Hyper-V guest Virtual Machine 'live' backup - how to?

[rubberdown]

Hi,

We are running Backup Exec 2010 and wanting to backup our Hyper -V machines to Tape. As we do not have Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V we need to get an appropriate solution to backup our VMs to tape.

Our current solution is to use DiskShadow (Volume Shadow Copy) and then use Robocopy as outlined in the scripts provided below:
http://serverfault.com/questions/55789/command-line-backup-of-running-hyper-v-images-using-volume-s...

However this solution does not seem to work on some VM's - The guest VM is running Windows Server 2008 R2

Is there an alternate way of doing a Hyper-V backup of a machine - i.e. a "live" backup?

Thanks.

[Sush---]

Hello there,
     As far as taking  Live backups of Hyper-V Virtual Machine with Backup Exec you will have to use the Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V.  If you do not have this agent then the only alternate way I can think to take the backups is to install Remote Agent for Windows Server (RAWS) on each Hyper-V Virtual Machine and take backups using RAWS which is as good as taking a backup of any physical machine.

[rubberdown]

Hello Sush,

Thanks for the reply.

a) Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V -

1. would that need to be installed on the Host machine only or every guest machine?
2. Would it allow live backup of any Microsoft OS guest machine (2003, 2008 etc)?

b) Isn't RAWS just a file level backup made from the guest machines?

c) Alternately if a) is not possible (due to cost) we would be looking at possiblity of suspending each machine and do a guest machine backup.

[Sush--- · Accepted solution]

Hello there,
    Here are the answers to your queries:

a) Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V -

     1)Would that need to be installed on the Host machine only or every guest machine?
     Ans: When you get the license key for the  Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V you will have to install that License key in Backup Exec and install the RAWS on the physical machine which has Hyper-V on it ( no need to install RAWS if Hyper-V and Backup Exec are on same machine).
    When RAWS is install on that machine it will automatically query the Hyper-V writers and will show the Virtual machines for backups.
Nothing is required to be done on the Guest mahcine unless you want to use the Application GRT option.
Here is the technote which you can refer about the Best Pratices http://support.veritas.com/docs/340837

2)Would it allow live backup of any Microsoft OS guest machine (2003, 2008 etc)?
     Ans: Yes. It will allow Live backup of Microsoft OS guest machibe (2003, 2008)

b) Isn't RAWS just a file level backup made from the guest machines?
Ans: True thats is required for file level backups but if you have the License keys for any other applications like Exchange, SQL then also RAWS will be required.


If this response answers your queries then mark this as Solution

 

[teiva-boy]

The cost of the virtual agent is equal to about 3 RAWS agents.  But the operational benefits to the virtual agents are well worth more than that!!!

When you are licensed to the virtual agent, you get access to unlimited RAWS agents to install in the virtual guests for VSS operation and collecting metadata related to restores of files/folders.  However 95% of the backup duties is backing up the VHD disk file, and dong it very very fast.  The RAWS agent then catalogs the files and folders, so that when you go to do a recovery, you can restore the entire virtual guest, or just select files/folders.  It's very trick, and works.  Not to mention, the more you virtualize, the cheaper the virtual agent gets ;)

[rubberdown]

Thanks Sush and Teiva-boy for the great answers. A few more queries:

1. 
   If using the Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V, could this backup other VM guests on a different Server over the LAN directly to tape as well? [i.e. Server 1 will have Backup Exec installed with licence for MS Hyper-V agent while host Server 2 and its guest machines will have RAWS installed (?)]
2. Also we have a third Server at a another site - I assume this would be 2 licences of Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V? (expensive pickings at $1788 a licence!

[Sush---]

Hello there,
 
1) If using the Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V, could this backup other VM guests on a different Server over the LAN directly to tape as well? [i.e. Server 1 will have Backup Exec installed with licence for MS Hyper-V agent while host Server 2 and its guest machines will have RAWS installed (?)]
Ans: Yes. You will be able to backup other VM guests on a different Server over the LAN directly to tape also but it would require One more License for Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V.  You will require One license for each Hyper-V host. So I assume if you have 2 Hyper-V host (one on the Backup Exec server and one on the remote server) then you would require 2 license keys for Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V (AMHV)

Here is the Licensing guide which explains the same " http://support.veritas.com/docs/346039 " click on Download Now to download the .pdf file

2) Also we have a third Server at a another site - I assume this would be 2 licences of Backup Exec Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V? (expensive pickings at $1788 a licence!
Ans: If you have a third server hosting Hyper-V then you would require 3 License keys of Backup Exec Agent forMicrosoft Hyper-V (AMHV).
Yes it is a bit expensive but much more cost effective taking a larger picture in view if you want to backup all the Virtual Machines. Otherwise you will have to backups as number of RAWS as the number of Virtual machine and it will be expensive then just buying a Hypre-V agent.

Again I hope this piece of Information helps ...!!!

[rubberdown]

If going down the track of RAWS - would I need to purchase a licence for each virtual machine we have on our Host Hyper-V server?

[Sush---]

If you are planning to backup using RAWS then you will have to buy RAWS licenses according to the number of Vitual machine.

That is, 1 RAWS for 1 VM to be backed up.

Eg: If you have 5 VM on your Hyper-V host then you will have to buy 5 RAWS License to back them by normal RAWS method.
If you decide to backup only 3 VMs from that Hyper-V host then you will have to buy 3 RAWS License keys.


So instead of this you can buy only 1 Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V which gives you the liberty to backup any number of VMs on that Hyper-V host. So in future even if the number of Virtual machines on that Hyper-V increases from 5 to 20 , you do not have to worry about the Licenses.

If this response answers your queries then mark this as Solution

[rubberdown]

Thanks very impressed with the reponsiveness!

[rubberdown]

Hi Sush,

I just tried doing a live backup by choosing the folder my Windows Server 2008 machine was stored at and using the Advanced file open File option (auto selecting the open file technology) and this successfully backed up the entire VM with no fuss.

Is there any negatives of doing the above for all our VM's? I haven't tried this on our Windows 2003 machine though so would be interesting to do that.

Cheers.

[Sush---]

Hi there,
   I am not sure if this backup method will always help. And as that remote server is 2008 it will always use VSS for backups even is Advanced Open file option is selected or not.
   I would like you to confirm if you are able see the .VHD files inside the backed up folder in the restore selection list

[rubberdown]

Hi Sush,

Yes, i was able to see the VHD file and i restored the VM which went fine. The only problem is that when the VM started up it started without using the Hyper-V snapshots which meant windows had to start in a state as if the machine had a hard shutdown done on it (so not a good thing to do for a restored copy of a OS when doing recovery!)

Ideally the restore copy should be imported into Hyper-V and run smoothly so we will be purchasing a BE agent for Hyper-V to sort our back ups. I assume the backed up Hyper-V VMs get "imported" rather than having to use the option of 'create new virtual machine' on MS Hyper-V?