Here's what I would like to do.
1/ Clone a VM to a remote site
2/ On a schedule (couple times a week) I would like to incrementally update the remote image from the live guest
I would prefer to leverage VMware vCenter to accomplish this without buying 3rd party tools.
Considerations:
-We are running ESX 3.5, 123630 or newer
-We are bandwidth sensitive
-I can shutdown the live guest if required
Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
What you propose is not possible - you can not incremently clone a vm - its all or nothing - you will need to a look at something like vDR or VCB - which will you to back up your vm -
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Check with Sunbelts Double-Take if that does what you need. For physical machines it allows a incremental and scheduled replication and DT can also be used with virtual machines.
Check page 1-13: http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Documents/double-take-user-guide.pdf
AWo
VCP 3 & 4
Author @ vmwire.net
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What you propose is not possible - you can not incremently clone a vm - its all or nothing - you will need to a look at something like vDR or VCB - which will you to back up your vm -
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OK - perhaps I shouldn't have used the term clone. What I should have said was replicate. I haven't used vDR yet - I'll try and evaluate it today to see if it can do what I want.
Check with Sunbelts Double-Take if that does what you need. For physical machines it allows a incremental and scheduled replication and DT can also be used with virtual machines.
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Budgets are tight this year - attempting to craft a solution with exisitng infrastructure without purchasing something new. (Though I am familir with double-take as I used it to mirror SQL data.)
Take a look at Veeam Backup & Replication. With VM Hardware 7 it can do incremental replication via Changed Block Tracking.
It's commercial 3rd party tool, but it worths time spent to evaluation.
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MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009