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jjohnston1127
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

VCB with BackupExec

Does anybody know of any step-by-step documents or any caveat listings related to VCB with BackupExec software? I'm going to have to set this up shortly for a client and want to make sure if I run into any problems I have the appropriate knowledge handy.

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crazex
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Trust me, you are better off using a program like esxRanger or esXpress to do your vmdk backups. For file level you are probably better off using BE Agents, as the BEIM for VCB runs backup jobs horribly slow. I had originally intended to use VCB + BE for all my backups, but I couldn't live with 100MB/min transfer to tape. If you do a search for VCB and BE, you will see a few posts that I started that outline my problems.

Also, when you download the BEIM there is a readme.html file the explains exactly how to install and use it. It is pretty straight forward.

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
jjohnston1127
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Hot Shot

I see. Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately, my client is seemingly only interested in backup exec. I'll follow the documentation and see how it goes.

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AustinPowers
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It can be frustrating getting it configured, but it's worth the trouble. We use VCB/BE and love it. We reduced a 63-hour backup operation on multiple tape drives to 12 hours, and that includes a disk-to-disk-to-tape operation with 7 VMs totaling 880GB. The client couldn't be happier because they previously weren't able to get a full backup daily, and now they can by doing fullvm backups. We found that performance skyrockets if you do fullvms and do the first disk-to-disk backup to an NTFS volume on the SAN. Then back up the fullvms to tape on the proxy. And the icing on the cake is that you can use the vmware-mount utility (not intended or supported for this but it works well) and mount the vmdk as a drive letter on the proxy and do file-level restores.

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jjohnston1127
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Hot Shot

Very nice approach. I might try that in the future. With this client, they do not have the extra SAN space to do it, so I'll just attempt to do a back up to disk on theri 1TB sata drive, then from there do it to tape during the day.

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msmenne17
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here is the VCB setup document:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_301_201_vm_backup.pdf

That should help you get VCB setup. Once you've downloaded the specific VCB stuff for BackupExec, there should be additional instructions in there to setup the BackupExec specific stuff.

The setup for me with Legato Networker wasn't all that hard. It was getting it right that was the hard part. I was also dealing with VCB 1.0.0, plus fighting a constantly changing Networker installation due to problems in that product. It's a great concept/product if you can get it to work properly.

Just be aware that it only does very basic backup and restore. Vizioncore's products provide some better functionality. I would seriously consider looking at one of their products. There is alot of value in what they have to offer.

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