John, this is what we do right now: Site A 2 x ESX hosts into a SAN.
Site B 1 x Windows 2003 physical host a long way away with gig Ethernet between both, it has a bunch of disks attached and an LTO autoloader. 1 x ESX host. At sites A and B the ESX hosts run esXpress (from PHD virtual). What happens is that every night the VM's at Site A are snapshotted and backed up to a shared folder on the far off 2003 box. The file server (this is a VM with around 8tb on it) does a nightly copy job to the remote server using robocopy. The backups of the VM's go to tape, as do the various agent based backups (i.e. the file server). So if someone deletes a file from the main file server in Site A I can do several things: Use Previous Versions to pull it back from the server in Site A Get it back from the previous night from the copy in Site B Get it back from tape If I lose a VM (or the whole of Site A) I can restore the VM's I need to the ESX box in Site B from the backups that are on the Windows server in Site B. It's not perfect and we're looking at getting the replication happening at SAN level, but you get the idea and you can do all of this with two servers you don't need any kind of NAS or SAN, DAS would be fine. Paul -----Original Message----- From: John Aldrich [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 24 September 2010 16:52 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SAN question You got it, Bill. That's what I've decided to do. -----Original Message----- From: Bill Humphries [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 11:43 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: SAN question Ok, so with the information provided so far, the only person here who really thinks John needs a SAN is John, right? I mean if I had his job, i'd stop looking at a fancy-dancy SAN and get a server with DAS and a tape library or other backup solution that gets backups off-site so that I'm actually protecting data in case of a disaster. I'm so very tired of all the talking in circles of this SAN thing. Bill ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin -- MIRA Ltd Watling Street, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV10 0TU, England Registered in England and Wales No. 402570 VAT Registration GB 114 5409 96 The contents of this e-mail are confidential and are solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this e-mail in error, please delete it and notify us either by e-mail, telephone or fax. You should not copy, forward or otherwise disclose the content of the e-mail as this is prohibited. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
