Forum Discussion

dimskiy's avatar
dimskiy
12 years ago

Need some explanation about BE Instant Recovery feature

Hello,

 

I use BE2012 for backing-up vSphere infrastructure and recently have known about feature named "Instant Recovery". But I found completly different explanation of this feature in BE and NetBackup guides:

  • BE admin guide talk about possibility to convert physical server backup into virtual machine with subsequent restore;
  • NetBackup admin guide contain some words about "zero-time" VM recovery using NFS to mount VM directly from backup to desired ESXi. And it's possible to move restored VM to production storage using VMware vMotion.

So I would like to understand - does Backup Exec have NFS-powered Instant Recovery for restoring VM? Or "Instant Recovery" is just a similar name with NetBackup feature, but completely different by sense?

 

Thanks a lot!

2012
Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Features
Restore
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    12 years ago

    Hi,

     

    It's the same as Veeam's Instant Recovery...firing a VM up from a backup. Backup Exec doesn't have this capability. What it can do is convert a physical server into a VM during the backup, and leave it off on VMware. It's then a VM which can be started up from inside VMware, not from a disk-based backup (B2D/dedupe) from within BE.

    I believe that NBU can now fire up servers from within a backup.

    Thanks!

  • CraigV's avatar
    CraigV
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Hi,

     

    It's the same as Veeam's Instant Recovery...firing a VM up from a backup. Backup Exec doesn't have this capability. What it can do is convert a physical server into a VM during the backup, and leave it off on VMware. It's then a VM which can be started up from inside VMware, not from a disk-based backup (B2D/dedupe) from within BE.

    I believe that NBU can now fire up servers from within a backup.

    Thanks!

  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    12 years ago

    Just to explain

    Backup Exec has a P2V function that can be used with a remote agent (traditional) backup to send the backup of a physical System to a VM as well as a backup target device (parallel activity during the Backup Job)

    This would allow you to manually bring up the virtualized copy of one of your physical servers within minutes of you finiding out a physical server has failed. I believe if you combine Backup Exec with one of Symantec High Availabilty offerings you can even automate the process to start the VM copy if the original server fails.

    Unfortunately Backup Exec does not have the same facility for where the backup is a VMware backup in the first place. I suspect this is why the NBU information is different from the Backup Exec information.