Forum Discussion

Eduman's avatar
Eduman
Level 2
8 years ago

Remote agent re-use between physical and virtual servers

Good Afternoon All, We are going to virtualise their environment in a few months. Following a server failure we've bought into BKUPExec 16 but I'm not getting much luck in finding the most cost effi...
16
remote agent
Remote Agents
Virtual Server
Windows Server 2016
  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    8 years ago

    Using the host as the BE server is fine BUT

    If using the Synology NAS devices in NAS mode (and not iSCSI/SAN mode) then workgroup security can cause problems with configuring access to a disk based backup targets over shares. In order of recommendatation  it is therefore preferable to use an iSCSI setup if you can, and then a domain security model if you can't and then trying workgroup security if that fails (unless you are already sure you can get workgroup security to work)

    You can continue to use remote agent backups in the way you currently do but you massively miss out on the advantages of Virtual Agent backups if you do.

    Although it is possible that workgroup security and Hyper-V agent backups would not be very easy to get working as well. (I am not really placed to confirm this point)

    Overall you should probably setup some kind of proof of concept of what you trying to do.

Eduman's avatar
Eduman
Level 2

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the quick reply. The plan was to have the hyper-v host server as the backup machine using the exisiting Synology NAS boxes here as the backup destination.

The host itself would be in a workgroup but of course the VMs would be domained. Would the host be able to backup the VMs using the standard remote agent(s)?

Eduman

Colin_Weaver's avatar
Colin_Weaver
Moderator
8 years ago

Using the host as the BE server is fine BUT

If using the Synology NAS devices in NAS mode (and not iSCSI/SAN mode) then workgroup security can cause problems with configuring access to a disk based backup targets over shares. In order of recommendatation  it is therefore preferable to use an iSCSI setup if you can, and then a domain security model if you can't and then trying workgroup security if that fails (unless you are already sure you can get workgroup security to work)

You can continue to use remote agent backups in the way you currently do but you massively miss out on the advantages of Virtual Agent backups if you do.

Although it is possible that workgroup security and Hyper-V agent backups would not be very easy to get working as well. (I am not really placed to confirm this point)

Overall you should probably setup some kind of proof of concept of what you trying to do.

  • Eduman's avatar
    Eduman
    Level 2
    8 years ago

    We're using ISCSI currently yes so the server(s) control the permissions. 

    Who would be the best team to contact regarding the pricing of virtual vs physical agents please? Perhaps we can keep limping along here using manual backups (BeyondCompare) in the meantime.

    • Colin_Weaver's avatar
      Colin_Weaver
      Moderator
      8 years ago

      You should speak to a reseller for quotes (or perhaps our customer care, but they do not monitor these forums)

      • LuMags's avatar
        LuMags
        Level 1
        8 years ago

        Hi All,

        Glad I found this as we're in a similar situation of going phys to virtual. I've been digging around and I've been advised to look at

        14212-M0009     BACKUP EXEC AGENT FOR VMWARE AND HYPER-V WIN 1 HOST SERVER ONPREMISE STANDARD LICENSE + BASIC MAINTENANCE BUNDLE INITIAL 12MO ACD                           - apx £750

         

        14209-M0009     BACKUP EXEC AGENT FOR WIN 1 SERVER ONPREMISE STANDARD LICENSE + BASIC MAINTENANCE BUNDLE INITIAL 12MO ACD                                                                                          - apx £250

         

        I dont know if these take into account the fact we've already got a license for BKUPExec and just need to add on agents to it. A bit like Eduman's proposed setup we've got a Host on a workgroup and VMs as a domain within that.

        However, we're wondering if making the host part of the domain will help matters - namely for ease of access for data traffic and ISCSI targets we have here.

        Any suggestions on how we should go about licensing for our scenario? Do we need Hyper-V licenses or can we just use a regular agent deployed the same as you would to a physical but to a virtual server? Can I get a trial to try this somewhere???

        Thank you in advance,

        Lu