Best Cost Effective Method for Backup Exec Tape Backups

[Adam404]

Hi Everyone,

Currently we have Backup Exec 10d and I was going to upgrade to 12.5 and purchase Vsphere when it came out. I guess I am a bit confused between VCB and the new VDR. I am not sure what type of Backup Exec agents I should buy or if I even need to buy any. I would like to be able to do file level backup/restores. I was going to purchase Backup Exec vmware agents instead of individual windows licenses but do I even need to buy those at this point?

Thanks for any input!

[Eire09]

Hi Adam,

I had Backup Exec 11D & VCB working fine & then I upgraded to BE 12.5 & VCB & I'm having major issues so I'd suggest downloading the eval version of BE 12.5 before you purchase any agents to make sure it works in your environment.

I know this doesn't answer your question! but I just thought I'd share that with you!

With BE 12.5 you have to do full VM backups however you are able to restore at file level.

The problem I am having is when I try to drill into vCenter through BE 12.5 it times out alot of the time so this is really wrecking my head at this stage.

Cheers,

Pedro

[Adam404]

Hi,

So VCB moves the backups to another storage location correct? And then you BE server reads that storage and pushes it to tape? I am just trying to confirm how the whole process works.

Thanks!!

[Eire09]

So VCB moves the backups to another storage location correct? And then you BE server reads that storage and pushes it to tape? I am just trying to confirm how the whole process works.

VCB takes a snapshot of the VM and mounts the VM. Once it is mounted on the VCB proxy server it backs it up to a selected location.

You can then back it up to tape. At the moment in my environment I backup VM's to disk (on the proxy server).

I also resolved the time out issue with vCenter that I mentioned above so if you come across this issue when you are setting up BE 12.5 let me know & I'll send on the fix.

Cheers,

Pedro

[Adam404]

Thanks for the info. I plan on buying Vsphere Essentials + which comes with the new Data Recovery plugin as well. So it really looks like it's not worth spending money on backup exec agents

[AndreTheGiant]

>So VCB moves the backups to another storage location correct? And then
you BE server reads that storage and pushes it to tape? I am just
trying to confirm how the whole process works.

For FullVM backup yes. You will need a stage area (in VCB configuration the MNT point) that is at least greater than the biggest VM.

But for Windows VM you can also do a FileLevel backup (in this case you directly "mount" the vmdk and browse into is content).

More info on Virtual Machine Backup Guide.

Andre

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