VCB backup without vCenter vSphere 4.0 Standard

[royml]

Is it possible to do a VCB backup without vCenter in the following situation:

- 2 hosts ESXi (not ESX !) vSphere 4.0 Standard, both with local storage

- VCB Proxy server (with Veeam Backup and replication)

Or do i definitely need vCenter?

Do i also need ESX because ESXi has no service console?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[krowczynski]

The advantage of using a virtual center server is advised when you have more than one ESX server and when the images are moved from one server to the other using vmotion. In this case when you use the vcb mount it will try to mount the relevant VMs running under the ESX servers managed by the virtual center server.

MCP, VCP

[royml]

Thank you, yes indeed.

I am worried about the fact that i am not able to make VCB backups with the ESXi version which not has a service console.

I thought VCB backups from for example Veeam Backup run on the service console and then so i need ESX? Or is this wrong?

Beside this i thought i cannot make VCB backups without vCenter. But maybe somebody can shine a light on this.

In the next couple of weeks i want to buy the correct licenses of VMware,

Starting for the first time with all this nice software and trying to choose the right versions. And i hope i can choose it without vCenter because of my $$.

[Gostev · Accepted solution]

Hello royml, thank you for your interest.

1. Yes, with Veeam Backup you can perform VCB backups of your VMs without vCenter server present - this is available today, in the current Veeam Backup version. The same stands true for vStorage API based backups (vStorage API for Data Protection is VCB successor, we fully support this backup mode in our upcoming v4).

2. Yes, it can be ESXi - no problems here, with Veeam Backup using service console agent is not required.

Feel free to download VMware and Veeam Backup trials and try it out - takes 5 minutes to deploy Veeam Backup and start your first job

If you have any product-specifc questions - we will be glad to assist you on Veeam Community forums.

[AndreTheGiant]

I thought VCB backups from for example Veeam Backup run on the service console and then so i need ESX? Or is this wrong?

Wrong... VCB is not Veeam (and Veaam Backup is not VCB)...

VCB is only a framework to make script to to backup (image lever or filelevel) of existing VM.

It use the Service Console (on ESX) or the Management Interface (on ESXi) to issue the commands and to make the transfert (if you use the network method).

But it used some VMware API... so no program must be installed on the ESX/ESXi.

Some specific (for virtual environment) backup programs can require an agent on the ESX... in this case they cannot work with ESXi.

Veeam Backup can work both with or without the agent... so it can work on ESX and ESXi. It does not require VCB cause it works directly with VMware API (as VCB).

Andre