Backup & Recovery

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  • 1.  How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 24, 2019 09:33 PM

    Hello.

    I want to plan for a storage failure event and wish to backup my VM's and Snapshots to another server that is not associated with the ESXI host. Is this possible? If so, by what means?

    Would you have any other recommendations for backup and restore?

    Thanks.



  • 2.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 24, 2019 10:32 PM

    You should plan for a separate (preferably physical) backup server and install one of many different types of backup software upon it. A community favorite around here seems to be Veeam. You would then back up those VMs from your hosts(s) and either store them locally to this backup server or externally on another type of storage device.



  • 3.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 03:44 PM

    Thanks.

    From what it sounds like, Veeam Backup & Replication is one of the more popular choices. It comes as an .iso - does it install as an OS or as a program? Another question is, can the backups be compressed or do they retain their in-production file size? The free version requires a ESXI license in order to perform the backups correct?



  • 4.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 04:06 PM

    Veeam installs on a Windows Server. Backups are compressed and deduped. You must have a licensed version of ESXi (any version) to use Veeam and basically any other backup application that works at the image level.



  • 5.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 04:52 PM

    Thats fine. I was looking through Veeam and it looks like Linux is not supported at all, only Windows / Windows Server. I was just dead curious if you happen to know if it would work with WINE on or if that would be a stretch.

    Thanks.

    I'm guessing it really wouldn't matter because it looks like a GUI would be required and my Ubuntu's are a 16.04 server editions. I guess I could maybe install it on a Windows workstation and perform manual backups? Just curious if you happen to know if automating backups via Veeam is possible?



  • 6.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 04:54 PM

    It's not going to work at all on Linux no matter what you do. And don't even try. Give it what it needs.



  • 7.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 04:56 PM

    Got it, thanks for the info. I'll figure something out for the Windows side of things, I was just dead curious (just incase) if you happen to know other software that could use Ubuntu? I'll have to pass on to my organization that we would need a Windows license in order to use Veeam.



  • 8.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 05:00 PM

    There are lots of products in this space and many of them can deploy as virtual appliances (which use some flavor of Linux). I don't know of any off-hand that allow installation on top of Ubuntu in a manual fashion.



  • 9.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 28, 2019 04:59 PM

    Since the backup app is made for Windows (just as the latest Backup Exec 20), ideally it would go on a dedicated box with an acceptable Windows OS.

    Backups like to complete as fast as possible, so it is normal to see their cpu shoot up.

    Nothing stops you from installing it on a Windows guest OS, the docs usually make a point to tell you to do that on a dedicated host just for that one guest.



  • 10.  RE: How to create a backup for my VM's & Snapshots onto another server?

    Posted Oct 25, 2019 12:49 PM

    Exactly what daph said. VMs are simply collections of files and, so long as you treat them as such, there's a plethora of ways to go about backing them up.

    Some places back up the files manually to a specified storage array, some store the VMs themselves on volumes that are automatically backed up with things like snapshots, others store their VMs on RAID 1 devices so there's at least a single other copy of it.

    Depending on your budget, environment, and needs, you can go any number of ways for keeping your VMs safe.