Backing up with ESX/ESXi

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

slylittlefox

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Our company has for a long time used VMware server for our virtualisation, but it has come to a point where performance is taking a big hit from doing so.

With the advent of ESXi being shipped for free, we're looking at moving. One of our biggest concerns is how we'd manage backups after the move. At present we do a rather cumbersome stop the vm/backup the vm/start the vm routine every night, and want to know if this is possible to do with ESX/ESXi.

I've looked into VCB and although it seems to do exactly what we want, it carries a hefty price tag, which ideally we'd like to avoid. My first thought was running VMware Converter on top of the VMs, then backing up the generated VM from Converter to tape, meaning no more down time.

However - VMware Converter is designed to convert physical machines into VMs, will it work creating a VM from a VM? Has anybody tried this?

Also, does anybody know of any other (preferably free) backup solutions/processes that we could try?

All ideas/help appreciated :)
 
VMs created in VMware Server should migrate nicely over to ESX/ESXi

Unfortunately once you are here VMware will try to sell you the entire infrastructure package, and, whilst it is very good, it is very expensive as you have noted.

As for backups, they say its compatible with 3rd Party Network management bits, but pretty sure they still sneak in VCB into the pitch to take the initial snapshots and move them onto the backup management network. Whether this is entirely necessary i dont know, might be possible to just export a snapshot and hope (not too clued up on the ins and outs of Server beyond its a nice sandbox)

Migration I dont know, outside of VCB/VMotion.

Converter im pretty sure will only convert 3rd Party VMs to VMware VMs, not VMware to VMware (and physical to VMware VM ofcourse)
 
Last edited:
.:MBK:. said:
Converter im pretty sure will only convert 3rd Party VMs to VMware VMs, not VMware to VMware (and physical to VMware VM ofcourse)
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure you can use converter to convert pretty much anything to anything. I've had to convert VMs on ESX to VMs that are compatible with VMware Server in the past (to pass on to one of our support companies who didn't have ESX)
 
As an aside: is VCB available to run as a 'bolt-on', rather than having to purchase the entire VMware infrastructure suite? And will VCB work with ESXi? :confused:

They know how to sting you once you start moving over to the 'i' version ;)
 
I use esxranger for backing up my VM's on ESX. lets you do some fancy other stuff as well.
You can use it to move VM's from one ESX to another, just back up from one and restore to the new ESX server, plus you can do a file level restore from the backed up VM. It's licensed per physical CPU on the ESX server.
Backups can be scheduled as well.
 
oddjob62 said:
I'm pretty sure you can use converter to convert pretty much anything to anything. I've had to convert VMs on ESX to VMs that are compatible with VMware Server in the past (to pass on to one of our support companies who didn't have ESX)
Click to expand...

VMware Converter can import virtual machines created in:

Workstation 5.x and Workstation 4.x
VMware Player 1.x
VMware ESX 3.x
ESX Server 2.5.x (if the virtual machine is managed by VirtualCenter 2.x)
GSX Server 3.x
VMware Server 1.x
VirtualCenter 2.x
Microsoft Virtual PC version 7 and later
Any version of Microsoft Virtual Server
Click to expand...

guess you're right, my bad, now i know something else about the products im meant to know everything about eventually
 
Shoei said:
I use esxranger for backing up my VM's on ESX. lets you do some fancy other stuff as well.
You can use it to move VM's from one ESX to another, just back up from one and restore to the new ESX server, plus you can do a file level restore from the backed up VM. It's licensed per physical CPU on the ESX server.
Backups can be scheduled as well.
Click to expand...

Just had a quick look at ESXranger - looks like it could fit the bill quite nicely - how much do you pay for it if you don't mind me asking? :)
 
slylittlefox said:
Just had a quick look at ESXranger - looks like it could fit the bill quite nicely - how much do you pay for it if you don't mind me asking? :)
Click to expand...

Cost me £1026, for 4 CPU's. Luckily it's physical cpu's and not based on Cores. It lives on the server that runs Virtual Centre, since it will plug into VCB.
Just renewed it so paid £220 for another year.

I just back up the VM's to a san drive on the Virtual centre server then back up the images with backup exec.
Quite impressive how small the VM's are when backed up to tar files.
 
+1 to vranger from me.

we bought it as part of a esxessentials pack when we went virtual it comes with most of the other vizioncore products.

however it is a great piece of software even works with vmotion.
 
.:MBK:. said:
VMs created in VMware Server should migrate nicely over to ESX/ESXi
Click to expand...
yip - will need to convert them first though, you can't just add the vmdk and expect everything to work flawlessly

Converter im pretty sure will only convert 3rd Party VMs to VMware VMs, not VMware to VMware (and physical to VMware VM ofcourse)
Click to expand...

Convertor does p2v and v2v (including vmware images).
 
Shoei said:
Cost me £1026, for 4 CPU's. Luckily it's physical cpu's and not based on Cores. It lives on the server that runs Virtual Centre, since it will plug into VCB.
Just renewed it so paid £220 for another year.

I just back up the VM's to a san drive on the Virtual centre server then back up the images with backup exec.
Quite impressive how small the VM's are when backed up to tar files.
Click to expand...

Doesn't it need VCB ? Will it work without it ?
 
.walls said:
yip - will need to convert them first though, you can't just add the vmdk and expect everything to work flawlessly

.
Click to expand...


I did that and lost the ability to manage my esx host !! had to reboot the host and delete the vmdk files I copied to the SAN. Subsequently tried converter and it worked fine. So much for assuming compatibility between VMWare server files and ESX !!! :D
 
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