VMware backup

jamesd

What would you recommend as the best backup software?

Installing 2 ESXI hosts (Dell 520's) connected to Dell MD3420 with dell MD1200 expansion. For backup another dell 520 connected to same 3420 and 1200 ( using the 1200 for backup location)

VMs will be domain controller, FileandPrint, 2 sql servers, 1 oracle server plus for a seperate network another File and print server (seperate subnet)

Have tried Dell Netvault but it is overly complex.

kingtiger

Best backup solution for VMware (imo of course)

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html

jamesd

Does it need access via IP to the VMs for backup as in a file backup ?or does it do it straight to the VM?

I have VMs plugged into a different switch but on the same eSXI Hosts and same VCenter just directly cabled out to another switch to segregate networks for security reasons

Mr. Fancypants

Is the 1200 being used for production and backup data? Seems like a bad idea if so.. Veeam would definitely be my choice for any fully virtualized infrastructure. Bear in mind you must be running a paid for version of VSphere for Veeam to work. Veeam also does replication so if you could put another copy of VSphere on that 520 server you could potentially have replicas running to it. You could use backup copy jobs to get data off to another location be it a NAS, tape or off to the cloud with Veeam Cloud Connect. I do a lot of work with Veeam so happy to answer any questions.

jamesd

The 3420 holds all the VMs , the 1200 is extended off of the 3420 and I have the 1200 units drives only visible to the backup server and mapped as a drive for backups only.
Do you think this is bad incase the 3420 went down is it ?

The production data for the 2 networks sits on the 3420 only.

The 520 that is used for backup server also has a 9 bay tape loader attached to it for extra backups as the sites broadband is poor enough so cannot do an online backup.

Mr. Fancypants

It generally comes down to what is an acceptable risk. If the 1200 is unavailable when the 3420 goes down what would be the plan if there is a disaster. Once you have an additional copy of your backups then the risk decreases. A lot of backup vendors talk a lot about the 3 2 1 rule. Have at least 3 copies of data, store your copies of data on at least two media, and keep at least one copy offsite.

Production data counts as one copy of data, backup to your 1200 could be your second and a tape copy your third. This meets the two different media rule and the one copy offsite also. All can be done with Veeam, i would suggest looking at the Enterprise licence rather than Standard licence if you do look at Veeam as there is a lot of good stuff not in Standard. Especially around SQL and tape. It's licenced per socket of the hosts that are being backed up.

Disclaimer here. I do work for an MSP that sells Veeam but am purely technical and have tested many different backup products.

jamesd

We have 2 sockets in each host, how does it like oracle 11?

Mr. Fancypants

Is it on a Windows server? If so, Oracle 11g has a vss writer so Veeam can back it up cleanly. If it is running on Linux you would need to have a pre and post run scripts set up.

jamesd

mbroaders wrote: »

Is it on a Windows server? If so, Oracle 11g has a vss writer so Veeam can back it up cleanly. If it is running on Linux you would need to have a pre and post run scripts set up.

Yes the oracle will sit on server 08 R2 , that's good now to know thanks.

Mr. Fancypants

No worries at all. Just one thing to bear in mind that the Veeam proxy server will need to be able to reach the network card of any virtual machines that are being backed up in an application aware state such as SQL, Exchange, Oracle, AD. This is because it installs a temporary agent during the backup when application aware processing is enabled. For machines that don't have applications that need to be quiesced then it doesn't need to use an agent at all.

jamesd

To be able to backup/ restore a file (s) does it need an agent ?

Mr. Fancypants

jamesd wrote: »

To be able to backup/ restore a file (s) does it need an agent ?

No need for an agent there at all.

jamesd

mbroaders wrote: »

No worries at all. Just one thing to bear in mind that the Veeam proxy server will need to be able to reach the network card of any virtual machines that are being backed up in an application aware state such as SQL, Exchange, Oracle, AD. This is because it installs a temporary agent during the backup when application aware processing is enabled. For machines that don't have applications that need to be quiesced then it doesn't need to use an agent at all.

Does Veeam have an application aware state for Oracle?

Mr. Fancypants

It uses the vss writer for Oracle once it is enabled. You can enable it in Oracle 11g and upwards i believe. There is a free trial for Veeam you can download a try if you want to give it a go.

jamesd

mbroaders wrote: »

It uses the vss writer for Oracle once it is enabled. You can enable it in Oracle 11g and upwards i believe. There is a free trial for Veeam you can download a try if you want to give it a go.

Thanks I have it downloaded now, its very easy to use compared to Dell Netvault and it just works, Ive down a VM backup, file restore from that backup and they both just worked.

Mr. Fancypants

Yep works really well. Let me know if you have any questions and i can try help out. Just got my VMCE in Veeam last week so it's all fresh in my head at the moment!

jamesd

Back again I have the 30 day Veeam trial loaded onto the 3 servers (3 Sites), each server's back to disk is going fine and no issues but I am confused with the tape options.

I have a 9 tape libary (Dell TL1000) and I got Veeam to see it and it can backup to the tape in the drive bay but I dont see how I can use the other tapes, I would like to do a full VM backup to tape nightly, eject that tape from the drive bay back into the library and for another tape to load into the drive bay.

Mr. Fancypants

You should see all the media loaded in the library when you run an inventory. They may be in the Unrecognised Media Pool. If you only see the tape drive itself it is most likely a driver issue. You need the dell driver for the tape library and tape drive. If it shows as Unrecognised Media Changer in device manager it won't work. Veeam doesn't have its own drivers for the library itself.

jamesd wrote: »

Back again I have the 30 day Veeam trial loaded onto the 3 servers (3 Sites), each server's back to disk is going fine and no issues but I am confused with the tape options.

I have a 9 tape libary (Dell TL1000) and I got Veeam to see it and it can backup to the tape in the drive bay but I dont see how I can use the other tapes, I would like to do a full VM backup to tape nightly, eject that tape from the drive bay back into the library and for another tape to load into the drive bay.

jamesd

mbroaders wrote: »

You should see all the media loaded in the library when you run an inventory. They may be in the Unrecognised Media Pool. If you only see the tape drive itself it is most likely a driver issue. You need the dell driver for the tape library and tape drive. If it shows as Unrecognised Media Changer in device manager it won't work. Veeam doesn't have its own drivers for the library itself.

It see's all the tapes ( 1 to 9) in the library with no issue, I am really wondering about how can I tell it or the loader what tape to use on which night.

Mr. Fancypants

Ah i see. When you set up a tape job for the first time it should ask you to set up a Media Pool. The job will take tapes that are associated with the media pool to run the job.

The media pool will dictate what retention the tapes will have. By default it will add media from the free media pool into the created media pool as required.

As you add tapes to the library you need to ensure they are put into the free media pool which will then allow the various created media pools to use them.

There is an eject option in the job which will for a tape library eject the tape an put it back into a library slot.

If you want to ensure a full backup is sent to tape there are a couple of ways of doing it. If you are using Reverse Incremental Mode for your backup you can set the tape job to not process incrementals set the schedule for whenever you need. As the only full on disk is the most up to date you will have a copy of the latest full on tape. If you are not using Reverse Incremental as the backup type to disk you can take advantage of a new feature called Virtual Synthetic to Tape. To do this you need to :
1. Disable process incrementals
2. Set the full backup schedule to be the same day as the tape job will run (On the same page as process fulls/process incrementals)

What will happen is that when the tape job runs it sees that it is due to create a new full that same day. It will then create a small file on disk which contains pointers to all the blocks of data it needs to create a full. It then creates a synthetic full onto tape without having to create a new full on disk, Very clever stuff altogether.

Hope all that makes sense?

jamesd wrote: »

It see's all the tapes ( 1 to 9) in the library with no issue, I am really wondering about how can I tell it or the loader what tape to use on which night.

jamesd

Thanks very much, I think I get it now.

I want to have a full backup to tape each night of all my VM's (LTO6 Tapes with 2.5TB native and 6.25TB compressed) and also full backup to Disk each night (7.5TB DAS)

So Ive inserted 9 tapes into the drive and called them Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday ,Thursday,Fri Wk1, Fri Wk2,Fri Wk3,Saturday and Sunday (no room for Fri Wk4 but it ive it here in its case)

I have made new media pool's called:
Monday,Tuesday, Wednesday ,Thursday,Fri Wk1, Fri Wk2,Fri Wk3,Saturday and Sunday and moved the corresdoning tapes into that pool and set retention of 1 week on them.

Ive then created new backup to Tape jobs called
Daily Backup to Tape Monday, Daily Backup to Tape Tuesday and so on.. , Selected the media pool for each so Mondays Daily Tape backup Job is linked to Mondays Media pool which has Mondays Tape in it. All set to Eject at end of backup.

So how it runs's;
Backup to disk (7.6 TB DAS) of VM's in Reverse Incremental mode (So this gives me a full backup each night? Does it delete the previous nights full backup to disk ?)
(Changed block tracking is on by default and Enable CBT for all VM's is all on -Is that ok?)

Then after this going by the night is the Daily Backup to Tape with the option "Process Incremental backup files now unticked" ,
Should I leave on the option for "Use hardware compression if available" ?
Eject tape once finished option is ticked and Export current media set is unticked.

Hows that sound?

Mr. Fancypants

It's one way to do it but i would suggest simplifying it a little.

Create one Media Pool called Daily Media Pool with a retention of 1 week. Create a second Media Pool called Weekly Media Pool with a retention of 1 month.

Create two backup to tape jobs. One going to the Daily Pool and the other to the Weekly Pool.

When you add new media just add it to the Free Media pool and Veeam will work out the rest and will take tapes as they come out of retention or from the Free Media.

I would strongly suggest getting your hands on some barcodes for the tapes. This way you don't need to worry about manually labelling tapes Monday, Tuesday etc. Veeam will just use whatever tapes are in the pool and you will be easily be able to track them based on the barcode being the same in Veeam as it is physically. You can usually pick barcodes up for 100 euro or less for a pack of 100 of them. It really takes a lot of the admin work out of tapes and means you can load up a bunch of tapes and let the software keep track of them.


Backups will be overwritten on the tape once the retention period is expired and a backup runs to it.
You want to leave CBT on. It allows for Veeam to only have to read blocks of data that has changed rather than having to read the whole VM.
Leave Eject tape ticked.
You should deselect Use Hardware Compressions as you are already backing up a compressed file and you will most likely see a performance drop if you have it enabled. You will not get any further compression out of the tapes so the true size of the tapes is the 2.5TB.

jamesd

Thanks again:

So 2 media pools
Daily Media Pool with a retention of 1 week
Weekly Media Pool with a retention of 1 month
Put no tapes into them for now but leave the box ticked for "Add tapes from feee media automatically when more tapes are needed"

Then create 2 backup jobs:
Daily Backup to Tape - To run on Mon,Tue,Wen,Thur,Sat,Sun nights ?
Weekly Backup to Tape - To run for each Friday night ?

I have barcodes but have never used them before, they came with the new tapes but I just left them aside, The girls that change the tape would they need to know which one to put into the drive by barcode as before we got the loader they just came in daily with that nights tape that was labled with the day on it.

jamesd

Ive another question if you dont mind.

I have an Oracle 10g server (Server 2008 R2), The software company have a folder on it created called d:\Backups and they do an RMan into this nightly and overwrites every 5th night, they said if I can
backup this folder alone for them they can rebuild if necessary.

The server 2012 with Veeam is not on the same network/domain as the Oracle VM so I backup my VM's via Veeam over the hypervisors and this works fine for my other VM's and I can restore files to them if necessary and have tested this, my question now is on backing up the Oracle server.

If I try to backup the Oracle server VM now as usual will I upset the Oracle database ? Worried incase I crash or currupt it somehow with Veeam sinces its only 10g.

Is my other option to just backup this d:\Backups to another VM on the network and then backup that VM nightly ?

Mr. Fancypants

jamesd wrote: »

Thanks again:

So 2 media pools
Daily Media Pool with a retention of 1 week
Weekly Media Pool with a retention of 1 month
Put no tapes into them for now but leave the box ticked for "Add tapes from feee media automatically when more tapes are needed"

Then create 2 backup jobs:
Daily Backup to Tape - To run on Mon,Tue,Wen,Thur,Sat,Sun nights ?
Weekly Backup to Tape - To run for each Friday night ?

Yep sounds good.

jamesd wrote: »

I have barcodes but have never used them before, they came with the new tapes but I just left them aside, The girls that change the tape would they need to know which one to put into the drive by barcode as before we got the loader they just came in daily with that nights tape that was labled with the day on it.

The tape library should have a mail slot feature in it. If so you can have it so that Veeam will export the tape which will put it into the mail slot for removal. The new tape can be put into the mail slot and the tape can be imported in. You may need to use Veeam powershell commands if you wanted to automate this part though.

jamesd

Just to add from the above I have gone and purchased 3 * Veeam Enterprise with 5 year production support, had to be purchased via our Hardware supplier as they have already sold us a backup solution that would not work.

Mr. Fancypants

Great to hear it is going well for you! Make sure you put on Update 2 that came out last week.