How to configure SAN LUNS and backups??

[SBugera]

I was wondering what the best approach to file backups and SAN configuration is. I am configuring an IBM DS4300 SAN and a Bladecenter chassis. I have 4 blades. Blade 1 is a Windows 2003 server with backupexec 12 and VCB and is also running Virtual center server 2.5. Blades 2-4 are running ESX 3.5. I was wondering if I should format the SAN LUNS as NTFS and give the VMs RDM access to the LUNS and then blade 1 can see the files and (as they are NTFS) and backup exec can just simply back them up via SAN fabric as our tape library is also on the SAN fabric. I would then use VCB to backup the actual VMs in case I ever have to restore an entire server.

Or should I format the SAN LUNS as VMFS and then give the VMs access to them this way? Would I be able to use VCB to somehow backup the actual files that are being served by the VMs as blade 1 (the Windows 2003 server with backup exec) would no longer be able to see the SAN LUNS as they would be formatted as VMFS. I have been unable to find any good documentation describing the best practices of setting up an entire bladecenter using a SAN and ESX Server.

Can anyone please shed some light on this for me?

Thanks

[mitchellm3]

I've set up VCB in my ESX environment and I only use it to do full VM backups....not file level.

Anyway, you'll want to go with option #2. Install VCB and Virtual Center on blade1 and install ESX on blades 2-4 using VMFS datastores. You'll need to look over the the VCB documentation cause there are a few things you'll need to do to the VCB server with diskpart but in the end, you'll end up presenting the VMFS datastores to the VCB server as well as the ESX servers. As you mentioned, a windows server can't read VMFS but with VCB installed it can. Therefore when you run your backup scripts, they'll point VCB to the Virtual Center (in this case same server), VC tells VCB what LUN the VM is on and then since the VCB server has READ-ONLY access the the VMFS luns, it will have VC take a snapshot, allowing the VCB server to mount the VM and back it up.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

You can also use the 'ndb' module for VCB and do everything over the network, but the SAN presentation to the VCB Proxy is a better way. YOu could also use NPIV (if your HBAs and fabric switches support it) to present the VMFS LUNs to a VM and use the VM to do the backup.... This can work but I do not know what the performance of the solution would be. It is currently a best practice to use a physical server for VCB.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[SBugera]

So does this mean I can use VCB to do the backup of network data files that will be served by the VMs. So if I have a VM Server running Windows 2003, create a shared folder and give access to users on this folder (call it F:\data on the local VM server) I will be able to use VCB to do a file level backup of the F:\data on this VM? After reading the documentation on VCB, it left me with the impression that it was only used for backup up the actual VMs and not any data...

Does this sound like a ballpark plan to implement...

I already have Windows 2003 server with access to the SAN and backupexec 12 and VCB 1.5 and virtual Center installed (backup proxy). Reformat my NTFS LUNS as VMFS. Assign the LUNS to the VMs that need access to them. Create backup script with pre and post commands that calls vcbmounter to mount a vm and somehow specify a volume? This would provide the volume to backupexec for backup. Then to restore any files I would have to restore to the Windows 2003 backup proxy and then manually move the file over to the restore location? Am I correct in assuming that file level backups do not need to be copied to the backup proxy or a similar location to allow for backups so I would not need to worry about having available diskspace to backup 500GB of user data and that I only need the additional space when I am doing a full-VM backup? If I were to do a full-VM backup of any VMs would the drives that I have mapped to them also be included in the snapshot or can I limit this to just the VM?

Thank You very much for all the insight.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

I already have Windows 2003 server with access to the SAN and backupexec 12 and VCB 1.5 and virtual Center installed (backup proxy). Reformat my NTFS LUNS as VMFS. Assign the LUNS to the VMs that need access to them. Create backup script with pre and post commands that calls vcbmounter to mount a vm and somehow specify a volume? This would provide the volume to backupexec for backup. Then to restore any files I would have to restore to the Windows 2003 backup proxy and then manually move the file over to the restore location? Am I correct in assuming that file level backups do not need to be copied to the backup proxy or a similar location to allow for backups so I would not need to worry about having available diskspace to backup 500GB of user data and that I only need the additional space when I am doing a full-VM backup? If I were to do a full-VM backup of any VMs would the drives that I have mapped to them also be included in the snapshot or can I limit this to just the VM?

There is no need to change the NTFS to VMFS on the proxy, actually you can not as the VMFS is only known to ESX/ESXi.

VCB can be used to do ndb (network) or san assisted backups remote from the ESX server thereby offloading disk I/O. The VCB proxy mounts the VMDK from the VMFS (or over the network) and allows you to either grab the files from the mount or the entire disk image. VCB consolidates your backups to one server reducing the over all backup agents required. If your VM has mapped drives, they are not part of VCB backup. You would need to backup those an alternative way. Perhaps using backup exec agents on the hosts that share out the shares.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[SBugera]

So if my understanding is now correct then VCB can only be used to backup VMs. I tested this yesterday and it seems to work fine although I only tried the -fullVM option to snapshot an entire image.

If I use the currently formatted NTFS SAN LUNS to store file server data on then do I need to assign them to the virtual machines as RDMs? If this is the case isn't there a restriction that only one VM can be mapped to an NTFS LUN? These I could backup via backup exec as I can see the data from the vcb proxy.

If I was to use VMFS3 datastores to store file server data on, then how do I back this up?

I am not sure if I understand what the alternative way would be to backup this data? Any industry best practices would be appreciated as well as this is not in production yet I am in a good spot to change things.

Thanks,

[Texiwill]

Hello,

So if my understanding is now correct then VCB can only be used to backup VMs. I tested this yesterday and it seems to work fine although I only tried the -fullVM option to snapshot an entire image.

That is correct. VCB is VMware Consolidated Backup, it only does backups.

If I use the currently formatted NTFS SAN LUNS to store file server data on then do I need to assign them to the virtual machines as RDMs? If this is the case isn't there a restriction that only one VM can be mapped to an NTFS LUN? These I could backup via backup exec as I can see the data from the vcb proxy.

Yes you need to assign it to a VM. If the RDM is 'virtual' then VCB can be used to back it up.

If I was to use VMFS3 datastores to store file server data on, then how do I back this up?

This you definitely do not want to do. It would open your Virtualization server to severe security risks and performance issues. VMFS is designed to hold VMs not generic files.

I am not sure if I understand what the alternative way would be to backup this data? Any industry best practices would be appreciated as well as this is not in production yet I am in a good spot to change things.

Check out http://vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=esx3backups for a comparison of tools currently in use. There is no real industry standard but most of us backup the full VMDK/virtual RDM instead of doing file level backups.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[SBugera]

So after reading more and trying some thing out I have another couple of questions.

I have created 3 VMFS datastores. One holds the actual VMs Operating systems. The other two are for data. I have assigned one of the data datastores to my file server which is 500GB. This server will be the file server and it has it mapped as the H: drive. I copied about 12GB of data to it just to have some test data. I ran VCB using the letters\H option and backupexec backed up the files easily and I was able to restore off this tape without a problem. My question is how would I go about backing up the actual File Server VM operating system now without having to backup the H:? If I understand correctly, the -fullVM option backs up all volumes attached to the VM and it also has to copy all of the data to the proxy. I would definetly not have this available free space on the proxy.

I haven't tried this yet but would a possible solution be to make the H: datastore virtual disk independent? Would this prevent the -fullVM option from copying it over to the proxy? But would this then not allow me to perform the file level backups using the drive letter?

I can't try anything else today as I rebooted my virtual machine to change the disk to independent and got hit by this problem...:(

Thanks for the Help Everyone!