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Backup vSphere virtual machines without snapshot

VictorRuiz
Level 2

Hello everybody,

I have a environment with backup exec 2010 R3 and vSphere 4.1. I have the backupexec agent installed on the Vcenter server.

I have a virtual machine with a large disk (2 TB) and I want to backup the virtual machine to tape without do a snapshot. vSphere requires a large disk to perform the snapshot and it fails whe I run the backup from BackupExec. Is there any way to perform a backup witouh do the snapshot? The virtual machine is off and I don't need to do the snapshot, only want to copy the files from the ESX server to the tape. How can I do it?

Thanks in advance

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

No there is no agent to install on the ESXi server.

Copy the VMDK to another machine (with fastscp), then you can mount it on another server, for example see here:
http://www.vladan.fr/mounting-your-vmdk-disks-directly-to-your-windows-box-how-to/

View solution in original post

6 REPLIES 6

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

The only way will be a traditional agent backup. Offcourse this is not possible when the server is turned off.

Sush---
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Backup Exec uses Vstorage API to take the backups of VMs and as VStorage API will take a snapshot of the VM then only it will be able to backup.

What you are asking is probably out of scope of BE.

But as you said that you just need the VHD files on tapes, then what you can try is somehow copy the VHD files on local hard disk and then take a backup of those copied VHD files to tape. But remember during restore this will NOT be restored as VM but just a flat file and then you will have to export it to the ESX.

 

Thanks,

-Sush...

VictorRuiz
Level 2

Thank you for your replies.

Then, is there any agent that I can install on the ESXi server? or maybe the only solution is copying manually (or with any script like ghettobackup)  to another location where I can backup the file system?

 

Sush---
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

No. There is no any supported agent that can be installed on the ESX server and used for backups.

 

Thanks,

-Sush...

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

No there is no agent to install on the ESXi server.

Copy the VMDK to another machine (with fastscp), then you can mount it on another server, for example see here:
http://www.vladan.fr/mounting-your-vmdk-disks-directly-to-your-windows-box-how-to/

VictorRuiz
Level 2

Ok! thank you for your replies. I will try to find another way to do the backup...

 

Regards