Netbackup or Backupexec

[beckhamk]

We currently have backupexec 11d and are planning to most likel use that for backups with VCB. But we wanted to get opinions on why we would want to use netbackup instead of backupexec? We have seen that netbackup v6.5 has some new supported vmware features. Opinions?

[ejward]

We use Netbackup .... not with VCB though. We use ESX Ranger with VCB. Anyway ..... if i had a choice, I'd go back to Backupexec. I'm not quite sure what we've gained by going to Netbackup. One of our remote offices uses BackupExec with VCB and it works just fine.

[beckhamk]

Does netbackup allow you to do full vm image and incremental image backups and then mount the images for file level restores? I know vRanger does that - how well does that work for you. We might end up going the vRange route also. We need to be able to restore our data drives from image and at the file level.

thoughts?

[jfields]

I would go with Netbackup, if you can afford it. It is Symantec's enterprise offering and has more features. Basically, Netbackup is for enterprises that can afford it and Backup Exec is for smaller organizations that don't need or cannot afford all of the features of NB.

It sounds like it has more to offer for VMWare, as well:

• Granular recovery for VMware, SharePoint Portal Server and Exchange

• Rapid recovery with heterogeneous snapshot management

• Core system recovery in 15 minutes on any platform

</div>

We use BE 11d currently ourselves due to price, but I prefer Netbackup from previous experience.

J

[dconvery]

I don't believe Vizioncore vRangerPro does incremental images when coupled with VCB. But I have implemented VCB / vRangerPro and Netbackup or BackupExec many times. From a VCB standpoint, NBU is better, but once you add vRanger, there are no huge differences.

[jfields]

From vRanger forums:

"With VCB we only do Full backups."

-

---

____________

Jason Mattox

VP Products & Support

vizioncore, inc

847-589-2222 p

847-279-1868 f

[cde · Accepted solution]

Netbackup 6.5 Enterprise will allow you to perform snapshot backups via BCP, and the read the images to perform individual file restores.

[beckhamk]

That is good to know about netbackup 6.5.

So if you all had your choice what would be the preferred software to use and or combination if the following where the choices: express, backupexec, netbackup or vranger

[Erik_Zandboer]

Hi,

I am currently testing with esXpress, and have been running Veritas err Symantec Backup Exec since version 8.0 (since version9 on ESX). I must say the combination is a killer

Backup exec always had most problems with backup up of exchange, domain controller system states and SQL. So why take all the trouble? I now backup all my VMs using esXpress. Great product. The one thing I do not backup using esXpress, are the 😧 drives of my fileservers. These are backed up using Symantec Backup Exec 11.

The result: I have all of my VMs on an FTP site, and they are now experimentally replicating to DR as well (esXpress beta version 3.1-RC3). This works nice. I backup only files using Backup Exec, which never fails also. No more problems getting locks and stuff.

I like to think I now have best of both wolrds: Instant VM recovery of full VMs, file level backup and restore of my file servers!

[beckhamk]

So you are using esexpress for your vm image backups. For backupExec are you still installing the backup agent into each vm? Just curious as to how you are doing the file level backups.

We would like to do all image backups and then use whatever software will read the images and allow file level restores.

[cde]

Netbackup 6.5 Enterprise. If your only running a small number of servers though Backup Exec 11d is probably a better fit.

[beckhamk]

for those of you using netbackup, I assume you are using it with VCB correct? Or are you backing up each vm with an agent installed in it?

[cde]

It depends on your recovery policy.

BCP is good for just full snapshots and file level recovery (with netbackup enterprise).

Database applications (SQL, Exchange etc) that need special recovery mechanisms should still use a dedicated agent.

[Erik_Zandboer]

Hi,

Indeed I use esXpress for backuping up all my VMs. All but my fileserver (which is no more than a standard W2K3 serverFTPprint which I keep as a template). I upload my VMDK backups through esXpress to the same fileserver (using FTP). After that, I backup the entire fileserver using an agent on the fileserver for Backup Exec to tape. Including the images of my VMs.

Almost forgot, in order to be done with all these problems around quiescing which simply fails occasionally, I simply ask esXpress to take some of my VMs down (soft shutdown), then make the snapshot, power them back on, and stream the VM to the FTP server. This is a sure way to quiesce your backups, and is acceptable in my environment (Exchange for instance goes down for 5 minutes every day around 3:00AM using this setup). The upside is off course, that the backup is ALWAYS restorable without any problems of an unclean shutdown.

Apart from that, I now run esXpress 3.1-RC3 to test what the people at esXpress call "simple replication". The most important VMs (Exchange, Domain controller, SQL etc) get restored during the day automagically using the auto mass-restore feature. Basically every VM marked for replication which has a new backup image (delta or full), gets restored automatically to the DR site each day (or more frequent if you choose to).

In case of severe problems at the primary site, I can just directly fire up the VMs which are restored daily to the DR site (without having to set LUNs to primary, reregister VMs or any of that), rollout a template of the fileserver there and stream the file-level backup from tape. Solid!

[beckhamk]

What we would love todo is use netbackup or some other tool to do backups of the images. Then if we need to restore a file we can use a tool to mount the image and restore as needed. I thought vRanger did coudl do this. I am curious what type of support netbackup has for this. The problem is that Symantecs site does not clearly explain what features (atleast to me) we would really be getting from moving over to netbackup.

thanks again!

[petedr]

hey beckhamk,

I work for the company that developed esXpress and I just wanted to mention that in our new version that Erik is working with esXpress now does File Level Backups. What we do is at the same time we create the image backup we will create a seperate backup archive for the folders/files you defined to us to for file level backups. With the seperate archive on a restore you don't have to go to the image backup, you have the file level backups seperately.

Pete@esxpress

[beckhamk]

Does your solution use the full image backup and then allow restored from that? Or are we still doing file level backups. We would like a solution (I believe vranger does this) that lets you take an image and the restore files for restore from the image. Image level backups are faster then file by file level backups. This is simular to how R1Soft's linux/windows backup agents work (not a vmware thing)

[petedr]

What esxpress is doing is taking the file level and image backups at the same time ( there is no agent running on your VM for file level, it is part of the hot image level backup ). But the end result is two backup archives being created, one is the VM image ( full or delta ) and other the file level achive.

With esXpress if you just do image backups then what some people are doing is keeping a helper VM available and then attaching the restored disk to to access the files.

The best thing for you would be to evaluate the different solutions to determine what works best for you.

pete@esxpress

[madliv]

Are you using seperate nics to FTP the data off of the ESX server, and if not are you seeing any significant slowdowns. I worry about my I/O shutting down when I try to do to many large backups from the ESX server.

[Erik_Zandboer]

Hi,

I am not using separate NICs. Backups take place at night, when my servers are pretty much idle. The neat thing about esXpress is, that you actually CAN use separate NICs, and also that you can throttle the transfers. You can even specify to throttle only during business hours (and go full bandwidth outside of that window). If bandwidth is your problem, you might consider to backup to VMFS. No network loaded there.

I do see service console activity when backups run. It is not anything really shocking though. And even if there is a lot of activity, the service console is always restricted to CORE0, and you can manage the number of VBA (backup appliances) you run on each host. So your ESX hosts should do fine. Load more, get more... Because esXpress runs on each host, load is nicely spread throughout your environment. That is how they manage to get these wildly high backup rates. Divide and conquer :smileycool:

All this stuff available in esXpress... And no, I don't work for them. Just charmed by the product