Best way to backup ?

[VinnyB007]

Hi,

So here's the setup :

1 x vcenter

2 x ESXi

Very small setup. Not a lot of VM (it's a lab). Now we need to backup VM from time to time but the boss doesn't want to pay.

So I looking for a tool that :

1- Can do backup of VM while they are running (a tool that create a snapshot for application-consistency ?)

2- Don't need file recovery inside vm. Just need a tool that makes a backup of vmx, vmdk, etc.. and dump it in a folder (so I can backup this backup offsite)

3- can connect to vcenter

4- can schedule backup

5- free

I tried like 10 apps and it seems none of them can do all of this (most of the time free version of apps can't schedule backup)

VDP was easy to setup but the backup are stored within vmdk of VDP which I found to be a pain in the .... There must be a tool that juste backup to a simple folder.

thank you !

[vXav]

You could try VEEAM backup free edition

[VinnyB007]

you can't schedule with free version

• Full backups of individual VMs only — no scheduled, incremental or multi-VM backups

[SavkoorSuhas]

Hi You can use VDP 6.1.x (provided your vCenter is 5.5 or above).

It's completely free provided your ESXi license is Essentials+ or higher

You can do 1 3 4 and 5

You cannot backup VM files to a folder that is (2)

VDP will stripe VM data and save it on .dat chunks which reside on the data VMDK of the VDP appliance itself.

So essentially you can't see the backed up files as these are binary stripes.

Suhas

[justinewing]

Veeam Backup Free Edition suites your needs.

Veeam Backup Free Edition for virtual machines (VeeamZIP)

[aaron009]

If we could go back in time in 2017, I would have recommended you NAKIVO. But we are in 2019 already:smileyconfused: Time goes by so quickly.

[NathanosBlightc]

Following tools seem to be useful for you. i have tested some of them before:

1. Unitrends Backup free edition

2. Vembu BDR free edition

3. Acronis True Image

[cyberpaul]

Hi Vinny,

take a look at VMcom (https://vmcom.com). If you choose to backup to SMB or NFS share, it will do exactly what you say.

It can also copy you backups to a remote secondary destination (even an ESXi free host if you have SCP enabled). Or you can do this with other tools, whatever you prefer.

I can provide you with a free license for your lab. Send me a private message if you like it. I only have one favor to ask - if you like it and decide to use it in production, please do not abuse the free license. It may seem obvious, but we've seen things... Yes, I'm talking to you, Motorola and several others 😄

[Gidrakos]

Couldn't you write a Powershell, Batch, or Bash Script to copy the files directly to a secure place and set it as a scheduled task/cron?

[cyberpaul]

That way he'd do full backup every single time. And he also wants to use vCenter for central management which is a good idea.

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

Veeam Backup Community Edition offers free backup up to 10 virtual machines.

Great for your test environment.

Veeam Backup Community Edition 9.5u4a ISO – Download Now.

https://vinfrastructure.it/it/2019/03/veeam-backup-community-edition/

Best regards,

Alessandro Romeo