VMware Cloud Community
digitalex
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

VM backup solutions

We are currently using ESX 3.5 with 3 servers in a cluster. Approximately 3 VM's on each Esx for now. I was wondering what is the best way to do backups. I am not really too impressed with VCB since it requires an additional machine that needs lun access to the volumes. I would like a more simpler process for day to day techs to be able to perform and maintain. We could possible shutdown all VM's and ESX servers and then snapclone the disk lun but a per VM backup solution would be easier.

Can you just stop a VM and then copy the entire folder to another disk manually?

Has anyone tried Veeam backup? It looks to be very easy to setup and use.

Has anyone tried Arcserve 12 VMware agent?

My current setup for info: Virtual Center 2.1 ESX 3.5 up1 on 3x HP DL460c G1 16gb EVA4100_1 20 Windows 2003 Ent VM's
Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

Hello,

Check out http://vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=esx3backups for a comparison of many of the most popular backup products. Veeam, Vizioncore, PhD, VMware, and HPSIM VMM.


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

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
24 Replies
Kahonu
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Aloha -

VRanger Pro by Vizioncore. Simple and reliable. It runs very contentedly on my VCenter server..

Bill

dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

Veeam backup works pretty well too. Check them both out..

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

Hello,

Check out http://vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=esx3backups for a comparison of many of the most popular backup products. Veeam, Vizioncore, PhD, VMware, and HPSIM VMM.


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

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
Reply
0 Kudos
digitalex
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Wow, thank you all. This is pointing us to the right direction. Have you found any caveots?

My current setup for info: Virtual Center 2.1 ESX 3.5 up1 on 3x HP DL460c G1 16gb EVA4100_1 20 Windows 2003 Ent VM's
Reply
0 Kudos
Erik_Zandboer
Expert
Expert
Jump to solution

Hi,

Be sure to check out esXpress (www.esxpress.com) as well - Its like VCB but in software (using small appliances to do the backup). It scales well, it is smart, resilient and fast (no I do not work for them, just a fan Smiley Happy )

There even is a free version which will do its work (mayor drawback of the free version is the lack of differential ("delta") backups). Once you get a taste of esXpress, you'll never think about copying vmdks manually again!

Visit my blog at http://www.vmdamentals.com
Reply
0 Kudos
khughes
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
Jump to solution

We run esXpress as well, and it works great, not to mention their support is fast and very personable

  • Kyle

-- Kyle "RParker wrote: I guess I was wrong, everything CAN be virtualized "
Reply
0 Kudos
petedr
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
Jump to solution

Thanks Kyle and Eric for mentiong our product.

Pete@esXpress

www.thevirtualheadline.com www.liquidwarelabs.com
Reply
0 Kudos
Gostev
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

I liked esXpress, they have pretty interesting approach...

However, esXpress does not support VCB, which is a preferred way to perform VM backup in an enterprise-scale virtual infrastructure, since with VCB, backup activities do not create any additional load on ESX servers. Check out this VMware paper for more details . Most of our customers are not even considering backup solutions not relying on VCB...

The other big thing esXpress is missing, is file-level restore directly from backup image. To get file-level restore functionality with esXpress, you need to be performing file-level backup along with full image backup. You essentially have to back up your data twice to get both image-level and file-level recovery capabilities, now that's a bad design for backup solution.

These are basically the main issues with esXpress, and there are a few other smaller "niggles" too...

Hope this helps.

Reply
0 Kudos
petedr
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
Jump to solution

Thanks Gostev for the comments, all feedback is appreciated.

You are correct we have positioned esXpress currently as an alternative solution to VCB. We actually feel it is better to use the power of the host ( the extra load can be controlled ) to do backups then to run an external windows server to perform the backups. Plus with each host responsible for its own backups there is not single point of failure. Also with this approach we can scale very nicely.

For File Level Restores you are correct that if you just did image level backups to restore a single file you would need to restore the image and then extract it. We feel with VMware environments the key backup functionalilty is to backup and recover of the image. That is the beauty of running a virtual environment, that you can do that. Our file backup add on is a second archive. It is designed for backing up key folders on selective VMs that users choose. The main backup is of course the image backup. We feel that having the seperate archive is a good approach since it makes for a simple and easy recovery of those key files. We are constantly working on and improving the product so the FLB module ( this is still the first release of it ) will improve and offer more functionality that maybe more in line with what you are looking for.

There are a lot of backup solutions out there and we always recommend to people to try a number of them and test them in their environments to see what fits the best. Everyone has different requirements.

Pete@esXpress

www.thevirtualheadline.com www.liquidwarelabs.com
Reply
0 Kudos
dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

Pete -

I am not familiar with esXpress, but I am always looking at different backup tools for customers..

For file level restores, can't you recover the VMDK and mount it? Also, if this is an appliance that would be located on each ESX server, how does it account for vmotion, drs, etc?

Dave

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Reply
0 Kudos
dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

Nevermind...found the FAQ.

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Reply
0 Kudos
petedr
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
Jump to solution

Dave,

You can email me if you want more information or check out our web site.

To answer you question of course you can restore the vmdk and mount it to recover the file. That is the solution we tell our users for file recovery if they are just running image backups ( no FLB ).

For DRS and vmotion everything works fine. Each host is responsible for backing up the VMs that currently registered to it. If a VM gets VMotioned to another host the new host will recognize that and add the VM to its backup cycle while the former host will remove it.

Pete@esXpress

www.thevirtualheadline.com www.liquidwarelabs.com
Reply
0 Kudos
dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

Is the process of getting data to tape part of esXpress or is it something that needs to done by the Console or a backup server?

Dave

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Reply
0 Kudos
petedr
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
Jump to solution

Dave,

We currently don't do anything with tape. The esXpress backups are all to disk either over the network ( ftp, ssh, smb ) or no network ( directly to a vmfs partition ).

Pete@esXpress

www.thevirtualheadline.com www.liquidwarelabs.com
Reply
0 Kudos
dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

Thanks Pete.

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Reply
0 Kudos
Erik_Zandboer
Expert
Expert
Jump to solution

Not supporting VCB is logical wen you try to create an alternative for VCB. Putting load on the ESX host is not a problem, 99% of the environments I see are heavilly overpowered on CPU anyway (everybody buys quadcore but alsmost noone invests in "expensive" matching memory). Memory is almost always available for HA purposes... Also, a backup solution scales better when you use a solution like esXpress, because every resource you add also add to the resources available for backup.

I never recommend file level backups using any of these solutions. Not esXpress, not vRanger and not VCB. There are some cases in which you could go for that, most of the cases it just does not fit well. I find the best solution is to mix a "conservative" backup product (with an agent in the VM) with a "full vmdk" solution. That way you can cover a lot of customer demands. What I see more and more, is that for file level restore people tend to rely on VSS shadowcopy more and more for quick file level restores which the end user can perform him/herself. IF that does not work you can always start the "troublesome" restore using your conservative backup solution, or as a last resort, full vmdk restores.

BTW, a solution a little easier than mounting a full vmdk to another VM is a product called UFS explorer. You can view and pull files directly from a VMDK Smiley Happy it works kind of like ISObuster / UltraISO, but on virtual disk images (amongst other things).

Visit my blog at http://www.vmdamentals.com
Reply
0 Kudos
digitalex
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Would it be easier if we just need LUN snaphots with our HP EVA? Would we have to shutdown any of the VM's to do this ? Then just backup the flat files via tape device?

My current setup for info: Virtual Center 2.1 ESX 3.5 up1 on 3x HP DL460c G1 16gb EVA4100_1 20 Windows 2003 Ent VM's
Reply
0 Kudos
dconvery
Champion
Champion
Jump to solution

You may be able to create a script with Replication Solutions Manager that would snapshot the VMs first. That would quiesce I/O before the EVA snap. If you don't snapshot (or shut down) the VMs, you will have crash-consistent backups.

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
Reply
0 Kudos
digitalex
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I dont think you can use RSM with ESX. RSM relies on an agent installed on the host. I have yet to find an agent made for vmware servers. Even if I shutdown all the VM's and use Command View to snapclone the volume. How would I backup the volume to tape ? The disk would be formated in vmfs3 so how would I read it to tape?

My current setup for info: Virtual Center 2.1 ESX 3.5 up1 on 3x HP DL460c G1 16gb EVA4100_1 20 Windows 2003 Ent VM's
Reply
0 Kudos