Need to Replace my Current Back Vendor, Before I go Crazy

[MrSmithGTW]

Looking For a Backup Solution

I apologize if I sound frustrated in advanced, but I have been working with a vendor for the last two months to get my backups working well, and still 90% of my VM backups fail 50% of the time.  The Other 10% fail 100% of the time.  These failures are all Virtual Snapshot related, but I can do a snapshot using the manager with 100% success.   My Backup Vender has asked me to do everything from remove vmtools to disable VSS application based snapshots and revert back to file system quiesced snapshots. I am at my wits end with them.  And if they don’t refund me in full, I will tell the whole vmworld who they are, and who not to buy.  LOL

So, I thought I would ask everyone for some advice on what would be a good product. I am looking for a product that can backup Physical and Virtual environment.

I think it would be nice to have it back up the Entire Data store, but not sure if that practical.

I would also require a Wireless backup of the virtual environment using direct San Access.

I also think it would benefit me if the Backup solution used an appliance to coordinate the Backups/Restores, since my vCenters are vitalized.   My Current Vendor puts me in a catch 22, since they need  vCenter to restore vCenter and other virtualized machines. 

My environment Details follow:

ESXi 5.0.0, 721882 and vCenter   5.0.0, 623373

My Backup Hardware Configuration is

                New 200s Tape Library with two LTO 5 Drives (SaS Attached)

                Win 2008 R2 Standard

                Access to all datastores in SAN

I have six physical Server that are not Virtualized

Two Domain Controllers

The Backup Server (Win 2008 r2)

Voice Response System (Win 2003 Standard) With Intel Voice Cards

Web Server (Redhat v5) (Was not a Candidate to be virtualized)

Appian Server (Win 2003 Standard) (Was not a Candidate to be virtualized)

I do daily selective file system backups on the Physical servers.

I do Weekly Bare Metal backups on the Physical servers.

I have 20+ Servers that we have virtualized.

                4 Redhat V5, and v6. (Less than 50g Drive)          

                                Want to do Selective File Level Backups Daily

                5 Win 2003 Standard (Less than 50g Drive)

                                Want to do Selective File Level Backups Daily

                2+ Win 2008 r2 (Less than 50g Drive)

                                                Want to do Selective File Level Backups Daily

                4+ Virtual Appliance’s (Less than 50g Drive)

                2 vCenters (Win 2008 r2) (Less than 80g Drive)

                2 Connection Servers v5.0.1 (win 2008 r2) (Less than 50g Drive)

1 File Server (Win 2008 r2) (Drive D  1tb)

Would Like Drive D Not to be part of snapshot

                Want to do Selective File Level Backups Daily

4 MS SQL Servers (win 2008 r2, Win 2003)

                Want to do Selective File Level Backups Daily

                Want to do Selective Online Database Level Backups Hourly

Would Like Data and Log Drives not to be part of snapshot

I would like to do a weekly Backup of all Virtualized Servers in case of Data Store Failure, This backup would be used to recreate the VM configuration, and then use the Daily/Hourly Backups to get servers current.

[ldelloca]

Hi,

if your actual backup software has problems with the virtualized environment, but works ok for the physical and tape part, you can go on using it for this part of your infrastructure and add a dedicated software for the virtualized environment.

We have a great experience with Veeam and never gave as problems in doing what you need. it works at the virtual machine level so every run saves all the VM disks (but it can do incremental backups saving big space thanks to CBT, compression and deduplication); from the image level you can restore both the entire VM or single files just like a file-based backup.

It also has a 30 day trial so you can test it yourself in your environment.

Luca.

[MrSmithGTW]

I am looking at Veeam now, working with Eri Morita.

The Issue I see for keeping both, is My Vendor software does not like sharing the Tape Library, I would have to disable the service just to get access to the library.

[MrSmithGTW]

Did the Sales Pitch with Eri, Product looks great, seems to solve all my VM needs.

Just need to see how I can incorporate it in to my tape management system.

[ldelloca]

Depending on your actual backup software, there are many guides available from Veeam on how to integrate their product with several backup solutions, I remember TSM and Symantec for sure, ask your sales rep for these docs.

Luca.

[MrSmithGTW]

Thanks Everyone.

Veeam is really nice.