VMware Backup best practices by Rick Vanover, Backup Academy

Best Practicesfor VMware Backups

Rick Vanover

http://www.veeam.com/blog

Twitter: @RickVanover, @Veeam

MCITP vExpert VCPSoftware Strategy SpecialistVeeam Software

About the Speaker

Contributor to industry publications

Agenda

About VMware vSphere

Backup requirements and how-to

Difference-making technologies

Considerations of image-based backups

Virtual machine design and provisioning

Separation of source and target

Organization of backups

Ensuring application consistency

Testing recoverability

Considerations for multiple OSes and applications

Retention, availability and integrity

Job notifications, alerts and management

About VMware vSphere

VMware backup requirements

Key metrics: RTO and RPO Recovery time objective—The amount of downtime tolerable to get

back up and running. Recovery point objective—The tolerable amount of data loss during an

availability incident.

RTO & RPO

How are requirements going to be met

Bottom line: Confidence in the restore

Leverage the platform for optimized backups

Difference-making technologies

By leveraging the platform, fundamental improvements in data protection can be achieved.

vSphere platform enables changes to be made

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

Restore

Backup

Consideration of image-based backups

Image, agent and file-level backups all different

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

File-level

VMWindows

Agent

Virtual machine design and provisioning

Separation of source and target

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

VMWindows

ESX(i) host(s)

Shared storage resources

Backupsoftware

Organization of backup jobs

Intuitive flow from production source to backup target

Organization in

vSphere with

Folders or

Resource pools

Jobs in backup

Software with the

same name as

folder in vSphere

Folders or shares

on file system with

same names as

backup jobs

vSphere Source Backup Software Backup Target

Design example – vSphere folders

Used as a container for VMs View accessible by selecting

“VMs and Templates” Can also be a parent object for

permissions Can be nested

Design example – backup targets

Good example is a folder or share Caution not to make it too complicated

This again will function as a container

Ensure application consistency

Difference between crash-consistent and application-consistent backups

Quiescing of application critical

VMWindows

Test recoverability

Different than backup verification

Ensure a VMware virtual machine backup is usable

Consideration for multiple OSes and applications

Things are easier in a Windows-only world

Arrange best tools for each platform

Backup retention, availability and integrity

Ensure all requirements are met

Tape offload? VM replication? Backup file replication?

VMWindows

Restore

Backup

Job notifications, alerts and management

Critical for ongoing success

What We Covered

About VMware vSphereBackup requirements and how-toDifference-making technologiesConsiderations of image-based backupsVirtual machine design and provisioning Separation of source and targetOrganization of backupsEnsuring application consistency Testing recoverability Considerations for multiple OSes and applicationsRetention, availability and integrityJob notifications, alerts and management

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