Is SAN-to-SAN backup without vCenter possible or is it a requirement?

[MentallyClear]

Hello.

This is a short question that I hope some of you veterans here on the forum can help me with.

A little background as to the environment:
In our environment, we have our production setup which we're about to move to SAN-to-SAN backup from the traditional mode of backing up. This includes vCenter for central management and provides Backup Exec with the extra benefits that there are. All this is going smoothly.

However, we then also have our test environment, running a simple ESXi without vCenter attached to this host. Everything is using the same SAN for storage with different LUNS.

So my question is:

Is SAN-to-SAN backup without vCenter possible or is it a requirement for BackupExec functionality to work?

I can't find a definite answer, however it is hinted at in NetBackup that it is possible and also in earlier versions of Backup Exec 2010 i think. It's just not written down as far as i know or can find, and I'd like to be safe than sorry.
 

Thank you so much in advance for your answers.
 

Best regards,
 

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

While you can backup the VMs by targetting the ESXi hosts directly, it isn't advised. Primarily backups will fail when VMs are vMotioned as BE won't be aware of this. It's basically a static view of the hosts, where targetting the Virtual Center server allows backups to run seamlessly.

If you have a VC, target it...you need it for VMware management and it will make life easier for backups.

I've also added the BE 15 VMware best practices:

https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.HOWTO74443

Thanks!

[pkh]

This is possibly the best write-up on BE SAN backup https://www.veritas.com/community/blogs/lan-free-including-san-backup-configurations-with-backup-exec

[VJware]

vCenter is not a requirement for SAN Transport modes whilst using BE.

[MentallyClear]

Hello all.

Thank you very much for your replies and all the extra information. It's VERY appreiated and you've answered my question and even followup concerns.

Thanks a lot!