VMware vSphere 4.1 Backup Solutions?

[TechVM201110141]

I am presently working on a 5 host (ESXi) vSphere 4.1 lab environment and I am looking for an affordable, easily maintained, simple administration backup solution. Does anyone have any ideas

[vmroyale]

Hello.

Note: This discussion was moved from the Technical Resources community to the Backup & Recovery community.

Do you already have backup software in your environment, or are you starting from a clean slate?

What workloads are you backing up?

Good Luck!

[TechVM201110141]

I have a evalutation copy of Veeam and unfortunately it is too expensive for my lab budget. I moved onto NovaBackup and I am having issues with the evaluation copy and I am presently reformating a physical machine with W2003 Server and preparing to run some more testing. Just wondering if there is any goto 3rd party backup software that will fit into my tight budget and provide realiable backups of my vCenter and Domain Server VM's 

[S_Grimbuhler]

Hi.

Did you test the VMware backup solution? its called VDR VMware Data Recovery.

This solution is a virtual appliance (up to 100 VM can be backed up by a virtual appliance and you can have up to 10 virtual appliance VDR) and a plug-in installed on your vCenter. it's based on VMware snapshots. the VDR appliance has up to 2 backup repository which can be RDM LUN (max 1TB), vmdk disk (max 1TB) or a CIFS share (you are reading correctly... CIFS!) VDR take a snapshot of the VM, and then copy the snapshoted volume to its repository. It use a dedupe technology to store on the repository only once each block. it make storage very efficient (across VMs).

The VM consistency is granted by Microsoft. When taking a snapshot, ESX ask VMware tools to use a Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy driver to run a VSS snapshot into the VM and make it in a consistent state.

And a big advantage, the price... VDR is free with any editions except essential. I think you should test it

Hope it helps.

Stéphane Grimbuhler

Senior Virtualization & Storage consultant (VCP / VCAP-DCA)

VMware Instructor (VCI)

My Blog : www.virtualgeek.ch

[TechVM201110141]

Thanks for the info Stephane, I will check out VDR possibilities

[atariguy]

This is a bit late, but I came here with the same question. I'm currently evaluating Trilead VM Explorer. For the price, it seems pretty good.

[sparrowangelste]

atariguy, veeam seems to be pretty popular among everyone. And they have a good support base /forums community

check out Trilead VM Explorer and tell us how you like the trial.

its seems to have some good features.

[atariguy]

I had some problems with VM Explorer, so I started a trial of Veeam. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm actually quite impressed with it so far.

[snekkalapudi]

Try VDR (VMware Data Recovery). It comes free if your license is essentials plus & above.

[atariguy]

Thanks, but for our environment (3 VMWare hosts) we'd be paying a lot more than we need to for a "free" solution.

Plus it appears that Veeam is superior to VDR.