(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.
- 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