Tape backup in VMware infrastructure, need help

[Yannick_Gagne]

Hi,

we are planning a new VMware setup and I need some help to plan my tape backup solution.

Here's the setup ;

2 ESX host
1 vCenter (Backup Exec 2012 and tape backup is on this server)
1 SAN (ESX host are connected to it through SAS)

On the SAN we have one volume that is the main shared folder in our LAN, I want to backup all of it. Full backup friday night and incremental the rest of the week. That volume is shared by one VM to the users and contains about 800GB.

Should I connect my vCenter server to the SAN and expose the volume so backup exec could see it? Or is there a better way with the vmware agent.

Other data on VMs will be backed up through RAWS.

Any help or clue will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[CraigV]

Hi,

Check the TN below...it mentions only FC/iSCSI SANs, so whether or not it will work with a SAS array is another story. It has most of your questions answered in this:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH183072

Also refer too:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH155831

Thanks!

[teiva-boy]

SAS is not typically considered a "SAN," but more so a DAS.  I know you could even do this with some shareable SCSI arrays like an MD1000 from Dell or HP MSA arrays, but it was very limiting.

That said, keep in mind that VMware to tape with BackupExec means no GRT.  Now if you do backup to disk and then duplicate to tape, you will be in a good position to get the cool features of BackupExec working.

[Colin_Weaver]

VMware to tape DOES NOT mean no GRT, just means you have to have a staging area on disk available for the restore and it will be a slow restore process.

[Yannick_Gagne]

How about using RAWS to backup everything?

[CraigV]

...not sure why nobody replied, but RAWS will work, although give you a file-level backup.

Thanks!