Backup agent and VirtualCenter Server on same machine?

[LSUJeff]

This may be a stupid question but I'm in the planning phases of virtualizing a bunch of servers and I don't know any better yet.

We will be using Tivoli Storage Manager for snapshot and file level backups.

Can I have the same physical machine act at the Virtual Center Server and the VCB backup agent or should this be a separate machine?

We'll have 2 LUNs on an Equalogic PS500X iSCSI box and 10-12 VMs.

Thanks,

Jeff

[apatel1]

Hi Jeff, as far as I know, this is not supported, because there is a conflict between the VCB tools and the service that allows VirtualCenter to do Windows guest customization.

Please help me out by awarding points for a "helpful" or "correct" response if you feel that it was useful!

-Amit

[IB_IT · Accepted solution]

It is possible to do this, but not recommended. This is taken from the VCB release notes:

VirtualCenter 2.5 and Consolidated Backup can coexist on the same system. However, because the Consolidated Backup proxy should be locked down as much as possible, VMware does not recommend this setup.

[LSUJeff]

Ok, thanks. I'll have no shortage of machines to run it on I just thought I might save some space and power by consolidating them.

[Rodos]

Amit, this was once the case but it was fixed.

Rodos

Consider the use of the helpful or correct buttons to award points. Blog: http://rodos.haywood.org/

[Rodos]

Jeff, you can run them together. Best practice is to lock it down but most people don't, if you are a small shop and all your IT people have access to everything you can do a risk assessment and go for it. Technically, there is no problem. Of course you also have the issues of dependency, might you want to reboot one without taking out the other? Probably not, but these are the things to consider.

Rodos

Consider the use of the helpful or correct buttons to award points. Blog: http://rodos.haywood.org/

[LSUJeff]

Well, I'm the "IT Staff" so at this point I reallly don't need to limit myself from one system or the other.

Is consolidated backup really necessary in my environment?

Here's some more background:

I really only need file level backup of one machine and 24 hr max performance isn't really an issue. The backup process could consume all of the guest's resources at 2 AM when backups are run and it won't matter. So, I assume I could just continue to run the Tivoli client on the guest OS and let it do it's own file level backups just like the physical machine is doing right now.

On all of the other machines I just need regular snapshots for disaster recovery.

Does it sound like I should even be talking about setting up Consolidated Backup? Is there a way that I can handle the snapshots and get them off site to Tivoli in a simpler fashion? 2 AM performance of the other VMs doesn't matter either.

Thanks,

Jeff