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eviljunglenoodl
Contributor
Contributor

advice on backups

We currently have 10 physical servers and I'm planning out my conversion to virtualize these, I'm planning on setting up 2 Vmware servers to utilize failover and an iscsi san. With the data recovery option it looks like I can send backups to the San, but getting the data and images offsite either via tape or external drive seems like I will need Veeam or the virtual license/dedup license for my backup exec 2010, is this right? My main concern is handling fire/disaster/flood etc. Thanks!

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a2alpha
Expert
Expert

Hi and welcome to the forums,

Yes, with Veeam you can pull the data either over the network or straight from the SAN to a backup server with a tape or USB drive attached. You don't need to back it up to the SAN first. You would need a physical server if you want to do the USB drive option.

Using this method allows you to pull the entire virtual machine out to a compressed file and restore the entire machine or even just guest files. We use Veeam at a lot of customers with great success.

Hope this helps,

Dan

DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Here is a good listing of several solutions. http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10780

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
eviljunglenoodl
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks guys, good info- how about utilizing snap shots with the san- the Dell md3200i has this option, or is it better using something like Veeam that is aware of Vmware so that there aren't transactions happening at the time of the snapshot?

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AntonVZhbankov
Immortal
Immortal

You have small environment, so you can use VMware Data Recovery (Essentials Plus, Advanced ++ license). But I like Veeam Backup as most technologically advanced, and Veeam has Essentials package for small infrastructures with great discount .


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eviljunglenoodl
Contributor
Contributor

Does data recovery allow me to backup to tape or external drive as well?

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LouwP
Contributor
Contributor

vDR does not allow backup to tape as this solution will be Disk2Disk for

the foreseeable future

Louw

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hello,

Why are you wasting money on another backup product while vSphere Enterprise has got the vDR built-into the package itself? Even with vDR, you can export your backed up VMs to tape external offsite storage by leveraging vDR Network Share Feature, Windows NFS, or Windows iSCSI such as StarWind iSCSI Software?

If you have NFS presented to the vSphere Hosts, then present VMDK to vDR as a Backup Destination and do offline backup of those VMDKs. The same goes for StarWind iSCSI, once you create iSCSI.img and presented to the vSphere Hosts and out of this you presented VMDK to the vDR as a Backup Destination, you can backup iSCSI.img which contains your backed up VMs while vDR offline.

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

Revisit your posts and award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Best Regards, Hussain Al Sayed Consider awarding points for "correct" or "helpful".
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AntonVZhbankov
Immortal
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>Why are you wasting money on another backup product while vSphere Enterprise has got the vDR built-into the package itself?

Why should you waste money on BIG TRUCK if you car has 4 wheels too? Same here.

If you have a couple of non critical VMs VDR is enough, but if you need to backup a couple of hundreds VMs and you want precise scheduling - only 3rd party solution can do it.


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MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

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habibalby
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Agree with you, that's why I'm having Ford Lincoln Town Car in a small town:D I don't have to have truck with 6 weels Truck. For critical VMs, he can use backup agent inside the VM and that's it.

In my environment, I'musing hp Data Protector for my Application SQL, Exchange, Oracle, Informix and vDR to protect C:\ those VMs where the OS installed.

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

Revisit your posts and award points for "correct" or "helpful".

Best Regards, Hussain Al Sayed Consider awarding points for "correct" or "helpful".
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AntonVZhbankov
Immortal
Immortal

Yes, backup can be done your way, but I prefer another approach.

I backup all VMs with Veeam Backup. Oracle backups are on our DBAs, so for Oracle I backup system disk only.


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MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

EMCCAe, HPE ASE, MCITP: SA+VA, VCP 3/4/5, VMware vExpert XO (14 stars)
VMUG Russia Leader
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