Hot Shot (606 points)
Backup and Desaster Recovery in our VI3 has been a mess until today...
How did we backup 'n restore before:
- backup type 1: agents inside the VMs (expensive license costs)
- restore type 1: fresh install a VM from a template, adjust VMDK size and configuration, restore from tape/disc
- backup type 2: snapshots using the vcbMounter command on the ESX host console for VMs which didn't need to be backed up periodically (lots of work to be done by hand)
- restore type 2: restore using the vcbRestore command on the ESX host console
How do we backup 'n restore now :
Today there is only one backup policy using vizioncore's vRanger installed on our backup server. We save VMs to another ATA disc storage array
Unfortunately the is no possibility today to use differential backups and backup over SAN with vRanger. Because we are limited on space at the storage array we are not able to make daily full backups to use the SAN functionality in combination of vRanger and VCB.
Restore is very easy using vRanger and works quite well.
Problems left:
We see empty (zero sized) differentials on VMs configured with RDM.
Snapshots have to comitted otherwise differentials are of the size of full backups.
Because we are forced to use LAN backup || ESX --(LAN)-->Backup Host--(SAN)-->storage array || backup lasts very long. We are looking forward to a SAN based method.
