VCB Backup and mount directly from NFS. Will this work? If not, why?

[jbarr]

Backup VMs via VCB to an NFS volume

Replicate block-level changes to DR where a host sits with an NFS datastore

Register VM on ESX host (may need to reconfigure the vmdk header files for this to work)

Start the VM

If desired, migrate to faster disk via Storage VMotion

No need to import or restore the VM, just mount the VCB backup through NFS.

[GBromage · Accepted solution]

In theory it should work.

Your stumbling block (pun intended) might be the DR site replication. Because the VCB backup recreates the VMDK file each time you run it, I don't know if the blocks will be in the same place each time. It definitely won't be if the make it a compressed VMDK backup. But then, if you're doing that, then you can't register it. You'd have to vcbRestore the files.

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[ctfoster]

Another appraoch might be.

Use esxPress to create block level delta's of vmdks to a ftp host (built in function).

Use replication feature of ftp device (QNAP or similiar) to move deltas to DR site (built in function)

Use esxPress to restore block deltas of the vmdks over registered images on the DR host on local drive or NFS.(built in function)

[Rodos]

This will not work as described, unless you have a very large amount of bandwidth.

If you are doing block-level replication based on changes you will replicate the entire backup set every time. Because VCB will do a full and new dump all of the blocks for the backup will change.

What you really want is to have a delta file of the changes between each backup. You could use something like vRangerPro to do this, putting its destination on your NFS storage.

Considering awarding points if this is of use

[jbarr]

Thanks for replying guys.

I actually heard this scenario at VMWorld from the DataDomain guys. I tested the theory and was able to register the VM after I edited the VMX for the file name change and edited the disk header files to change them from monolithicFlat to VMFS. I just haven't heard anyone else talking about doing this or using this technique to import VCB backups.