Server virtualization has crossed the proverbial chasm. Not long ago, when deploying new servers, one had to justify making them virtual, rather than physical. Now, IT managers in many organizations have decreed “virtual first” policies, requiring new server deployments to be virtual unless there is specific justification for a physical server. Alas, for all its goodness, virtualization creates a number of new storage and data management issues. One big problem area is backup. Backup techniques from the physical server world don’t work very well in a VM environment. Why?
This is a great article. We just want to add some more information to this topic. DriveHQ.com published a very detailed technical documentation about the best practices to backup virtual machines. Please visit the DriveHQ support page:
Using DriveHQ's online backup solution to backup virtual machines, you can achieve:
(1) Minimize the amount of data to be backed up;
(2) Faster to restore;
(3) Lower cost;
(4) Be able to restore individual files and folders;
(5) Minimize the chance of data corruption and the impact of data corruption.
(6) More flexible. You can restore VMs on to different physical servers.
I agree with hughman. Rectiphy ActiveImage Protector does everything in the list -- picking-and-choosing VMs to back up, low-impact, schedule-savvy, etc. Virtual backup is no longer the bugaboo the article bites nails about.
This article seems to assume that there is no current solution for virtual backups....
One such solution, EMC Avamar, seems to fit every specific requirement in the article. In fact, look at what VMware themselves use for backup! There are other emerging solutions out there, but Avamar has been written for virtualised environments and has been doing so for many years now...
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The Virtual Machine Backup-and-Recovery Conundrum
Posted by: Mark Davis May 12, 2010 05:00 AMServer virtualization has crossed the proverbial chasm. Not long ago, when deploying new servers, one had to justify making them virtual, rather than physical. Now, IT managers in many organizations have decreed “virtual first” policies, requiring new server deployments to be virtual unless there is specific justification for a physical server. Alas, for all its goodness, virtualization creates a number of new storage and data management issues. One big problem area is backup. Backup techniques from the physical server world don’t work very well in a VM environment. Why?
http://www.drivehq.com/bbs/getmsg.aspx/bbsID110/msg_id54348823/ref_id0/page1#0
Using DriveHQ's online backup solution to backup virtual machines, you can achieve:
(1) Minimize the amount of data to be backed up;
(2) Faster to restore;
(3) Lower cost;
(4) Be able to restore individual files and folders;
(5) Minimize the chance of data corruption and the impact of data corruption.
(6) More flexible. You can restore VMs on to different physical servers.
One such solution, EMC Avamar, seems to fit every specific requirement in the article. In fact, look at what VMware themselves use for backup! There are other emerging solutions out there, but Avamar has been written for virtualised environments and has been doing so for many years now...