installation of VCB 1.5 u2 for ESX4 VC4 (urgent)

[upg3]

Hi,

My setup has three ESX4.0 and VC4.0 (in VM) hosted connected with DS4700 with two diferrent SAN switches for fail-safe. i want implement backup solution for this setup...being first...have few queries..pls. help.

1) will it be..VCB 1.5 u2 to install for the backup proxy server or it has changed it's version to newer edition/product?

2) do I need to enable flashcopy in storage? or will it use storage flashcopy at the time of backup?

3) does TSM requires a separate license for vm?

also somewhere in forum I read that ESX and VCB server has to be in same SAN Fabric....but in my case TSM server is and VCB would be in diferrent SAN switch than this two SAN used for ESX setup...will it make any diferrence?

pls. suggest need this clarity very badly..?

[vmroyale]

Note: Discussion successfully moved from Virtual Machine & Guest OS to Backup & Recovery

[upg3]

Hi..pls. help me.

need suggestion on this..pls.

[upg3]

upg3 wrote:

Hi,

My setup has three ESX4.0 and VC4.0 (in VM) hosted connected with DS4700 with two diferrent SAN switches for fail-safe. i want implement backup solution for this setup...being first...have few queries..pls. help.

1) will it be..VCB 1.5 u2 to install for the backup proxy server or it has changed it's version to newer edition/product?

2) do I need to enable flashcopy in storage? or will it use storage flashcopy at the time of backup?

3) does TSM requires a separate license for vm?

also somewhere in forum I read that ESX and VCB server has to be in same SAN Fabric....but in my case TSM server is and VCB would be in diferrent SAN switch than this two SAN used for ESX setup...will it make any diferrence?

pls. suggest need this clarity very badly..?

anyone pls...help..

thanks.

[a_p_]

Don't think of implementing VCB, it's already out of general support /see http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/lifecycle/vi/eos.html) and has been replaced by vDR (http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/overview.html).

Depending on your needs you may further need to check what to backup using image based backup (e.g. vDR) or guest OS agent based backup (e.g. TSM). You may also want to look at other commercial backup solutions for virtual machines like Veeam Backup or Quest vRanger, to name at least some of them.

André

[upg3]

Hi Andre,

thanks for your response and saving me from using VCB...

my problem is my FC Storage issue...for which I need to backup all my VM's in my tape library immediately...so that we can restore after correction of SAN issue...and we do have TSM for existing setup with tape library.

pls. suggest what would the best option....can I use VDR in this scenario..and save it to Tape with TSM (if integration is possible like VCB)

what would happen at the time restoration to Storage after correction...

pls..suggest

[a_p_]

Most image based backup applications (like VDR) do disk based backups. Direct backup to tape will most likely require expensive add-ons for existing backup solution. What number of VMs and which capacity are we talking about? If this is a one-time backup and restore operation and you do have some disk space to place the backups until you fixed the storage you may consider http://www.veeam.com/free-vmware-esxi-backup.html to manually backup and restore the VMs. VeeamZIP is free and you can try it to see whether it fits your needs (backup as well as restore).

André

[upg3]

Hi Andre,

Thanks for your suggestion about veeam. I have gone through the features available in free edition..but bit confused if or whether it will work in my limited available scenario.

let me explain my setup..

3 numbers of ESX4 Host and VC4 in VM in one of them.

Having total 24VM guest's stored in one FC SAN

total used capacity of total 24 VM is around 2.1 TB.

I have to take restorable complete backup of all 24VM's to be safe including VC which is one of them...till my FC storage gets fixed..dont have any other stoarge available to have 2.1TB of data...apart from Tape Library.

Perhaps, I do have few external usb disks of around 500gb and 1tb sized, will it support. If i connect it directly with Host and take backup on it through Veeam free edition...and then if size constrains retain it in Tape through available TSM setup..? at the time of restoration to FC Store will it make any issue?

Also pls. suggest if VDR integration with TSM is possible and can be used here...as TSM setup is already available..not aware if any separate vmware license in TSM is required or not....and also if thorugh VDR the backup can be saved in external usb disks?

I know two many questions..but cannot wait..hope you'll understand.

Thanks.

[a_p_]

Just a quick question. TSM usually doesn't backup to tape directly but rather backs up to disk and then to tape. So my question is, how much free disk space do you have on the TSM server?

Btw. I would never use and USB or any other non-RAID disk for production backups.

André

[upg3]

TSM server has around 150-200gb of space..

[a_p_]

Which server version of TSM do you use? According to http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21426059 TSM 6.3 can do a full image backup of VM's without requiring additional software. I'm not sure whether this requires additional licenses though!?

André

[upg3]

André Pett wrote:

Which server version of TSM do you use? According to http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21426059 TSM 6.3 can do a full

Hi Andre,

It's TSM 5.5 not 6.3

Pls..suggest how to go forward..

Thanks.

[AndreTheGiant]

VCB is old and there are better solution.

But you can still use (also with vSphere 5.0, with some limits: http://vinfrastructure.it/en/2012/02/vcb-with-vsphere-5-and-windows-server-2008/ ).

The latest version il 1.5 U2 and can be used both on vSphere 4.x and 5.0 but on 5.0 is NOT supported.

I suggest to use the backup exec scripts that are simple and clear enough.

Or directly build your own script.