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AmadeusJHB's avatar
AmadeusJHB
Level 3
9 years ago

Hyper-V with no shared storage - Backup

Hi all,

I have two physical Hyper-V host servers but no shared storage in play, i.e. the VMs VHDK virtual disks reside on an internal volume inside the Hyper-V hosts on which they are running.

Best practice for SDR (Simplified disaster recovery) of the Hyper-V host is to have a full backup with ALL resources selected so the green SDR indicator remains illuminated.

Question?

Will this full SDR backup duplicate data in the backup process because leaving all selections ticked will back up the volume with the VHDKs and then the VMs again through the Hyper-V options?

Or I gues the question should be...if I deselct the volume that houses the VMDKs from the Full backup, am I still able to rebuild the host server in one simplified disaster recovery process?

 

15
Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
System Recovery Disk
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    9 years ago
    There is no double backup. The VHD's are just backup once. BE is smart enough to know that you are backing VM's. If you deselect anything, then the SDR light will go off, meaning no SDR recovery

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    9 years ago
    There is no double backup. The VHD's are just backup once. BE is smart enough to know that you are backing VM's. If you deselect anything, then the SDR light will go off, meaning no SDR recovery
  • AmadeusJHB's avatar
    AmadeusJHB
    Level 3
    9 years ago

    Thanks PKH,

    One last noobie question, the reccomended backup method for Hyper-V VMs is to go via the Host Hyper-V agent. Are those VMs backed up to their own backup files that are recoverable to any other Hyper-V host so lets say my backup definition only selected the VMs from host 1...could I then use those backups to restore the VM to Host 2 or three for example...?

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    9 years ago

    Yes, you can choose to redirect the VM to another Hyper-V host as well. Just install the remote agent on the other host prior to the restore.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    9 years ago
    Note that when you redirect the restore of a Hyper-V VM to another Hyper-V host, the target host must have the remote agent loaded and it must have a Hyper-V agent licence
  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    9 years ago

    If I recall, an additional Hyper-V Agent license is not needed since the other host is being used for a restore and not a backup.

  • AmadeusJHB's avatar
    AmadeusJHB
    Level 3
    9 years ago

    Thanks guys, I think I'm covered as we own a Capacity licence enabled for 3TB. All of the Hyper-V host servers were added to my BE server by selecting the Hyper-V agent install \ deploy option and ticking the option to install agents on all locally discovered Vms in the one task.