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jarsenea
Contributor
Contributor

Anyone else having these VDR issues?

I love the fact that VMware is providing VDR as part of the vSphere package. It's definitely a step in the right direction, albeit I'm still inclined to think this software hasn't been put through the ringer in terms of proper QA. I'm just trying to put out a feeler to see how many others have experienced some of the same issues I'm having.

To start, I'm backing up my VMs via a network share on a standalone Windows 2003 server that has a NAS attached to it.

Some of the issues I've noticed:

1) Backups take an inordinate amount of time. I can understand the first backup, but my VMs don't change very much from day to day. Most of the data being manipulated is located on RDMs are these are backed up using Tivoli, not VDR (I use VDR solely for the OS partitions). Each partition is approximately 25GB, there are 15 VMs and my backup window (10pm - 6pm) isn't sufficient to complete the process.

2) Integrity checks for the backups are taking a crazy amount of time and will usually stop due to my window being closed (see point #1)

3) I'm getting inconsistent "failures" for certain VMs (the report will simply state that a VM failed to backup, not much else). It also varies per night and not always the same VMs (not exactly sure if this is related to #1 where the window is closing while VDR is executing)

4) I had the most difficult time setting up the remote share from the VDR appliance in vSphere. The username and password would never be accepted (even though if I tried the same share with the same user/pass on a Windows machine, it would work fine). I finally narrowed down the problem to the simple fact that the VDR appliance can't handle passwords that have special characters in them (this password had an "@" and a ","). Looking at the console while attempting to mount the share would spit out a CIFS error -22. Changing the password to include only numbers and letters was sufficient to work around this issue.

5) Snapshots not being created for no apparent reason and thus failing the VDR process. I'm fully able to do a manual snapshot with or without the memory state, so I'm not sure why VDR can't do it. This issue is very intermittent. I had it often when I first setup VDR, but now it only happens every so often (without any type of consistency).

I think that's all I can think about for now..

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RParker
Immortal
Immortal

that's a matter of opinion was too whether it's FREE.

OK, FREE implies that you can download it separately with no obligation, but it's INCLUDED with ESX plus and higher licenses.

vRanger also is not FREE, but VDR doesn't require extra money to be spent to backup vSphere, so in that sense it is FREE.

Also we know that VDR is lacking in many areas, but a restore / backup it can do. It's all the in between stuff and notifications that are missing. The basic functionality is there IF it can remain stable enough to complete and the performance is adequate for your backup window. Other than that, VDR is ample for backup needs.

It's also extremely simple to setup, it has that going for it. I would even venture that there is NO backup product that's easier to install, even esXpress, that doesn't do ESXi and it requires a couple of extra prerequisites to be installed.

So once VDR get's to where it's a GOOD product, it will be hands down the easiest, simplest, and cheapest solution for backup of vSphere bar none.

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tlyczko
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have installed esXpress several times on our hosts.

It is not difficult to install or configure.

It only requires running 2 *.rpm files on each host. Configuration is a

matter of clicking buttons or pressing keys. Configurations can be

copied from one server to another, with only server-specific changes

required thereafter.

Support is quite good, email reports are quite detailed, etc.

True, esXpress doesn't presently support ESXi, but this support will be

included sometime this year. It took everyone a long time to support

ESXi.

My opinion is that vDR 1.2 could be a complementary backup solution to

any other preferred backup solution, but perhaps not yet the "only"

backup solution...

My $.02, Tom

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XavierE
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can anyone share experiences with Veeam Backup & Replication Vs vizion core and esXpress?

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RParker
Immortal
Immortal

t only requires running 2 *.rpm files on each host.

I didn't say it was difficult, I said that VDR is EASIER, 2 RPM files is STILL 2 more steps to getting VDR up and running. I already stipulated that esXpress needs 2 files to get running.

True, esXpress doesn't presently support ESXi, but this support will be included sometime this year. It took everyone a long time to support ESXi.

Been there, done that. ESXi support was supposed to be there 2 years ago... I know because I was at VM World 2008, and they said THEN support for ESXi was "just around the corner"... still waiting.....

My opinion is that vDR 1.2 could be a complementary backup solution to any other preferred backup solution, but perhaps not yet the "only" backup solution...

I don't understand "additional" or "complimentary" backup, why would you run 2 DIFFERENT backups? That doesn't make sense. If you have a 100% complete solution, why would you use 2 different products if 1 can do it fine. I don't get that.

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RParker
Immortal
Immortal

Can anyone share experiences with Veeam Backup & Replication Vs vizion core and esXpress?

Yes, each one has merit, and all of them have their ups and downs.

esXpress (PHD Virtual) was at the top of my list, 2 things that chapped my derrier, 1 NO central management of backups. 2 NO support for ESXi, even now. If either or both of these were available, I would put esXpress at the TOP of any Backup solution for vSphere.

Veeam, this has problems, it's the same as their FastSCP, just adds more functionality. Problem with Veeam is that product is like a proxy, if you are behind a firewall you have to change how the product works, early on it was a mess, it's been better, they added more features, it's fast.. but I don't like the backup files, they aren't vmdk files, they are backup in proprietary format. (Another plus for esXpress / PHD virtual).

Vizioncore vRanger. I will admit I LOATHED vRanger at the beginning (2 years ago). It was clunky, was pieced together haphazzard, and it has some interface problems, plus it was buggy. BOTH vRanger and Veeam will not recover after the OS is rebooted when jobs are pending (snapshots are left hanging, and now way to continue after OS reboot), that's another problem, that's a plus for VDR and esXpress. Plus now vRanger doesn't require VCB support.. which is nice.

If you lost everything, and had to start fresh, esXpress is easy, add backup, point it to the repository of files, and it will restore (no license, or configuration needed) OR you can uncompress those backups with gunzip, and restore them yourself. You can't do this with Veeam, VizionCore OR VDR. That's what I call "disaster recovery".

I have tried others, but those are the top 3 of backup. VDR is just not included, because it's not mature yet. If you are on a budget, and you NEED backup, VDR WILL work, but you have to work through the problems.

So in order of importance and cost, esXpress is first, then Vizoncore then Veeam. Veeam has recently made some nice changes and updates with replication, but for overall functionality, esXpress is the best, but it's only HALF done (due to lack of support for ESXi, which is what really irritates me.. 2 years later).

I still like esXpress, I just wish they would FINALLY finish it. esXpress also is Linux, just like VDR. I am a Windows Admin, MSCE. I am a Windows guy going way way back, I KNOW Windows very well, and know how to program in Windows, so I KNOW vRanger and Veeam could be better products, but until very recently they lacked polish. So they are still getting better, but the fact that Linux is doing the backup rather than windows, is probably why esXpress / VDR will and COULD be much better.

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einstein-a-go-g
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I work for a company which is a Partner with all these Third Party Back-up companies, and I've been using Vizioncore Products since they only had one product offering ESX Ranger. This is my own personal end-user, real usage thoughts

All three products do what they say on the tin, Backup and Restore. They all do this very well.

ESX Ranger now vRanger Pro DPP used to be a very small (to download), quick application to install and setup, these days it's almost 500MB to download, install takes ages, possibly because it's shipped with SQL Express 2005 for the database (I was always happy with the crappy Access Database!), takes a little time to setup and create the jobs - Approx 15 mins.- It does the job. It was the First Kid on the Block.

(supports ESX and ESXi)

Veeam, I think produced FastSCP as a Free App, which we used instead of WinSCP, to move dsk and vmdks back and forth between ESX 2.5, naturally Veeam Back and Replication came along, with a host of other apps, Reporter and Configurator. Although been using Vizioncore for years, I like it, quick to download, super quick to setup, it does the JOB, and I really like the Replicator option (free), I've seen since, that Vizioncore have been offering FREE Replicator Licenses with vRanger Pro (this offer might have ended) probably to entice and compete with Veeam, don't forget also Veeam have a super new Patented method! in 5.0!

(supports ESX and EZXi)

esXpress (PHD Virtual)

Late to join the party, no ESXi support, and more and more of our clients are moving away from ESX, and installing ESXi on USB and SD cards for embedded use with iSCSI and Fibre Channel SANs, and not purchasing any hard drives in the blades and servers.

Personally, I've never liked, changing the ESX build with non-VMware components, even installing HP Insight Agents always concerns me, that come VMware support, the will point the finger at a third party component. So installing rpms, although easy if your are confident the console shell and Linux, it creates VBA (virtual machines called Virtual Backup Appliances - interesting in the same way vDR has a Virtual Machine), so it's always concerned me, if you run a tight ship, you may not have the resource for these VMs.

BUT, one thing that does stand out with esXpress (PHD Virtual) - it's FAST, FAST, FAST, FAST, get the message, if you have a tight window to backup, or need to restore fast - it's quick. I assume that because it has the VBAs!

vDR 1.2

VMware on VMware solution - Horaaaah - getting there! Our Customers will like this, no more third party apps!!!

But all these require CIFs, iSCSI, or SAN space.

If you've got the option, check-out Snapshot-ing at the LUN level on your SAN. (quick -doesn't use alot of disc space etc)

anyway just my 1 pence worth.

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tlyczko
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Despite the complaints, people do like esXpress. That is good.

esXpress is definitely getting ESXi support this year...

Thank you, Tom

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KBuchanan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok...I have to add my 0.5 cents worth also.

We are running a "tight ship"...so tight, that I haven't been able to try other pay-for products. I'm not happy about it, but that just the way it is at my company.

But, I have used VDR since the first release. ...and I hated every minute of it 1.0 out of the box looked good - for 2 days! v1.1, wasn't much better - it would run for maybe 2 weeks (at best) then it would crumble.

So, v1.2 is sweet relief. It still needs a lot more functionality - like sending me an e-mail if it fails a backup!! (come on vmware...I KNOW you are reading this and I TRUST you will add this in a very near future release!!!)

I can say (finally) that I was participating in a private beta release of VDR v1.2 - so, I have been running since mid-March, and they have definitely fixed the reliability issues. v1.2 is running cleanly and I it does what they advertise. Granted - it could do more, but that is 'old-hat' in the forums. I'm giving VMware the opportunity to let the product "grow up", and I can say I think it will turn out to be a better product with each release.

Kevin

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quickdrive
Contributor
Contributor

Having just started using VDR myself, in a small environment I started with 1.1. I had some problems which lead me to this post and seeing that there were many more issues prior to 1.1.

In reading the docs for 1.2 it says it is used for VSphere 4 U2.

Will it work with U1?

I do plan on upgrading but not quite yet.

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Paul11
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

It will work with U1 (it was running in my environment without any problems), but it will not be supported. So I have made the Update to U2.

Paul

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LHammonds
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

I'm a VMware newbie. We purchased vSphere Enterprise Plus, IBM BladeCenters with DS3#00 storage units and are converting 20 Windows 2003 servers to VMs which will run on 2 blades with ESXi as the host. Most VMs are well under 100 GB of used space and only 4 are between 200 and 400 GB. We have about 1.5 TB of used space (Thin Provisioned)

I have 11 converted so far and it appears that I am converting faster than the VDR backup can keep up...which is quite frankly scaring me.

Since we are are "in progress" of converting, we are not at a point where we can implement our online backup solution using Double-Take to replicate the servers to an offsite Bladecenter. Since we do not have the software and the Double-Take contractors are not schedule to arrive until we get all our servers converted (Aug 2nd), I am kinda stuck with using VDR to backup to a network share. Currently, it is to my PC which has a 2T hard drive and a gig NIC connection. I also have an external drive array that can backup 8T.

I now have a single VDR backup for 6 servers. 3 servers have yet to be backed up even once. I have two servers being backed up now but are taking so long that I would think they have simply stopped working if the status did not say "Checking ### of #### items..." and increasing its count.

I found it very odd that out of the servers that were backed up, most finished in under an hour. The servers currently backing up have been running for 1 day and 7 hours and the other for 10 hours. Activity seems to be occuring, the drives are thrashing around network traffic is flowing but it does not seem to be doing anything. I don't know what to expect if I were to tell it to "stop" or reboot the VDR.

I initially configured the servers to all backup in a single job. Fail. After 3 attempts, I could not get the 3rd server to ever back up due to one failure or another (e.g. failed snapshot, cannot unlock destination (or something to that effect). I figured it had to do with too many servers trying to access the single backup location so I deleted everything and started from scratch. I created one job for every server and set the time window to never. This allowed me to manually select the server to backup so that multiple servers would not try to write to the same place at the same time. This worked very well and allowed me to create 5 backups...until that one backup job started looking like the Energizer Bunny and kept going and going. I created another network share and started to backup another server. Worked great. That server was backed up in 40 minutes. I started the next server and he decided to mimic the Energizer Bunny as well.

So here I am with two servers "stuck" in backup limbo.

I am guessing the system is doing an integrity check but it certainly is not telling me that its doing so unless that whole status of "Checking 87 million of 146 million" items means it is in the middle of an integrity check. It certainly does not seem to be growing the data store but it is causing a lot of drive activity.

Back when I erased the 1st job and marked the 2 servers I had backed up for deletion, I ran a manual integrity check to see what that would do. It ran for about an hour which seemed strange that it would take so long. If it took 1 hour just to check 2 small server backups, I wonder if it is going to take days to check 20 server backups...and that isn't counting all the retensions.

So, I'd have to say that I've seen the problems that the original poster had mentioned for the 1.0 version in this 1.2 version.

  • Backups taking too long and apparently are not consistent in the time it takes to backup.

  • Worried that current problems will only get worse as time goes on and repository gets larger.

  • If backups actually worked, I would not care so much about email notifications and logs but they are missed sorely when operations are not performing as expected.

  • In my small amount of experience, I have seen backups fail because a snapshot could not be created...however, I have utilized the snapshot feature manually (using vSphere Client) many times when making changes to the guests and have never seen a snapshot failure.

  • I'm excited about this product and what it can do as it is vastly superior to the BackupExec product we were using on the physical machines but I am scaried silly having to rely on it until we get Double-Take backup running.

I really hope I can get VDR to a workable state because in a working condition, it looks to be all kinds of awesome! For example:

I have 5 VMs that just finished an initial backup and here are their statistics:

Total provisioned space: 1,400 GB

Total used space: 600 GB

Backed Up DeDup Size: 200 GB

I don't know how much a 2nd backup will be exactly but during initial tests, a 60 GB for 3 servers only grew 10 GB more when they were backed up a 2nd time.

LHammonds

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Mirko_Huth
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi!

I don't want to comment on VDR anymore.

If you want to do reliable backups use VCB or a third party backup solution.

If anyone is interested in a nice VCB script (Logging, mail notification,...) Just let me know...

Mirko

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einstein-a-go-g
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Download a 30 day trial version of vRanger Pro, Veeam Backup or PHD Virtual esXpress, use a script or clone.

If we'd relied on vDR for one of our clients when the SAN failed, we'd have been in the dodo!

That should tie you over until 2nd August 2010

and get an SR (support call) logged with VMware.

e

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Stevester
Contributor
Contributor

What's happening on 2nd Aug, 2010?

Stevester

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einstein-a-go-g
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

all his servers will be converted and the Double Take Contractors will be on-site!

another thought, why don't you just carry on with BackupExec Agents in the Virtual Machines for the moment, until your Contractors arrive to do Double Take.

e

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einstein-a-go-g
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

also CIFs shares are not very fast, and are limited to 500GB, VMware doesn't recommend a store larger than this.

and Integrity Checking can take hours, 2-3 hours is not uncommon, and whilst it's checking it will not start any jobs.

I'd carry on with BackupExec in VMs until you get Double Take configured, or whatever you going to do with, don't have sleepless nights with vDR! The BackupExec Agent is probably already configured in your converted P2V anyway.

or, if you've really got your heart set on vDR 1.2 and want to trial it (and not rely on it), connect that external 8TB external RAID array to the bladecenter, and add a few large disks to the VMware Data Recovery appliance, format and mount it, and backup the jobs to the dedupe store, it should be faster.

e

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Stevester
Contributor
Contributor

Oh!!!!! Lol!!!!! Sorry guys I missed the date of Aug 2nd in the original post. I am tired as I have been driving for 9 hours to vacation

Stevester

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einstein-a-go-g
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

did you think you were missing out on something!

on the 2nd August 2010!

vDR 2.1 for vSphere 4.1!!!!

:smileycool:

e

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KBuchanan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yippee..

My joy runneth over. Yet another VDR release to test for weeks on end.

Kevin

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Mirko_Huth
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Really would like to know if there are any success stories of companies using this product.

Is anyone having a working VDR install that does:

- backup vm's on more than two hosts

- daily backup of more than 20 VM's

- checking task (integrity/dedup)does not prevent to run backup on schedule

- all vm backups without error

- more than 500GB

Please let us know...

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