Backing up VM's

[chadd39]

I am going to purchase (1) Poweredge 6800 and host 6 servers on it. Next year, I want to purchase a second server ans a SANS so I can use Vmotion.

My question is, for this first year, I will have no failover. How do I copy the VM files each night to a network location and have them available to install on a standby ESX server offsite? Also, how do I import them into the standby server?

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

There are alot of scripts that will do this, see some of these links...

Virtual Machine Backup Guide - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_301_201_vm_backup.pdf

Using VMware Infrastructure for Backup and Restore - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_backup_wp.pdf

Backup and Recovery of Virtual Servers - http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/mdc9870.pdf

Perl Backup Script for Vmware ESX - vmbk.pl ( free ) - http://www.vmts.net/vmbk.htm

Backup scripts - http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?p=23 and http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?p=156

Shell script - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=475244

Perl script - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=70253&start=0&tstart=0

Virtual Infrastructure Scripted Backup Utility (VISBU) - http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=fileinfo&id=7

You might also check out these products...

EsXpress (backup) - http://www.esxpress.com/esxpress3.php

Vizioncore esxRanger (backup)- http://vizioncore.com/products.html

Fyi…if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons.

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Thanks, Eric

Visit my website: http://vmware-land.com

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[Dave_Mishchenko]

If you're looking for a commericial package, www.vizioncore.com has 2 products that might help. One does backup (to a file share) and the other does replication of your VMs to another host.

You might also want to check out www.esxpress.com. They have a free version as well.

In both cases the backups take all the files you would need to restore the VM to a backup server and you would then just need to register the VM on the backup server.

If you're interested in some free backup scripts: http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Links.html#Backups