vCenter VCSA ... to VDP or not to VDP?

[snmdla]

There have been some discussions about the question whether it is a good idea to do VDP backups of your vCenter, and there seems to be some consense that it is OK to do it, and there are blogs like Protecting vCenter Server with vSphere Data Protection (VDP) 6.0 that demonstrate how a recovery could work.

What makes us hesitate are two facts:

• Support recommended to us not to do VDP backups of vCenter, as creating the snapshot required to backup the vCenter VM might disrupt the connection of VDP appliance to vCenter.

• We are running VCSA as vCenter, which is explicitly not supported for VDP: from the Admin Guide page 16:

"IMPORTANT VDP does not support backups of a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). The VDP virtual environment, however, can include a VCSA."

In our case, the alternative would be to install a Networker client into the vCenter VM, and perform backups. Of course, this is not supported, too.

So what should we do? Does anybody have practical experiences in doing VDP backups of vCenter?

Also, I would be interested in your opinions about VM supporters recommendations to not do VDP on vCenter, regardless of VCSA.

Thanks, Tom

[wila]

Hello Tom,

The following blog post might help:

http://virtualcloudsolutions.info/backing-up-and-restoring-the-vcenter-server-6-0-embedded-vpostgres...

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Wil

[bggb29]

I found vdp backups failed to often with vcenter. I use gehttovcb for vcenter. It still snapshots the server. I only back up vcenter once a week.

Never had an issue with this option. I am not concerned if I lose history.

[snmdla]

The backup of the Postgres DB is another thing to consider, but not the focus of the question.

[snmdla]

ghettoVCB.sh seems to be an interesting tool. Are you using it in combination with VDP?

[RyanJMN]

Good question.  In my opinion I would cautiously still back it up with VDP even though its not officially supported because there really isn't any other practical option.

I hope VMWare does support backing up VCSA with VDP or any other backup software that uses VADP in the future.  The vPostgres database backup script is nice but it is impractical to expect customers to manually run it regularly or create and manage custom scripts.

I haven't had many issues with vCenter snapshot freeze time causing issues but I could see how it could.  If I do run into issues I look into moving the vCenter backup to a different time or disabling quiescing.

I would not use guettovbscript in a production environment.  It will not be supported by anyone and I don't believe it works in esxi 5.5 or 6.0.

[snmdla]

Ryan, thanks for sharing your opinion.

I will probably go for backing up VCSA in a separate VDP group. Thus, there is a good likelyhood of lower load and interference.

btw: EMC has issued a rebranded VDP, "NetWorker VMware Protection", and looking through the VMWare Integration Guide, I see no hints about avoiding vCenter backups or not supporting VCSA installs.

Regards, Tom

[RyanJMN]

VDP, Networker VMware protection and Avamar all are based off the same code but are slightly different branch of development.  All three have slightly different features and limitations.