Has anyone installed NBU7 master or media server (D2D backup only) inside an ESX VM in a production env?

[Tom_Duong]

Has anyone installed NBU master or media server in a VM in a production env?  Reasons for putting the master & media server inside a VM are:

1. HA is simplified; esp. when combined with NBAC
2. With NBU7's media server dedup feature, the protection and recovery of the metabase engine is critical.  Putting the media server in a VM would enable HA and allow the media server to be recovered pretty quickly.

Thanks!

[Christoph_Linde]

Hi,

there is no problem of putting a Master in a VM. Various different VMs are supported.

The problem of putting a media server inside of a VM is, that you will work mostly with IO. And exactly that is not the best Idea in a VM. 

In general, the metabase and content database is only as critical as the content itself. Means - with the metabase but without the data you will have nothing and vice versa. 

So clustering of the metabase/content database is not a solution even not with a VM pseudo cluster. If you want to secure you PD Storage Pool (and you should think about it) you have to setup two of them and replicate the date between them, to ensure that human errors do not lead to loss of backup information. 


So my personal opinion on this topic is: It is possible, but I do not like it - also ESX server will not like you doing a media server on a VM :)

[Brian_Smith1]

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340091.htm

In the doc above, "Basic Disk" DSUs are supported in a VM.  But other more complicated disk stores, like Advanced Disk and Media Server Dedupe Pools (MSDP) are not yet officially supported in VMs for reasons that Christoph mentions above.

For comparison, there is a PureDisk Virtual Appliance available for VMware.  They have set minimum and maximum requirements, like dedicated RAM & CPU, and maximum storage pool sizes.  Such boundaries have not yet been identified for MSDP in VMs.

In other words, use at your own risk at this time.