Backup Solution and vCenter Server

[Ranjna Aggarwal]

Do we need vCenter Server always as must component for any backup solution in vmware vsphere environment.

[Troy_Clavell]

because most vendors use snapshot based backups, vCenter is required.

[Ranjna Aggarwal]

like netapp backup is vCenter is required for it?

[Troy_Clavell]

if you are doing array based backups, then it depends.  You can snapshot the entire LUN.  You should contact each vendor to find out what their solution offering is.

[a_p_]

Unless I'm mistaken, most backup vendors (vRanger, Veeam, ...) allow either to connect to vCenter or the hosts directly. The only requirement is that the host has a paid license, i.e. the API is unlocked.

André

[Troy_Clavell]

we use PHD and haven't looked at any other products in quite awhile.  For restores, we don't need vCenter, but for backups we do are backups through vCenter.  How are the other vendors doing this?  We may need to start looking again, because last time we looked (2 years ago), everyone was utilizing the snapshot features of vCenter.  Take snapshot, backup snapshot, commit snapshot. 

[a_p_]

Snapshots are actually a feature of the ESXi hosts rather than vCenter Server. However, in most cases it certainly makes sense to connect to vCenter Server to get a view of the whole environment and to be able to backup the VM's independently of the host they are currently running on. The only restore that I can think of which requires direct access to a host, is the restore of vCenter Server itself.

André

[ch1ta]

Not quite sure about other backup vendors, but we use Veeam in conjunction with standalone ESX(i) without any issues. As long as ESX(i) has a paid license, you will be  able to backup/replicate VMs that reside on it.

Cheers.