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juchestyle
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Archiving a VM

Hey all,

We have retired a physical server, but the information needs to be accessible for 7 years in the future.

We plan to p2v this server, then move all the files to a windows ntfs file location, then backup those files using our backup strategy. If we need any information from this server, we can lay back those files on an ntfs volume and then move those files back into the VI3 infrastructure, then register the vm, turn it back on, and go to work.

Question is this: Can I move a whole file directory for a vm to an ntfs volume using winscp without corrupting anything?

Respectfully,

Matthew

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wila
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That's too many DVDs indeed. Well i also use tape backups, but if you need to be able to have it available for 7 years you need to store it in more as just one place. Maybe store it on a disk somewhere and put the disk in a safe?

Depending on one copy is putting too much trust in the media (single point of failure bit)

The DVD solution was suggested as loading a VM from dvd is really easy, just mount the drive and copy.

My main concern with your request is not so much the "where to store it" but more the "will it still work with the new vmware of that time". Of course there will be more people with the same need, so i would expect that it will actually work and if not then in 7 years time, you should be able to locate some hardware from this era and load a vmware product from now (store a copy of a setup and activation key along with your VM!) on it.

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva

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TCronin
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I would P2V it using VMware converter and select a standalone machine as the target, either workstation, server or player compatible. Then back that up. If you needed the information you could restore it and than be able to bring it up in either player, workstation or server if you wanted, or use converter at that point again to put it on VI3 (which in 7 years may be VI12).

I think that would give me more flexibility and avoid any ascii/binary or filesystem conversion errors.

Tom Cronin, VCP, VMware vExpert 2009 - 2021, Co-Leader Buffalo, NY VMUG
wila
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For archiving a VM i personally use vmkfstools to get the data into the portable 2Gb sized chunks.

Then i gzip them into sizable chunks that still fit on a DVD once they are zipped.

For example:

tar cvfz VMNAME-Bootdisk.tar.gz importpath/.vmx importpath/.nvram importpath/VMNAME-Bootdisk*.vmdk

The bz2 format is more efficient but slow to create/extract and when you need this, you don't want to wait longer as required in my experience.

This can then be imported to a vmware product without trouble.

Alternatively you could boot the VM using a live CD such as BartPE or Knoppix and then "ghost" the disks of the machine.

As the target for the image files you can use another empty disk in the live CD VM or a network share.

PS: As an answer to your real question, yes i think so, but i prefer to archive the files first. It adds another confirmation after unzipping that the files are not broken. A single zip is also easier to md5sum and store with the zip.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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juchestyle
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This particular vm is 108 gigs. I am concerned about putting it on dvds, plus that is a lot of media. If we can back it up using our backup software, this would be a better enterprise solution. But I like these ideas.

Any other thoughts?

Respectfully,

Matthew

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wila
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That's too many DVDs indeed. Well i also use tape backups, but if you need to be able to have it available for 7 years you need to store it in more as just one place. Maybe store it on a disk somewhere and put the disk in a safe?

Depending on one copy is putting too much trust in the media (single point of failure bit)

The DVD solution was suggested as loading a VM from dvd is really easy, just mount the drive and copy.

My main concern with your request is not so much the "where to store it" but more the "will it still work with the new vmware of that time". Of course there will be more people with the same need, so i would expect that it will actually work and if not then in 7 years time, you should be able to locate some hardware from this era and load a vmware product from now (store a copy of a setup and activation key along with your VM!) on it.

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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juchestyle
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Wila,

I agree with you completly. Your concerns are my concerns as well. I tried to winscp the folder yesterday and it failed at 40 gigs, way short of 109 gigs. I winscp'd a smaller test vm to my laptop and tried starting it with workstation and it said it couldn't find the vmdk file even though I browsed to it about 20 times; with no luck. I am wondering if there is a better way to move the folder to an ntfs file location?

The backup portion I think should be ok, but I will inquire with the backup admin guys. It is an enterprise solution (TSM) but I always subscribe to the over communicate mentality.

Any other ideas out there would be appreciated.

Respectfully,

Matthew

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ITThies
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You can use VCB (or vRanger / ...) to backup and archive a virtual Machine.

vRanger (esxRanger) will automaticaly put them into a gzip archive if you want to. You can put that archiv onto tape or hdd for fong time archiving.

----- Please feel free so give some points for a correct / helpful answer! Thank you!