Knowledge Base Article

(Netbackup) VMWare Backup over SAN

Such a great feature to backup your VMWare virtual machines through SAN and you are about to know why

What are the Advantages

1 - The first thing is that (Netbackup for VMWare) supports a wide range of VM Guest OS including Windows Linux as mentioned on

     NB_virtualization_support_7x.pdf  Page No. 11         ==>        Attached

2 - Backing up over SAN is faster and does not impact the ESX host or the LAN as on NBD (Mentioned on "Netbackup For VMWare" Web Seminar

                                                                 NBD

 

                                                                SAN

How can it be done

As from the (Symantec NetBackup ™ for VMware Administrator's Guide UNIX, Windows, and Linux Release 7.0.1)    ==>        Attached

Overview of NetBackup tasks
Install the NetBackup 7.0.1 master server and media server.
     See the NetBackup Installation Guide.

  • Symantec recommends that the NetBackup media server and the VMware backup host be installed on the same host.
  1. Phase 1

          Install the NetBackup 7.0.1 Enterprise Client license on the master server, and install NetBackup

          client 7.0.1 software on the VMware backup host.
 

     2.  Phase 2

          Add the VMware backup host to your NetBackup configuration. See “Adding the VMware backup

          host to the NetBackup configuration” on page 30.
 

     3.  Phase 3
          Set NetBackup access credentials for the VMware vCenter or VirtualCenter (if any), or for VMware

          ESX servers. See “Adding NetBackup credentials for VMware” on page 30.
 

     4.  Phase 4
          Configure incremental backups for VMware. See “Incremental backups must be based on

          timestamps ” on page 34.
 

     5.  Phase 5
          Create a NetBackup policy for VMware. See “Configuring a VMware policy from the Policies node”

          on page 34.
 

     6.  Phase 6
          Perform a backup or restore.
                See “Backing up virtual machines” on page 55.
                See “Restoring individual files” on page 62.
                See “Restoring the full VMware virtual machine” on page 65.
 

     7.  Phase 7
          Recheck the configuration.
                See “Best practices” on page 81.
                See “NetBackup status codes related to VMware” on page 93.

But the Tricky part is the topology

you need to Zone your Veritas Media Server and Both your ESX Servers and Data Store as follows

This can be done by on zone with both of them or a zone with every one separately

 

((((((( Critical note ))))))) 

Before the Zone with the Data Store is made make sure that automount is disabled and Scrubed on your media server

This can be done using diskpart then (automount disable) , (automount scrub)

 

This Configurations was tested for Both Backups and Restores using ESX host Directly with no VCenter

 

Thanks for every one who published how it work (or this article was not to be)

Please feel free to comment or contact me about this article

Ahmed Atef Khalil

Software Consultant (Coca Cola Egypt)

Ahmed.atefkhalil@cocacolaegypt.com

Update

Backup over SAN using VCenter is easier to manage specialy if you are using VMotion

To backup using VCenter i used the same Idea and gave the VCenter it self access to both ESX hosts and the Data Store (((((do not forget the critical note above))))) as Follows

And again this can be done with single zone or more 

 

**** Note ****

If you are using NBU 7 or 7.0.1 i recommend that you upgrade to 7.1

As on NBU 7 and 7.0.1  restoring Virtual Machines with Thin Provisioned Disks may fail to restore through SAN but Still Succeed on NBD

This can be fixed either using NBU 7.1 or opening case with the tecnical support about binary file(ET2022987) mentioned on this link

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH144235&key=57622&actp=LIST

 

Thanks for every one who published how it work (or this article was not to be)

Please feel free to comment or contact me about this article

Ahmed Atef Khalil

Software Consultant (Coca Cola Egypt)

Ahmed.atefkhalil@cocacolaegypt.com

Published 14 years ago
Version 1.0
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Cloud Computing
Configuring
Features
NetBackup
Recovering
Restore
Virtualization

Was this article helpful?

18 Comments

Sort By
  • sethu's avatar
    sethu
    Level 3
    14 years ago

    Hi Ahmed,

    My requirement is to perform file-level backups of the Windows Guest.I wish to backup individual drives and files.

    Im using NBU 7.1 and have a Win2K3 Std installed as guest OS on my ESX4.Used the Veritas Admin guide for VMware for all the configurations.

    But everytime the policy validation fails  with the error " Snapshot could not be created with VMware method" crying.To fix this I even installed the latest VCB driver on my backup host.It didnt help though.

    I can backup the entire VM using ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES succesfully.

    My earlier forum post did not solve the issue.broken heart.Please help.smiley

    Regards.

  • Ahmed_Atef's avatar
    Ahmed_Atef
    Level 2
    14 years ago

    As from the configurations that you posted i do not think that you need VCB

    you can still backup (All Local Drives) and restore (Files)

    all what you have to do is to choose (Mapped full VM backup) from (Snapshot Client Options)

    as mentioned on

    (Symantec NetBackup™ for VMware Administrator's Guide: UNIX, Windows, and Linux) Page (52) Table (3-3)

     

    I did not try this before but your configuration fits to this as you are using ESX 4 ,NBU 7.1 and the client is Win2k3

    so i recommend that after backup try to restore a single file from your desktop for example to make sure that it works

    (Please let me know if it works as i might need to use this feature) 

  • sethu's avatar
    sethu
    Level 3
    14 years ago

    Hi Ahmed,

    Thanks.Yes I have tried the above set-up and this does work fine.

    I realised why my attempt to backup individual files using off-host set-up was failing.

    It was due to my VMware Backup host was Win2K8 R2.When I changed it to win2K3..my file-level backups in offhost set-up are working.smiley

    VCB is required though.Also a mount point must also be mentioned.

    Regards,

    Please let me know if you have any queries.

  • Ahmed_Atef's avatar
    Ahmed_Atef
    Level 2
    14 years ago

    Sorry All

    I mentioned the wrong page and table

    the correct page is (51) table (3 - 2)

    Sethu - thanks for your reply and thanks for trying this and for the mount point hint you mentioned

    but still i am sure that vStorage is able to do file level backup as mentioned on the correct page and table

  • Jim-90's avatar
    Jim-90
    Level 6
    14 years ago

    ((((((( Critical note )))))))  above is VERY important  without that step you will blow away the data you have to back up.    The ESX data store is a Linux-based.  VMware backup/recover server (the NBU media server) must be windows.  Mounting a non-windows dive with automount enable will cause windows to initalise the drive when it does that you have lost the data you had to backup.  Turning automount off is well documented.

    What not well documented is the potential killer of your data ...........

    The default for automount enabled  (W2K8).  From my experience if you apply a Windows maintenance pack automount will go back to the default value.  No guarantees it will always do this as it will depend upon the patches in the patch bundle

  • Nova's avatar
    Nova
    Level 4
    14 years ago

    This is a very good document to help people with setting up VADP (or VCB) backups on a SAN.

    I am deleting the rest of my post, as I am looking for help on VADP backing up VMware over NFS.

    Sorry for wasting anybody's time.

  • javiereyes's avatar
    javiereyes
    13 years ago

    Hi,

    @Ahmed Atef Khalil I didn't understand why you need to zone your veritas media server with your esx servers ? Or i misunderstood ?

    I mean i understand that the media server needs to access to the datastores luns so you only need to zone the veritas media server with the physical storage.

     

    But the Tricky part is the topology

    you need to Zone your Veritas Media Server and Both your ESX Servers and Data Store as follows 

     

    Btw, i really apreciate the article.

    Best regards ..

     

     

     

     

     

  • bijucyborg's avatar
    bijucyborg
    Level 2
    13 years ago

    I hope you are able to gauge the risk involved here. Exposing VMware LUNs to a windows host, and relying on a single option (automount disable) to protect the vmware estate.

    what are the symantec recommendations to mitigate risks??

    If you manage to use Linux for your vmware backup host then this solution would be become quite viable, till then I stronly discourage customers from taking this risk.

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    13 years ago

    It is a fair point.

    But your prayers have been answered with maintenance release 7.5.0.2 and later

    NetBackup for VMware on SLES – delivered in 7.5.0.2

    SLES can now function as a vmware backup host instead of Windows box.