Backup SQL Databases in VM using Netbackup VCB

[oughck]

hi all,

need your valued advice here. I have several MS SQL databases residing in my VMs. Customer has decided to backup the VMs using VCB. I am enquiring if the database will be consistent if it is backed up in such a manner. I am using Netbackup 6.5.5.

thanks all.

[lu]

We had many problems with Vmware snapshots and SQL databases, like database crashes. So we decided not to use VCB... (That's a vmware problem, not a netbackup one)

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

You should have an netbackup client in the machine when doing database/application backups. You then perform a regular db backup using the client.

I've seen other posts that mention that it is possible to backup SQL using VSS whilst just doing a VM backup. I've not seen this working and even reading about it there are still limitations. I would also imagine that the SQL datafiles might be on RDMs so then you need an agent anyhow.

R

[Seth_Bokelman · Accepted solution]

Using either VCB or the vStorage API backups with SQL servers doesn't properly truncate the transaction logs, as the VSS commands issued don't tell SQL to do that.  As Riaan mentioned, you'll want to install the client inside the guest and just perform the backup that way for any of your SQL servers.

Supposedly, VMware is going to have an updated version of VMware Tools out next year that will tell SQL that it has been backed up when using vStorage, but until then, use the in-guest agent.

There's a good post about this issue here, written by Curtis Preston:

http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-vmware-and-apps.html