Questions[vmware-vdr](server)

I have a smallish lab environment (16 x ESX4iU1 hosts and VC4U1) that I periodically want to backup.

Normally in production we snap to secondary SAN boxes then have disk-based VTL backups via NetBackup which eventually migrate to off-site removable disks but this seems like an overkill for my own kit.

I've spent a bit of time with vSphere's 'Data Recovery' appliance, it was easy enough to setup and I've not really ran into any issues with it but that doesn't mean I trust it fully.

Have you had any experiences with it, positive or negative that would help me decide whether to trust it or pay Symantec for more licences?

Thank you in advance.

I'm using VDR on vSphere4. It works sucessfully. I've already backuped several VMs with VDR and I like it very much. But now we got a problem. We have 2 VMs, using an USB-Device Server with a stick plugged in, which is definetely need by these 2 VMs for Licensing and so. Every time, I start the Backup process, the VMs lost the communication to the USB-Server and its stick after building the snapshot and while online. Because of that, the software on these VMs can't work correctly. I have to restart both Machines to solve this problem. These fact is bad for an automatic backup. Does VDR have a special function for those cases or is something like this already known?

It would be no problem, to shutdown the servers for building snapshots on Saturday or Sunday. Can VDR initiate a shutdown before starting the backup process? Otherwise I must try to use scripts, but that wouldn't be so nice.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Using VMware Data Recovery 1.1, backing up to CIFS share and getting this error

1/18/2010 8:55:31 AM: Performing incremental back up of disk "Lun VM/VM-DB1-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add" 1/18/2010 8:55:32 AM: Trouble writing to destination volume, error -1020 ( sharing violation)

Integrity checks of the destination complete successfully and I tried rebooting the VDR appliance just in case.

To resolve the issue I removed the share from the VDR, pointed the backups to other destinations and renamed the VMware Data Recovery subfolder in the destination, then re-added the share and pointed the backups, this of course creates a new Backup Store.

Anyone have any ideas why this error is occuring, means I can't backup into this Backup Store any longer.

I must be confused. I have VMWare Data Recovery woking somewhat reliably. I decided to check out the FLR capability. I installed the FLR client on a Windows box, but when I configure it to point to my Data Recovery appliance, I've got a problem. My Data Recovery appliance is over in the vmware "management" network where the VMWare service consoles are located. (Isn't this typical?)

Since my guest operating systems are not in the same network as the service consoles, how are you supposed to get the FLR client to talk to the VMWare Data Recovery applicance? Am I missing something?

Thanks.