Snap Shots as backups

[chickenandchips]

Hello All,

I am very new to VMWare ESX so please be patient with me if I appear to ask very basic questions.

From what I can see when I login to Vsphere 4.1 and browse the servers. If you right mouse click you have a couple of options "take snaphot" and "snapshot manager".

Now are there any pitfalls when taking a snapshot as a backup of a virtual machine ?. We currently have a SQL server on the platform. The database itself is very small can I use snapshot to take an image of this ? What do you recommend /

Thanks

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Note: This discussion was moved from the VMware ESX™ 4 community to the Backup & Recovery community.

Snapshots are not backups. Snapshots are used by backup software to create consistent backups. Best bet is to use backup software that can leverage snapshots to get backups.

Good Luck!

[chickenandchips]

Hi Vmroyal,

First of all  thankyou for your warm welcome to this amazing forum.

You mentioned that "snapshots" are not backups but are used by backups. This doesnt make sense to me. Would you beable to elaborate on this ?

Secondly what would you recommend for backing up virtual machines ?. Is there a tool native to VMWare that can be used ?

Thanks

[vmroyale]

Snapshots can be used by backup software. The snapshot process basically makes your original virtual disk file read-only and then creates a differencing disk for new writes to go to. The snapshot file would not be a complete image of the virtual disk. Snapshots are also used by administrators for putting the machine in snapshot mode manually - this allows you to make changes to the VM and then revert if the changes are not successful.

I would try to use backup software that leverages the VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection. These APIs are included in 4.1. What backup software are you currently using?

[dstamen]

never use snapshots as a backup. number one thing anyone will tell you.

[chickenandchips]

We are currently not using any kind of backups for the virtual machines hence me creating this thread.

So "snapshots" from what I can see are not the way foreward. Using a backup tool is the best option.

How about making a clone of a current server ? is this another "no go" ?

Thanks for your patience in answering my questions.

[chickenandchips]

Thanks VMRoyal will look into the VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection option.

[vmroyale]

There are so many backup vendors that support this that it can be a bit overwhelming. I usually try to recommend that you leverage whatever your current backup solution is, if that vendor provides VMware compatibility.

Think of snapshots as a tool and not a solution, if that makes sense.

Clones can work, but the management and operational tasks around this could quickly get out of hand.

One of the biggest things to consider is the consistency of your backups. That is where using 3rd party solutions can really start to provide value.

Also, check out http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015180 and kb.vmware.com/kb/1009402 for more information on snapshots.

[kopper27]

In fact snapshots are not recommended to be maintained more than 3 days...I usually say to my customer a week is enough if you want to make to test and so on but not more than that.... a VM running on a snapshot can have storage-performance problems....somewhere I read ESXi is handling this much better that 4.x but it is the same thing snapshots are not backups and you know the idea is take your backup our of your current and enviroment and snapshots are always next to their parent VMDK....

I've been using vDR - vmware data recovery with NFS as destination without any problems