Scheduled P2V

[pisko]

Hi all

i am new to vmware so please be gently

i need a solution to have weekly "backups" of 9 physical machines ( some are DC,SQL + custom aplication )

idea is to make weekly p2v importing to 1 esx host

i should have two "copies" of machines for extra protection so i need scheduled and rotation

how can i do that and what i need ?

thanks

regards

[EllettIT]

I'm sure there's probably other solutions out there but Platespin might be an option for you. It can get pricy however, here's their website:

http://www.platespin.com/products/powerconvert/

I recently got some price quote's from them and it was $425.00 per workload for 1-49 workloads and then $85.00 per license for support and maintanence. Basicall say you would have 9 licenses for with 49 images allowed each however I think they license it for unlimited images as well. After looking at their site the "Forge" product might be of interest to you.

Also, several months back I talked to a company called "Unitrends" for a backup solution (see here: http://www.unitrends.com/) however it doesn't image to a virtual image just an image the Unitrends device can restore from (if that makes sense).

[EllettIT]

Well heck, looks like there are some options available here as well:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/126824?tstart=0

[pisko]

thanks for help

like there money is problem ( as always )

i need backup every 7 days and it goes over LAN 1Gbs ( dont need replication,not realtime )

i have 4 hours to get machine up and running

is there any scripting for Converter ?

if a could setup two scheduled jobs to esx i would be fine

br

[dmorgan]

you may wish to check out Vizioncore's vconverter... It can be scheduled to do conversions. One thing to consider is what types of systems you are converting. For instance, if you are using this to back up SQL servers, there is more involved than just taking an image, the database would very likely not be consistent without first being quiesed or put into backup mode. Also, MS licensing could be an issue. If you don't have a site license for your MS operating system, then once converted you would be forced to license that converted OS.

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[Rob_Bohmann1]

You could do something like this thru scheduled tasks, simple and unelegant but it may meet your needs.

Have one task to shutdown your server.

Have a 2nd task to clone your server.

Have a 3rd task to power your server back on. You will probably have to test these and do some experimentation to adjust the scheduling but it may work if you have the lun space.

See the attached pic.

It won't allow me to post the screenshot but I tested this and it worked. Depending on the size of your server, the clone should only take a few minutes. Obviously this will involve downtime, but you will have a complete point in time server ready to go in case of disaster or that you can pull files off of. You would have to manually delete the old clones. As I said, not real elegant but it is an option.

[pisko]

thanks all

we know about SQL problems ( my gays are running some custom applications so they can "repair" it quick )

i am testing vConverter from Vizioncore ( they have nice gui with extra setup script ) and it looks like that can make a job

only problem with vConverter is resizing a disks

they need True Size Disk + Rezise Disk on share ,esx etc

so for nine machines a should have at least 1TB

already sent a mail for license price

regards