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Hemal
Asked: 2012-06-20 13:38:28 +0800 CST

Vmware Backup and replication

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We are using Vmware ESXi Essentials Plus. We have 2 VM hosts with ESXi 5.0 and Vcenter server 5.0. Right now we are using Symantec backup exec 2010 R3 to take backup from my virtual machines. But we don't have license from Symantec for VM infrastructure. I have o accomplish two things:

  1. Backup Virtual machines/hosts for DR purpose..
  2. We would like to setup/configure third host at the remote location and replicate it with our existing VM hosts..

I am looking at Symantec backup exec 2012, AppAssure, Veeam backup and replicaton for this project. I would like to know what others are doing for VM Backup/replication and share their experience.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions...

Regards, Hemal

vmware-esxi

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You could look into using VMware Data Recovery, which should be available to you as part of Essentials Plus.

    http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/buy.html

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  2. When browsing, i felt on this article. It's old so probably the author doesn't need the answer anymore, but i will still answer to share my experience.

    I use XSIBackup for some time now and it can greatly answer this kind of needs. There is a free version that is fully usable without limitation. The pro version gives some additional features. All is included to clone VMs on a local datastore or even on another ESXi server on regular basis with great email supports.

    The author answers to questions very quickly and is open to suggestions to improve the package.

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  3. VMWare Data Recovery didn't work very well for me in the past. I ended buying a Nakivo license and now I have a backup service I can trust. With VDR (and VDP before that), I always had problems (could not backup this or that VM, corruption, etc). I had to reinstall VDR and VDP several times during the last few years, due to the inability to solve the problem, even through the VMWare support... I can not recommend it.

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  4. If you don't want to replicate the host to 100%, but rather the VMs on it, you can simply back them up manually with vmware's ovftool (client based CLI tool). There is however no automation (backups on a regular basis) for this and rededploying from an ovf-file was a bit of a hassle.

    For further reading, see the official KB entry.

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