Questions to using more than one VMWare Backup Recovery

[morpheus4711]

Hi friends,

i would like to ask some specialists about using more than one VDR for same servers. I asked this last week but after setting the question to answered i won´t get more answers

here is my question:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1516136#1516136

Please check this out and tell me if there are problems or special things i have to care about.

Generally i would like to know what is the better way:

- two VDR backing up the same server-farm (at different times of course)

- or one VDR backing up to two different stores (SAN and NAS)

i need this second backup because this would be my last chance if my SAN crashes (where everthing is on it)

thank you very much for your patience and answers.

Andy

[AlbertWT]

Andy,

AFAIK, as long as the backup flow is not running more than 8 VMs concurrently then I suppose it is possible.

Kind Regards,

AWT

[morpheus4711]

Thank you AWT, i think so too,

truly i have to say i had a heavy discussion with a person from vmware support. i will call him MR.X...

so this is the cause why i am asking here...

I had a problem with one of my machines. the backup stopped everyday at 2%. His opinion was that the two VDRs are the cause for that....i tell you later my solution!!!

in the past i had problems with an crashed catalog. MR.X. advice was to wait, after one day it should reorganize itself... nothing happend, i had no chance to backup or recover anything.

than i developed a new VDR because i was frustrated and began from new with my backups.

after 5 weeks the same situation again and i called again the support. now i talked to a very competent person. He said to me in two or three steps what to do and that was it. VDR worked again very well.

some days ago i had problems with the credentials of a VDR. the VDR wasn´t able to log on at my vcenter. i called again the support and got MR.X....

He said..hmmm maybe something in my registry... he said to me i should clean and analyze my registry with ccleaner.... heh! Do i hear right? An vmware engeneer says to me to rape my registry with a tool like ccleaner? Hell, i can´t believe that! I said to him i won´t do that, he have to search for another solution.

two days later he found another solution... this worked....and it was nothing with my registry!!!!

and now he says my two vdrs are the cause for this.... i deleted the existing backups of this maschine in my vdr and now backup works again very well....

so, please, if someone can tell me this is really no problem i tell vmware at my next call, that i don´t want to talk to this MR.X.

thanks and bye

andy

[AlbertWT]

hm.. which version of VDR that you tried Andy ?

I've been using 1.01 before and it wasn't that good at all, and then version 1.1 came it was almost good but still it doesn't live up to my expectations.

You're right, sometimes the VDR appliance hangs in random to the point that i had to delete all of my backup set.

Please keep us all up to date wit this VDR issue so that we can all know the solution.

Cheers,

AWT

[morpheus4711]

i am using 1.1. the support told me that V.1.2 is coming soon and they are already working on V2

So i am very curious.

maybe here in the community are some engeneer who can give me a reason not to backup my maschines twice in two different VDRs, but i don´t think that there is a reason not to do that.

The last 5 weeks this solution worked fine. we will see.

[AlbertWT]

hm.. which version of VDR that you tried Andy ?

I've been using 1.01 before and it wasn't that good at all, and then version 1.1 came it was almost good but still it doesn't live up to my expectations.

You're right, sometimes the VDR appliance hangs in random to the point that i had to delete all of my backup set.

Please keep us all up to date wit this VDR issue so that we can all know the solution.

Thanks,

AWT

[morpheus4711]

doubleanswer

[admin]

VDR 1.2 was released today - it supports up to 10 VDR appliance per vCenter Server instance. More info here

http://blogs.vmware.com/uptime/2010/06/new-vdr-release-out-today.html