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kashifvtech
Contributor
Contributor

Business Critical VM backup Designing

HI,

I am configuring backup of Microsoft Exchange which is running on a VM in vSphere 5.0 environment. Backup software is Symantec BackupExec and this is backup over LAN through agent. Virtual Machine have 1 NIC. I need to ask that how can i make my Exchnage's backup efficient, because single and 1G NIC of VM is main bottleneck for me. Any suggestions for teaming or dedicated NIC for backup etc.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Kaashif

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2 Replies
regnak2012
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Kaashif,

You have a few options:

  • Increase bandwidth between backup server and Exchange VM (Look at 10Gb, Netgear have an 8 port 10 Gb switch @ $1200, 10Gb cards are $500). Combine with option 2 below?
  • Dedicate bandwidth between back server and Exchange VM (Dedicated 1Gb Backup Network, preferably using Private vLANs for security). Build dedicated vswitch, dedicate physical nics in each ESXi Host, DNS alias etc for each backup target, check with Symantec if they support this, they do with Netbackup but I've never tried it with BExec.
  • Use a different backup mechanism - SAN based options combined with RDMs or a product like Veeam which can restore Exchange data from the VM level backup, check if Symantec has similar? This avoids having to do a VM level backup AND an agent based one for granular recovery.

Hope this gives you a few ideas!

Mike


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LakshmikanthPan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Kaashif,

You can add extra virtual nic(upto 10 per vm) at no extra cost.

1. If your backup network is a separate vlan (always best practice) you can add couple of virtual nics,  team them and dedicate them for backup.

2. Consider offloading backup off the VM using VDR solution.

-LP

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