Can NetBackup 7 backup and restore the VMware ESX 4.0 host?

[da01661]

Dear all, I would like to know if NetBackup 7 can backup and restore a ESX 4.0 host with all its configuration. For example, in my environment i setup a HA cluster with two ESX hosts, when one of them accidentally corrupted, all the VMs will be shift to host on the other ESX host; however, i still need to restore the corrupted host in a short time and let the cluster to work as normal again. Thank you!

[Ravi_Singh]

Hi,

The latest versions of ESX 4 and vSphere require a 64-bit processor. You also need a processor that supports hardware-assisted Virtualization (AMD-V or Intel-VT) if you want to run 64-bit VMs.

Netbackup 7.0 is well supported on Unix flavors thus you can install RedHat binaries for Netbackup on the ESX host and perform backup and recovery.

One thing to note here is, VMFS cannot be backed-up while virtual machines are running, so it will be better to create exclude_list and add the VMFS datastore directory to be excluded from the backup.


Regards

-Ravi Singh

[mrinal_sarkar62]

I am in a project of deployment of netbackup to take backup of vspaher. Can any one provide me the exact step by step procedure of installation in the vsphare.
And also please provide me the caution I need to take care of.
Thanks in advance.
Mrinal Sarkar

[Anonymous]

Getting Started with NetBackup 7.0 backing up VMWare.
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/347769.htm

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

This solution is no longer supported (Netbackup 7 and vsphere)

reasons:

• rarely used
• VMware grudgingly allowed it
• VMware plans to EOL the Service Console (ie ESXi only)
• difficult to properly configure
• Service console resources are limited (RAM)
• NetBackup 7 can perform this type of network based backup more efficiently (BLIB, Granular File Restore)

Furthermore, unless you really tweak your ESX installation - a lot of VMware professionals would rather just reinstall the ESX OS - this is the general opinion I have seen over few years in this area. However,.....
In vSphere there is the option for host profiles to help facilitate deploying ESX hosts and restore configuration.

See these links for more info:
http://malaysiavm.com/blog/esx-host-profiles-with-vsphere/
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10850