VM /ETC

Posts Tagged ‘veeam’

Tom Howarth, VMware Communities Moderator and blogger at PlanetVM.net, posted this week how he was informed by a developer of a virtualization backup vendor about a scenario involving reverting to an ESX snapshot that results in corrupted incremental backups when using vSphere’s Change Block Tracking (CBT). Howarth’s post Major issue with Change Block Tracking recounts his conversation and exploration of the problem with the developer. In summary, Howarth reported “there is a major issue with the way VMware handles the indexing of the ChangeID.”

Almost a week later and after a flurry of comments from most of the vendors leveraging CBT for virtual machine backups, VMware has published a KB article on the subject.

VMware KB: Reverting to a pre-existing snapshot under specific conditions can cause incremental backups based on CBT (Changed Block Tracking) to become inconsistent

The KB Article describes the exact scenario that causes the problem:

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The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “Nothing endures but change.” Isaac Asimov, commonly considered the greatest science fiction mind ever, said “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today.” As a host of the podcast Virtumania, I nonchalantly signify a change in conversation with “Here Goes Nothin’” at the start of every new episode.

Now I’m about to start a new episode in my technical career and life, and although the opportunity is a result of the “Virtumania” I am (we are all) a part of, it is definitely not an lackadaisical new start.

I am excited to say “Here Goes Somethin’ !” to a great new opportunity with Veeam Software.

Veeam Senior Systems Engineer Southeast

On Monday April 26, 2010 I start as a Senior Systems Engineer for Veeam in the Southeast U.S. Region. I’ll be joining

David Sile’s team of world wide engineers responsible for partner training, customer proof of concepts, product pre sales and support, and spreading overall Veeam evangelism.

I’ve been fortunate to get to know David, Doug, and many of the Veeam team at conferences and events over the past few years, and I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about getting to work for and with such a great company, such great engineers, and a great group of people.

I believe there is big things in the future ahead at Veeam Software, and I’m appreciative to get the chance to become a part of their success.

Thanks for everything

It was not an easy choice to decide to leave my team and friends at Softchoice Optimus Solutions. I have laughed with and learned from a great group there. We all know we spend more time with our co workers than any one else during the day, and this is sincerely a bittersweet change for me. Knowing that I am leaving a Veeam Gold Partner that I will now get to support in my territory made the decision a little easier, believe it or not. I will stay in touch.

Hello Veeam Partners and customers in the Southeast!

I can’t wait to get to know all of the great partners and customers (both current and future) in the territory. Let me know who and where you are!

How does this impact VM /ETC and Virtumania?

It doesn’t from my perspective! Veeam is encouraging me to keep my personal activities independent and I’m thankful for that. Although it has not been officially discussed, maybe I’ll contribute posts to VeeamMeUp.com from time to time when inspired. – frankly I’m not sure if that’s an option or not. Maybe I’ll start my own separate Veeam centric blog. The point is that this blog and my podcast will remain as independent as possible.

Like my co host Marc Farley (3PAR), on the Virtumania Podcast I’ll continue to talk about virtualization from the operational perspective. I expect to still be in data centers helping with different virtual infrastructure solutions on a regular basis. I’ll have plenty of inspiration!

Here Goes Something’

So, like so many others already in 2010, I’m announcing a change. If you ask me it’s hardly nothin’.

In VIRTUMANIA Episode 6 we take on the topic of virtualization backups once again, but this time we focus on full image virtual machine backups in a more detail with the guys from Veeam. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 6 - The Mean Green Veeam Team. Hosted by Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC. Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com co hosts and guests are Doug Hazelman (@vmdoug) and David Siles (@dsiles) of Veeam. Veeam’s blog can be found at www.veeammeup.com. The discussion starts with Veeam’s Surebackup technology details and then moves on to several VM backup topics such as using VSS in full VM image backups, tips about designing virtual infrastructure for VM backups, options when backing up VMs hosted on blade servers, whether there is still a need for backup agents in a VM, and general information about being a virtualization ISV. Thanks to Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) for this Infosmack Production.

Help us out and be sure to ask @VMDoug when the on location podcasts in St. Petersburg, Russia will happen.  For Veeam customers, listen for the new licensing announcement to get the new Surebackup feature at no additional cost!

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

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Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the VM Backup topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 6:

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Previously, all we knew about Veeam’s Surebackup was there was a public countdown in process. That countdown reached 0:00 early March 22, 2010 (this morning). Veeam sent emails to those who preregistered and then provided a press release shortly after. The countdown was for the introduction of a unique feature for verifying VM restores that will soon be introduced in the next version of Veeam Backup and Replication.

Here’s the information from my email for those that did not sign up to be notified:

Breakthrough Technology: Test and Verify the Recoverability of EVERY Backup

Veeam is enhancing the SureBackup™ capabilities in Veeam Backup & Replication™ with a breakthrough technology that overcomes the final obstacle of image-level backups. IT professionals will have the ability to verify the RECOVERABILITY of EVERY backup of EVERY virtual machine EVERY time. It’s never been possible before.

SureBackup introduces a new patent-pending technology that allows IT professionals to run a virtual machine directly from a compressed backup file.

By publishing the content of backup files directly to ESX hosts, you can:

• Eliminate the need to extract backup files
• Test and verify EVERY backup in a matter of minutes, without affecting backup windows
• Perform recoverability testing without additional hardware or staff

The same technology also allows for item-level restore for any virtualized application, on any OS (patent-pending).

This exciting new technology will be made available in version 5.0 of Veeam Backup & Replication, scheduled for release this summer.

Sound too good to be true? Join us for a free webinar on Wednesday, March 24 at 2:00pm EDT to find out more. Live Webinar – Register Now!

Can’t wait? Go to www.veeam.com/surebackup NOW!

I was actually invited to Veeam’s pre release blogger briefing over the weekend, and the rest of this post is my notes and thoughts about what I learned during briefing.

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ESXi doesn’t have a Service Console like ESX. Therefore, you can’t SSH to the server without entering unsupported mode. That process may be a hassle if all you need to do is modify VM configuration files. Of ourse, you could use the Datastore Browser from the VI/vSphere Client, but to make file edits you would have to download a file to your desktop, edit it, and then upload the changed version back to ESXi again. On the other hand, with Veeam’s free FastSCP editing files on ESXi datastores is easy.

To be clear, you can’t edit configuration files of the ESXi host itself with FastSCP, but there really should not be a need to do so. That’s one of the benefits of ESXi not having a Service Console!

Download FastSCP here. You will have to register with Veeam first, and the registration form will not accept a personal email. I’m guessing there is some kind of lead qualification strategy and support registration involved with this requirement for download, but I learned a work address is unavoidable. I tried to use my gmail address but received a message similar to “you must use a company email address.” The registration process ends with a confirmation email to be acknowledged before you can download, so making up a fake email is futile. Hey, it’s a small price to pay for a free, quality admin tool.

After you install FastSCP you’ll discover you have access to a trial period of Veeam Backup and Replication. I suggest exploring

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If comparing the v12n community to a religion makes sense, then using Sir Issac Newton’s Laws of Motion to explain Veeam Global “Scientist” Doug Hazelman’s guest post on the Windows Virtualization Team Blog shouldn’t be a stretch either. Hazelman, one of the VM /ETC Q2 UGH recipients, announced the following in the post R2 Veeam Too:

“While Veeam has continued to build some of the best software for data protection and management of VMware infrastructures, we realize that customers are now faced with more virtualization choices. By fully supporting Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware vSphere, Veeam can help you manage heterogeneous hypervisor deployments and clouds with the innovative solutions you’ve come to expect from Veeam. The management and R&D teams at Veeam have a long history of working with Microsoft going back to the Aelita days, and we’re all excited to be working with Microsoft again.”

Imagine your favorite Physics teacher or professor at the chalkboard in an UGLY GREEN lab coat explaining:

Newton’s Laws of Motion are:

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Alex Barrett’s SearchServerVirtualization.com VMware clampdown on free ESXi may prompt defection to Hyper-V article presents VMware’s reasons for making a request to Veeam to stop supporting Veeam Backup with the free ESXi versions. Quoting the interview from Barrett’s story:

“We provide certain APIs [application programming interfaces] and methods particular to the virtualization environment,” said Patrick Lin, the vice president of product management for VMware’s server business unit. By offering access to the hypervisor via a preferred set of APIs, “our intent is to provide a level playing field in the basis of backup,” he said.

But Veeam did not use VMware-approved methods to develop its product, said Parag Patel, VMware’s vice president of alliances. “We’re not exactly sure what they did, but it didn’t seem sound,” Patel said. “For us it’s a question of what’s built and how it’s built. … To be perfectly honest, we didn’t want to be associated with it because it wasn’t satisfactory.”

Perhaps more to the point, Veeam Backup is inconsistent with VMware’s vision of free ESXi deployments. “It’s meant to be a starter … walk before you run,” Patel said. “It’s not supposed to be for complex software environments.” With free ESXi, “you shouldn’t need a whole lot of other tools to make it work.” If you do, you are free to upgrade.

On the other hand, Barrett’s interview also helps confirm the idea that VMware does not wish
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