB you need another Physical integrated server, as for setting it up, read the redbook, they did a great job. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/pdfs/sg247408.pdf

I learned another nice little trick through this redbook. To expand the C:\ drive of a VM, make it larger, link it up to another VM, then use disk part to extend it. Well guess what, you can do that with an integrated windows server too! Vary it off, make the Storage space larger, link it up to another server, extend it, then link it back to the original. It works great!!!!!

I'm going to get VCB up and running A.S.A.P., which will probably be after the new year, but as soon as I get it working I will let you know how it works.