5 Replies Latest reply on Mar 19, 2012 7:47 AM by vmbru

    Backing up VM's on a remote host

    woak Lurker
    woak Mar 16, 2012 2:42 PM

      We have a number of standalone ESXi 4.1 servers in remote locations managed by 1 vCenter server and want to use the ghettoVCBg2 script to back them up. We don't want to deploy a vMA on each ESXi server, rather we want to use 1 vMA per geographic area to manage the VM backups for all of the ESXi hosts in that area. There may be 2 or 3 hosts running 2 or 3 VMs in each area.

       

      In my lab I have 2 hosts configured on different sub-nets. I have 1 vMA running on host 1 that I want to manage the backups for host 1 and host 2. Both hosts only have local storage, no NAS or SAN or iSCSI targets.

       

      I have 2 copies of the ghetto script, each one customized for the ESXi host that needs the VMs backed up. Everything appears to work fine, I can kick off the script on host 1 to backup the VMs on host 2 (using the --server switch and appropriate copy of the script) with the local storage on host 2 as the destination storage.

       

      My question is: what path does the data take when being backed up? Since the vMA is in one location and it's backing up the VMs in another location to storage that is local to the target ESXi host, does the traffic flow thru the host running the vMA? or does the target ESXi host manage the traffic locally so that it doesn't hit the WAN?

       

      When looking at the performance on the nics on both hosts and both VMs (the vMA and the VM being backed up), I don't see any noticable increase in traffic, however the backups take about twice as long to complete.

       

      Is there something else I can check without having to put a sniffer on the network to capture the traffic? Some of the locations have slow links between sites, some are even radio links so minimizing WAN traffic is a priority in some cases.

       

      Any suggestions would be appreciated.

        • 1. Re: Backing up VM's on a remote host
          chrwei Enthusiast
          chrwei Mar 16, 2012 3:01 PM (in response to woak)

          the copying of files is farmed out to the hypervisor, so that part should not be slower.  however, the latency of the link could affect the speed of all other operations, like detecting disks and such. 

          1 person found this helpful
          • 2. Re: Backing up VM's on a remote host
            lamw Guru
            Community WarriorsVMware Employees
            lamw Mar 18, 2012 11:34 AM (in response to woak)

            The backups are kicked off remotely via vMA using the vSphere API, but the actual backups and traffic as mentioned occurs between your hosts and it's destination datastores.

            • 3. Re: Backing up VM's on a remote host
              vmbru Enthusiast
              vmbru Mar 18, 2012 11:37 AM (in response to lamw)

              I am currently out of the office on vacation.  Please call 513-763-1822 for any urgent Kemba related technical issues.  Thank you.

               

               

               

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              • 4. Re: Backing up VM's on a remote host
                woak Lurker
                woak Mar 19, 2012 7:39 AM (in response to woak)

                Thanks for the replies.  That clears it up for me.

                • 5. Re: Backing up VM's on a remote host
                  vmbru Enthusiast
                  vmbru Mar 19, 2012 7:47 AM (in response to woak)

                  I am currently out of the office on vacation.  Please call 513-763-1822 for any urgent Kemba related technical issues.  Thank you.

                   

                   

                   

                  NOTICE: The information contained in this electronic mail transmission is intended by Kemba Credit Union, Inc. for the use of the named individual or entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this email is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic mail transmission in error, please delete it from your system without copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender of the error by reply email, so that the sender's address records can be corrected.