Backup & Recovery

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  • 1.  VDR, VDP, VCB - Demystifying Backup Options

    Posted Sep 14, 2012 01:37 PM

    Hi Everyone,

    I'm currently evaluating backup options for our VMware estate, and diving into the options is causing a few headaches.

    Bit of background info - about 10 ESX 4.1 hosts, VCenter Server 4.1, 100+ VM's, Fibre Channel SAN Storage.

    I've found the following options:

    VMware Data Recovery - As far as I know, this has been superseded by VMware Data Protection?

    VMware Data Protection - Similar to VMWare Data Recovery in terms of technology and operation.

    VMware Consolidated Backups - After reading several contradicting articles, I'm struggling to see where this fits in. Some people say it VCB doesn't *actually* back up anything.

    So, I think based on my environment and version of vCenter and ESX, my primary choices will be:

    VMware Data Protection

    Veeam

    Can someone briefly summarise the differences with the three listed products and how they fit in with a Virtualised backup strategy please?


    Thanks,

    David



  • 2.  RE: VDR, VDP, VCB - Demystifying Backup Options

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Sep 14, 2012 01:42 PM

    VDP can be an option as it is free with essentials+ & above or the evalution copy can be given a try.

    unlike VDR, VDP is built on proven Avamar de-dupe technology. You see much better de-dupe ration in VDP than VDR.

    Once properly deployed, VDP is a good solution for VM backup & recovery



  • 3.  RE: VDR, VDP, VCB - Demystifying Backup Options

    Posted Sep 14, 2012 01:45 PM

    Hi Snekkalapudi,

    Thanks for your reply.

    So, is the main difference between VDR and VDP is the deduplication technologies that are employed? What about VCB?



  • 4.  RE: VDR, VDP, VCB - Demystifying Backup Options
    Best Answer

    Posted Sep 14, 2012 03:03 PM

    VCB is an old technology from the pre-vsphere 4.0 era, now substituted by vStorage API. Basically every backup software, including VDR, VDP or Veeam, rely on this technology.

    Another thing to keep in mind: you have a 4.1 cluster, so you cannot use VDP if you do not upgrade to vSphere 5.1. In 4.1 you can use only VDR.

    About Veeam, is a 3rd party commercial product, so is not included in VMware bundles. Apart from this, in my opinion it still has many advantages even over the new VDP. To name a few:

    - no limits on backup repository size

    - orchestration between multi-appliance deployment

    - instant vm recovery

    - surebackup

    you can have a look at what these features do at Veeam website.

    Luca.