Backup of procuction Servers to Remote site

[lanakilapacific]

Hello

Fairly new to Vmware.

Currently I have 2 clustered Vmware hosts with about 8 servers, DC's, SQL, Exch and file server. Storage is a Dell md3200i. Current total stoage is about 1TB

Using BUE 2010 to backup data and servers. Just started workig with VDR 1.2.

Trying to figure out away to replicate these VM's to remote site.

My plan is to build a DC at  remote site (takes care of AD except for roles).

Create another server for file share and just implement DFS.

Exchange and SQL servers are small but not seeing a way get theses vm's moved to remote site. I was hoping to do a full backup and then do incrmental everyday to remote site. If I had to restore then just restore server locally at remote site. VDR is not giving me an option to restore to another host.

Any ideas or direction would be helpful

Thank you

John

[noahzenzen]

Hello John,

There are many different ways that you can backup and replicate your vmware environment.  Check out the below websites as they have different features, benefits, and prices.

www.vizioncore.com

www.inmage.com

www.veeam.com

I can discuss in more detail offline but I have to warn you, in the spirit if full disclosure, I work for one of those companies.  I feel like I have to say, I was on the forums to look for an answer for my technical question.

Noah

[idle-jam]

if you need higher RTO (recovery time objective) you might want to look into replication technology such as Platespin Protect, Veeam Replicator, Quest vRanger Backup.

[DSTAVERT]

Platespin would be another choice.

[GaryMclean]

Youv'e also got the likes of DoubleTake also and even Log Shipping/Mirroring in SQL (2005/2008)

[lanakilapacific]

thank you, I have seeen some of the products in the past reviews.

Problem is I am non-profit so throwing money at it not my best option. One of reason I rebuilt in vmnware setup was my reading had led me to believe this could be scripted in Vmware. Prior to that i was in XEN setup but could have went Hyper-v as we get techsoup non-profit pricing.

Servers do no have to be up to date. I can afford to loose a day of data so that is why I was planning to just do some of full server back and restore. Not worry about log shipping etc.

John

[DSTAVERT]

The big problem for most replication to remote site scenarios is the bandwidth and time required to replicate the changes. You may be able to use some combination of traditional backup tools and transfered copies of the VMDK file to remote locations.

[lanakilapacific]

What I was hoping to do was make a make full backup of vdk locally and then do incremental backups over the WAN.

The other option I looked was setting up 2 VDR servers. One locally and One at remote site. Have the local VDR backup to an ISCI once then move to remote site, redirect local VDR storage to ISCI IP at remote site for the icremental backups. Use the remote site VDR to restore from ISCI device that contains the full and incremntal backups thet local site site creates.

John

[noahzenzen]

John, I just sent you a private message.

[jeremyb]

You might also take a look at vBackup (www.vbackup.com). With vBackup, job execution is triggered via command line, so it is purpose built to be integrated with scripts or other third-party solutions that extend or enhance standard image-based backup (e.g. data deduplication, move to tape, move to hosted storage, etc.).

Since the Standard version is free, you might be able to accomplish everything you need at no cost.

Hope this helps!