Back up question

[anything I don't mind]

Due to a problem that a previous engineer created by incorrectly assigning drive letters to SCSI drives, the backup and DR procedure has not been working correctly. When I first arrived i could not run vsphere and connect to vcenter because the vcenter installation was on one of the drives that had changed drive letter. They were using ca arcserve 12.5 to do backups. The backup software was not creating the vmdk files with the vcb proxy, it was unable to mount them.

I have created a new vm and install vcenter on it and upgraded the ca arcserve to version 16. It is now backing up vmdk files during the backup process and everything is working ok.

The problem now is that the backup is taking far too long. When I come in, in the morning the backup is still running after 12-13 hours. It is still running and the portable HD of 1tb still has space.

The question is, do you think it is overkill to backup files from the servers as well as vmdk snapshots of the vmware images. On this network there are only VMs and one physical server that requires backing up. Do I have any other option but to disable the backup of the files on the VMs and just use vmdk backups? any thoughts ?

 

[anything I don't mind]

Well in an ideal world I would have the file backups and the vm backups on one disk if it fits, but if a) it might not fit b) takes too long. Then I have to make a decision i guess.

The business expectation has never been specified officially. They just assume that everything is backed up and ready to be recovered at any time and that there is a full DR recovery plan from the backups as well.

The physical server and its SCSI drives from the san do host the DMS and a few other such systems, if there ever was an individual file recovery request, i would most likely be from there. Which is not a VM so it will be backed up by the file system itself.

What I am concerned about is wtihin the CA software there is an agent for exchange and an agent for sql. these appear as additional checkboxes under the server names within the backup software for exchange stores and sql databases. If i just back up the VM for those servers then I might be missing out on "special" exchange or sql backups. I might contact CA their support and discuss with them.

But as i don't have much choice i am probably going to take off all the file system backups apart from the physical servers and the exchange stores and sql.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I agree with Ev0's points, especially the business expectations.

As for the backup job itself, which part of the job is taking the longest?
Doing the snapshots of VMDKs (relatively fast, I would think?) or backing up all the files?

Just looking through the logs now and comparing, but from first glance the snapshots go at around 30mbyte a second and can take from 20-120 mins each depending on size.

 

[anything I don't mind]

There was a DR procedure already in place when I arrived, that was last tested at the end of 2009. As the vmdk backup was not functioning for several months before I arrived the DR procedure was no longer available. We have a DR test in february and I am trying to optimise the process before then by improving the speed and however else I can. The client just wants the original procedure to be used and does not want many changes too it. After the test he wants me to do a report on how we can improve it. That seems backwards imo, but that is what he wants.

We have a Teralyte 2000-TLYTE-2RSA that backs up to 1 and 2tb SATA disks. http://www.idealstor.com/teralyte.php

We have a support license with CA that allows for updates to the latest version, but i am not sure if this D2d is included in that, will look in to it.

The biggest issue with this DR and backup is that the network is not on the internet and there is no p2p replication either. Due to security reasons. So i have to physically take the backup hds to the DR site a few hours away and then recover the VMs in to the DR environment.