VMWare VDR Limitations

Muffin` · 26 Jul 2013 at 09:12

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience of VDR 2.0.1 on ESXi 5.1 when backing up SQL 2k8R2/Exchange 2010 (in a DAG) on 2K8R2 boxes?

It's supposedly 'not supported' but there's cases of people claiming it works but info is still thin on the ground. I'm interested if I'll have to use the OS VSS and not the VMTools VSS also then how the VSS handles SQL/Exc logs. I don't think VDR is up to the job but I need to be sure before I suggest something like Veeam.

VCP is out as it doesn't allows us to copy off the backups to a NAS.

Thanks

DRZ · 26 Jul 2013 at 14:42

No specific experience with that product but I'd be asking the vendors if it is supported or not. Even if it works, unsupported is not where you want to be with anything let alone your data protection strategy...

P45s waiting in the wings there...

Muffin` · 26 Jul 2013 at 15:00

Yeah I just get sent round in circles with kb articles, check your email

covenantuk · 30 Jul 2013 at 08:40

We used to use VDP and at the last upgrade went through both products....

...then decided to use VEEAM. It's so cheap to buy and so much better that it's hardly worth arguing about.

Muffin` · 2 Aug 2013 at 08:55

I found the incompatibility, it can't release snapshots gracefully. so it just continues to write to the snapshot file, until it corrupts... and then it all goes pete tongue.

Got Veeam up and running, looks like just the ticket.

anything I don't mind · 6 Aug 2013 at 13:56

I started using vmware data protection at two sites, we added some 7200 local disks to a host. It comes with essential plus license. I also set up the vmware replication at one site to a localdisks in a host at a dr location. It is a cheap dr solution as they don't want to spend money on another san. We also have tape backup that goes offsite. But I am not sure if i can rely on vdp and there is no way of putting the backups on to tape. What I could realy do with is a way to do the agentless vmware backups but still allow for it to go on to tape. I heard that veeam 7 is going to support tape. We have backup exec but i don't think that does agentless vmware backups.

At other site we use netapp snapmirror to backup the volumes offsite as well as tape backup and i just set up vdp. But would like a solution that does everything.

Another one we used the acronis vmprotect which works quite well. the acronis backup looks quite good, anyone tried that? If it does the agentless vmware backup as well as tape and proper exchange and sql backups that would be ideal.