Can you rely on live backups of Exchange and SQL VMs?

Posted on February 4th, 2008 in dr, esx, esxpress, feature comparison, microsoft, vizioncore, vmetc.com, vranger by Rich

One of the engineers from our storage team asked me to join a discussion about whether or not restoring VMs from images made by any of the live VM backup utilities would be a reliable process for a client. I unknowingly joined what was really a battle about whether the client would be better off using SAN based snapshots, host based replication, or live VM imaging specifically for Exchange and SQL VMs. All are proven solutions, and depending on budget, recovery objectives, and service level agreements all solutions could be deployed with confidence. The customer, and this post, is focused on the live VM backup solutions and their reliability for Exchange and SQL. Based on cost of implementation and infrastructure required the VM backup tools are the most affordable and easiest to deploy, but they also leave you with the most uncertainty.

Before continuing I want to point out that normal backup agents still need to be used for Exchange and SQL VMs. Not one of the VM backup solutions can perform application maintenance or specialized backups, like the Exchange Information Store backup for example. Understand that the live VM backup tools only specialize in capturing a quiescent, working image of the VM operating system and application.

First let’s understand what we mean when we say quiescent data. In the latest VMware Virtual Machine Backup Guide quiescing is defined as:

esXpress vs VCB vs vRanger

Posted on December 10th, 2007 in dr, esx, esxpress, feature comparison, vcb, vizioncore, vranger by Rich

Looking for a comparison of VM backup solutions? PHD Technologies, makers of esXpress, have put together a matrix of features comparing how their product stacks up to VMware’s VCB, Vizioncore’s vRanger, and even vRanger integrated with VCB.

Check it out online in original form here.

I have saved the matrix as a stand alone page as well.

updated 12-11-07 *****

After reading comments from readers I realized

Live VM backups from a VM - esXpress VBA

Posted on September 12th, 2007 in appliance, dr, esxpress, sol exchange, vmworld by Rich

You don’t have the budget for the required infrastructure of VCB backups? Try esXpress from PHD technologies. I mean literally, try their free 30 day, fully functioning, fully supported demo that can back up live VMs to a dedicated VMFS partition, an FTP server, or both! After the 30 days you can continue to perform daily full backups for FREE!

Once you install it on all your ESX hosts, you can configure the backups from a basic console GUI or integrated within the VI client connected to the VC2 server.