We are exploring VMware backups here, and I ran across the following recommendation in IBM Redbook, "Deployment Guide Series: IBM TSM V5.5", which recommends using subfile backups to backup the VMware image files:
Incidentally, we use selective backup as opposed to incremental backup with full Virtual Machine images. We do so because when we use subfile backup, all the subfile chunks can be retained for the same amount of time. full Virtual Machine backup works well with Tivoli Storage Manager adaptive differencing (subfile backup) technology, which eliminates much of the backup overhead of taking full images at the client side, before they ever make it to the Tivoli Storage Manager server. This process facilitates very efficient backups both from a client-processing perspective and from the perspective of overall storage utilization on the Tivoli Storage Manager server. Only changed blocks are transferred to the Tivoli Storage Manager server during subfile backup.
They are suggesting using adaptive subfile backup to backup the VMware image files. Is anyone really doing this? Last I knew, subfile backups were limited to files less than 2GB in size, which would seem to me to make this recommendation of extremely limited usefulness. Thanks for any light-shedding. -- Paul Zarnowski Ph: 607-255-4757 Manager, Storage Services Fx: 607-255-8521 719 Rhodes Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3801 Em: [email protected]
