Only run one job at once

[Andrew_Suckling]

Hi

I am running CPS and have 4 jobs that backup 4 VM host servers. I shutdown the guests on the host servers and use Volume Shadow Copy services to make and mount a snapshot. I then restart the guests. I then backup the mounted snapshots using CPS to my backup server. I would like to have all the jobs running at the same time but they will not do this.

The first job starts running an then the other jobs start. The other 3 jobs seem to sit there idling. Once one job finishes the next will start to backup data. Is there any way to ensure that all run at once?

The CPS server is a Dell PE2850 with 4Gb of RAM attached to a DELL MD1000 disk array with 4Tb of storage of SAS drives. The host servers are a mixture of

Dell PE2650 2K3 SP1 8Gb ram
Dell PE2850 2K3 SP1 8Gb ram
Dell PE2950 2K3 SP1 16Gb ram

Any ideas would be most appreciated

[Conny_Lindquist]

Why do you do it that way?

Why not setup 4 jobs as "continues" and make the snapshot on the destination disk instead?

Or did I get you wrong?

Personaly I shut off shadow copy function on the servers I wanna backup and use CPS to do all the work.

Just pointing to the directories I want and let the jobs go on "continues" and make snapshots every hour almost 24/7 on the CPS destination disk.

Works fine...

[Andrew_Suckling]

These files are 100Gb and have to be closed to backup in a consistent state. What you suggest is not an option I don't think.

[Andrew_Suckling]

Actually you may have an idea there. I can run the jobs as continuous and shutdown the VMs long enough to do a snapshot of the data on the CPS server. Is that what you were driving at?

[Conny_Lindquist]

Ahh ok.. Now I see what your doing... Your actually doing a backup of the VM servers almost like making a ghost copy?

I am not to familiar with VM servers but rather backup data on each of our physical servers... and we only backup data made by our users... not operating systems and such...

Making a continues job on a 100GB file could be a ... well... difficult task... I havnt tried it... hehehe

Anyway... the CPS main feature is the continues function... ie. take backups as soon as anything change and move it to a backup location on disc. On that disc you then make the snapshots wich you later move on to tape... (then you avoid using shadow copy functions on the servers themselfs).. atleast thats how we use it... How that will work on 100GB files however is a totaly different matter... I guess that that file will change constantly and thus forcing the cps engine to work like nuts... hehehe

Correct me if I missunderstood you... VM for me means Virtual Machines... ie several servers on one hardware machine... if thats the case you are better off setting up a second hardware machine and mirror them... instead of using CPS... preferably on 2 physically different locations... :)

[Andrew_Suckling]

Yep you got it.

I have been playing with a solution that uses Volume Shadow Copy services. Each of my virtual machines sits on its own volume. At 9pm I use a vbscipt to shutdown one machine at a time and then use Volume Shadow Copy services to take a snapshot of the 'dead' files. This snapshot is then presented as an exposed snapshot (drive letter). The VM guest is then restarted. The script then moves onto the next VM guest on the host. Takes around 2 mins for each guest.

Once all the VM guests are mounted I use CPS to replicate the differences in the mounted read only container files to my backup server. I then write the data to tape. The real advantage is that if I loose a complete host or a single VM there is no real rebuild time. I have the VMserver software installed on the backup server so it is a redundant host that I can fire up the server on immediately.

We have in the region of 25 guests in each of our data centres in Brisbane and Hong Kong. For 2 minutes downtime per virtual server we get the ghost type backup you suggested.