Backup & Recovery

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  • 1.  Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 15, 2011 11:38 PM

    Hi,

    We are looking for a backup solution for our VMware vSphere infrastructure and vCloud, comparing VDR and Veeam etc., is there any backup solution has built-in tape backup feature or can be integrated with another tape backup software as a complete automated solution?

    Can VDR backup ESXi hosts?

    Thanks,

    William



  • 2.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 15, 2011 11:51 PM

    I believe Backup EXEC uses the storage APIs.

    List of backup solutions http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10780

    It would be possible to write the vDR backup destination to tape if your tape backup software supported the destination storage device.



  • 3.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 17, 2011 07:26 PM

    I will look into Symentec which does tape backup too.

    Tape drive will connect to host via SAS HBA, will ESXi be able to make tape drive visible to VM? or we need to use a physical server to run tape backup?



  • 4.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 17, 2011 09:43 PM
    I will look into Symentec which does tape backup too.

    The current BE uses the VMware storage API so it should be a good candidate.

    Tape drive will connect to host via SAS HBA, will ESXi be able to make tape drive visible to VM? or we need to use a physical server to run tape backup?

    It is possible to passthrough a controller and attached tape/autoloader to a VM. The only supported method is an Adaptec Parallel SCSI tape / loader however there are several references in the forums to successes in using SAS tape drives. I will see if I can find references for you. If you have hardware support for Intel vT-d or AMD IOMMU you may be able to use VMdirectpath to pass the controller/tape to a VM.



  • 5.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 16, 2011 12:24 AM

    The Host can't be backed up with vDR. You can backup the configuration with vCLI tools vicfg-cfgbackup



  • 6.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 17, 2011 09:16 PM

    For the ESXi hosts it may just be easier to reinstall then trying to do a backup/recover solution.



  • 7.  RE: Tape backup integration
    Best Answer

    Posted Feb 17, 2011 09:54 PM

    This is a start for passthrough. You will need to pick through it though.

    http://communities.vmware.com/message/1690414#1690414

    VMdirectpath

    http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_vmdirectpath_host.pdf



  • 8.  RE: Tape backup integration

    Posted Feb 18, 2011 03:39 AM

    I was thinking about VMDirectPath, I guess we will find out once we have the tape autoloader attached.