Backup Exec and VSS for "Previous Versions"

[Meg_G]

Hello

I have a number of Windows 2008 R2 servers that I am using Backup exec 2010 R3 to backup to tape nightly.  I'm am looking at implementing hourly snapshots during business hours to protect data from accidental deletion, file over writes etc.

Is anyone using the two of these technologies together?  Anything I should be concerned about?  Note that most of these servers are in a VMWare environment, and I do NOT have the advanced open file option.  Should I upgrade to 2012?

Thanks

[CraigV]

Hi Meg,

Unless BE 2012 as an upgrade is on your roadmap for the next couple of months, I'd suggest holding off on this till Symantec release BE 2012 R2 (which has started the Beta intake!). It's going to fix a lot of what was deemed wrong with BE 2012 initially.

VSS would be used by Windows, whereas the snapshot you're talking about will be done with VMware. As long as you configure your backup to use the Automatic assignment if using AOFO in your job, you should be fine. Otherwise you can always set this to the Microsoft option.

Not sure what version of ESX you're using, but I have seen snapshot issues with vSphere 4, and we ended up upgrading to vSphere 4.1 to alleviate this. Snapshots would be taken with a 3rd party application and come time to release them, they'd hang the VM until the snapshot was committed.

Thanks!

[Meg_G]

Thanks for the quick response.  If I do intend on upgrading, I will definitely wait.

I'm running ESX 4.1 U2. and ESXi 4.1 U1.  However, I should explain further...

For my files servers I do not backup the VMs, but backup the Windows systems like they are regular physical machines.  For several reasons:

1 - Prestaging is slow as molassas coming from tape.  Huge pain when I need to restore 1 50MB file from 300GB of data.
2 - They are prmiarly file servers.  It takes me less time to clone a 2k8 VM, join it to the domain, recover flat files from tape, right click and share the stuff out than it does go through the hassle and headaches of recovering OS images that are "in tact".
3 - This is how it was setup when I started working here.  I am completely revamping the VMware/server environment in the next 6-12 months for offsite data mirroring, D-D-T, vmotion, etc. etc., but in the meantime I just want an extra measure of protection from human error throughout the day.

My primary concern is that utilizing the Windows VSS writer with Backup exec may interfere with my hourly VSS snapshots for "previous versions".

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

Sorry Meg, not sure why I didn't respond here...

1. Prestaging WILL take a while if you're doing a GRT backup of a VM (or Exchange as another example) to tape as your primary location, as opposed to disk. It's duplicating the data from tape to disk first, before restoring anything. Ideally you want to backup to disk first, and then duplicate to tape. Your restores would be faster as a result as the data is already on disk.

2. As above...

3. Not sure on this...the only way around this is to test it if possible.

Thanks!