cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Which Agent for Virtual Servers

Greg-Symbackup
Level 2

Hi all

Just joined the forum as I'm about to purchase Symantec Backup Exec and I was told I need to also purchase an agent that will backup the two virtual servers that will be running across two DL380 servers.

I have two questions that I hope you guys or girls can help me with:

1) What agent do I need to purchase for Symantec Backup Exec 2014 that will backup the two virtual servers that I will have?

2) One of those virtual servers will be hosting the backup server.  I have heard mixed opinions regarding having the backup server on a virtual machine.  Do you think I should ideally purchase another physical server soley for back purposes?  Seems a waste of $$ and my budget it tight.

Thanks for any feedback and help.

 

8 REPLIES 8

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Installing BE on a virtual machine is perfectly fine as long as you are not backing up to a tape-based storage.

VMs can be backed up in 2 ways. One is using the Remote Agent for Windows which backs up the VM as if it is a physical machine and the other is the Agent for VMware & Hyper-V license which backs up the VM as it is (virtual). The second license is beneficial especially when you have multiple VMs to backup.

Greg-Symbackup
Level 2

Thanks for the quick response.  I have ordered HP LTO 6.  Will that be an issue?

Thanks again

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Installing BE on the virtual host / physical server and connected to a HP tape unit - Not a problem.

Installing BE on a VM and connected to a HP tape unit - Not completely supported. Have a look @ this KB for more details - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH130609

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

If you are using a Hyper-V host, then you should install BE on the host, provided it is not using a core OS.  This way you can use your tape drive which is phyiscally connnected to the host.

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...if this is VMware and you want to install BE onto a VM, then I guarantee you're going to have the following issues:

1. Connecting the tape library and configuring it. You need to use a specific type of card to do this...

2. The VM will not VMotion at all.

3. if you run into issues where the library drops out of the VM's OS, then you'll need to restart the host after putting it into Maintenance Mode.

Thanks!

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Just for info I belive that the statement in TECH130609 and the possibility of using Adaptec SCSI cards applies to ESX 3.5 documentation from VMware and the equivalent documentation (for 4.x and 5.x) no longer covers support for tape drive access.  For more information read http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH70246 (which is actually linked at the bottom of TECH130609

 

 

As such the Alternative Configuration statements apply and this basically means that if there is a problem with tape drive access or usage that it would be down to the administrator of the end environment to prove that that problem also exists if the media server was physical for us to suppport the issue.

There is one potentially supported configuration (which we would at least take to engineering if there were issues) if you have an iSCSI capable tape device that is listed on our HCL as tested with an iSCSI connection then this would be supported with a virtual media server unless detailed investigations identify something that cannot be addressed. Note we do mean the tape device (drive/library) itself provides iSCSI, this does NOT mean it would be supported to use software iSCSI on a separate piece of hardware and attach the tape device to this hardware.

Dilippatel
Level 2

Answer on Question 1: You Need Hyper-V backup agent license. Licensing is per 1 Virtual host 1 License is required to take backup of Vm’s.

 Answer on Question 2: Ideally for long term design is to keep backup servers separate. But in your query you have mention that you have only 2 vm’s so you can use your Virtual host server as a backup exec Media server.

If you use Virtual host server as a media server then in feature you can connect tape library without any issue.

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Yes you can use the Virtual host server as your backup server BUT it must be runnning Hyper-V - if you are running VMware/ESX this is not possible