Greg wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am working on a san with several tbs of storage with iscsi for esxi server
for my company. We have decided what we want and how to go about it however a
little detail may throw a wrench in this whole thing. How do people go about
backups for this amount of storage in a live environment. I was thinking tapes
but that will get pricey real quick. I could use snapshots, however if some
catastrophic thing happens say the server is in a fire (I know bad example but
you catch my drift) snapshots are completely useless(I believe I am right?) I
also thought about a High availability configuration, however off site would be
a pain, it is doable but we would then need a Colo. I could do a non raided nas
or san that it is backed up to with cheap hardware but that seems finicky as
well. If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be terrific.
Thanks!
Greg
Not to try and stop anyone from throwing a wrench in a VMware solution
but, backups aren't really the hard thing to solve.
I'm not sold on the idea that tapes are pricey, IMO, the cost comes from
oversized robots needed to honor the backup windows, your backup
software licensing (netbackup licencing is outrageous) and the multiple
copies you end up doing that raize the amount of tapes needed to absurd
levels.
I assume that you're installing your servers in the local disks and
creating your VMs on the SAN volumes so, first of all, decide how you
want to backup your server's OS. Usually I do a full backup right after
install and keep the medias safe, refreshing them from periods that
range from a couple of monthes up to a year.
Backing up your VMs may or may not be needed. If you want to backup
them, you can do a backup from the VMware (outside of the VM, backing up
the entire VM), from the inside of the guest Operating system or using
the storage features (like snapshots, or whatever it's called in your case).
If you simply decide to backup your files, then you have loads of
options available. My favorite one is to use an Hierarquical File system
as my backup device but, once again, it's a case in everything equal to
what we've been doing for decades.
Storage snapshots do offer protection against a server failure. you take
a new bow, restore on it your backup of the host OS and configure your
backup storage to be presented to that new server (do your zonning /
whatever). Do a scan on the VMware side and you will see your guest VMs
all there, it really is that simple.
In Virtualization solutions, while concerning backups, you don't lose
the options you had before but, since you have an extra layer (Host OS,
guest OS and application files) you simply have more options.
--
JaimeC
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