VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘vcb’

I received an email today from VMware addressed to all customers about the end of availability for VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB). Quoting from the beginning of the communication but not the entire message, it reads:

“The purpose of this letter is to inform you of our vSphere backup product strategy, ongoing enhancements, and end of availability plans for VMware Consolidated Backup.

VMware Backup Product Strategy
VMware released vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) with the vSphere 4.0 release in May, 2009. VADP is the next generation of VMware’s backup framework. We have also been working with several backup partners to integrate VADP into their solutions to make backup of vSphere Virtual Machines fast, efficient and easy to deploy compared to VCB and other backup solutions. Several of our major backup partners have already released VADP integrated backup products and we expect most of the major backup partners to have VADP integrated backup software by the upcoming feature release of the vSphere platform in 2010.

Future Product Licensing
Given the strong interest and adoption of VADP by our backup eco-system and the benefits offered by VADP compared to VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), we are announcing the End of Availability for VCB starting with next vSphere feature release in 2010. Starting with the next vSphere platform feature release, VCB will be removed from vSphere platform. VADP integrated backup products (including VMware Data Recovery) will be the recommended option for efficient backup and restoration of vSphere Virtual Machines. This will allow us to focus new value added feature development on VADP instead of two backup frameworks (VCB and VADP).”

[omited]

I’ll go out on a limb and say that most of the VMware community will

Read the rest of this entry »

VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) is included with VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 Enterprise Edition, but I’ve blogged before how VCB can be misunderstood as the complete solution for virtual machine (VM) backup. Furthermore, VCB’s scripting and command line interface can be a surprise for system administrators who are used to and expecting a GUI and scheduler. Mostly for these reasons, VCB is usually implemented integrated with traditional agent based backup solutions or virtualization third party VM backup products. However, for those that want to try a pure VCB solution in their virtual infrastructure there are a couple of free ecosystem developed tools that claim to provide GUI features and ease of use enhancements.

This post provides some basic information on 2 free VCB tools – VCB Wrangler and vbcMC Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for some good information about backing up VMware virtual machines (VMs)? Researching or planning for VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) or third party solutions like PHDVirtual esXpress that enhance the VCB functionality? PCPRO Magazine has combined an article I wrote last October with a related work from author/blogger/VMTN Guru Eric Siebert into a free E-guide titled What You Need to Know about Virtual Machine Backup that is worth the download. After a quick registration with Bitpipe.com, (Bitpipe and SearchDataBackup.com are both TechTarget.com sites) you’ll have access to a 9 page PDF that is an easy read full of useful, real world VM backup implementation advice.

If you did not know already, Bitpipe provides access to great virtualization industry articles and whitepapers on as well as many other technologies. I subscribe and get an email notification from Bitpipe full of great research links daily.

Here is more about the E-Guide from the download page: Read the rest of this entry »

New in the latest version of ESX 3.5 is an experimental Service Console script called the VMDK Recovery Tool. Since it’s Console based, it’s not available in ESXi. The Update 3 Release Notes say the following about it:

Experimental Support for the VMDK Recovery Tool — This release adds support for the VMDK Recovery tool, a script intended to help customers to recover VMFS/vmdk data stores from accidental deletion of VMFS/vmdk data store or physical disk corruption. For more information, see VMDK Recovery Tool (ESX 3.5 Update 3) ( KB 1007243).

KB 1007243 explains the script function as follows:

Use the VMDK Recovery Tool to:

Create a “block list” of your VMDK files. The block list file is a plain text file that keeps a record of all VMDKs of the virtual machines.

Recover VMDK files if they become deleted, or if the VMFS datastore gets deleted or corrupted.

Undelete VMDKs? Recover corrupted or deleted VMFS data stores? Reading KB 1007243 a little further reveals you can back up and restore VMs too – either specify which one you want to back up or pick all the registered VMs on the host. The script asks you to specify the directory path to use for saving backups and the destination path for restoring from backups.

Sounds to me like this script could become a “super VCB” without the extra server requirements? It seems much simpler anyways. It will be interesting to see how this script is developed and exactly how much disk space the block list and backup files consume.

I wrote a tip for TechTarget.com’s new SearchDataBackup site. Five things backup administrators should know about VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) walks through some high level planning details for backup administrators considering new options for data and server protection for systems running on virtual infrastructure. The tip talks about why VCB is not the entire backup solution, provides VCB storage and server requirements, discusses the VCB Holding Tank’s role, explains why you still need third party backup agents, and provides and overview for the process of restoring virtual machines and files with VCB.

Check out the whole tip at the link above, and while you are there sign up with SearchDataBackup for great information about data protection and disaster recovery options for both physical and virtual servers.

vmware, vcb, techtarget, searchdatabackup, dr, backup

I had to miss my 9:30 am scheduled session because I was delayed finishing up the General Session post. Luckily VMworld has different sessions on the top and bottom of each hour this year. I think the staggered availability of sessions is a great idea, and it was perfect for my scenario this morning. I am actually more interested in VMware’s Linux strategy anyways. My power is low on my notebook, so this may start as a live blog but my battery might not make it.

Once again the legal disclaimer about forward technologies, but the presenter tells us he can’t give dates … hmmm.

VMware’s Linux strategy is focused along 2 vectors:

• Ensure it is the best platform for linux workloads
• Ensure customers have a wide variety of platform choices to deploy VMware

Here’s the Linux Initiatives at VMware Read the rest of this entry »

A critical piece of the migration to virtual infrastructure is the consideration of how to backup the new virtual machines and the data they contain. Although switching to a full VM backup strategy is desirable, the reality of the required tape or disk media needed to support the large backup file sizes causes companies to continue to use the existing physical environment’s agent based backup.

However, Vizioncore and Datadomain offer a feasible backup solution using commonly available IP based storage that should make IT departments with even the tightest budgets look twice. Combining deduplication with LAN based VM backups to CIFS shares or NFS mounts, this solution provides a cost effective transition to full VM backups with minimal storage space consumed. Datadomain and Vizioncore established a certified partnership for VMware infrastructure in September of 2007 and therefore provide established solutions with technologies proven to work well together.

The image to the right was taken from Vizioncore’s solution .pdf titled Cost Efective Backup & Recovery & Storage for Virtualized Environments with Vizioncore Solutions and Data Domain Deduplication Appliances. The .pdf provides an overview of the design as well as recommendations for ensuring performance. This diagram illustrates a solution for not only VMs but also physical servers backed up as VMs by vRanger Pro’s P2V-DR feature.

To provide more specifics about this solution’s possibilities Read the rest of this entry »