VMWare backups

[smwoodcrafts]

We are going to start backing up our VMs through VMWare and I am having a very large blockage in understanding on a very simple concept, that being the VMWare backup host. Does the backup host have to be a media server? I thought I read that it needs to have acces to one of the NBU storage units. Is that correct? If that is the case, the the VCenter server couldn't be the backup host. Is that correct?

[teiva-boy]

You need an Enterprise Server, and one Enterprise Client PER physical host.  This covers unlimited guests per VM host.

The Ent server ideally would be windows from a simplicity standpoint, but can be a Windows Enterprise client with the NBU client installed.  We'll call this a proxy node, as that is exactly what it is no matter what company you use.  It's marketing that spins this story, "we have no need for a proxy server."  The client software contains the vStorage API's to interact with vCenter to do what it needs to do.

This proxy node, needs access to the VMFS volumes if SAN based backups are your intention.  In Windows, you execute a few diskpart.exe commands to what WIndows doesn't write a signature to the VMFS LUN's.  Windows will have some "unknown volumes," or similar when this is done properly

At this point, a properly configured Vmware backup would query vCenter for the VM's.  Tell it what VM's to snap, and the proxy server would mount those snaps and transfer it to your storage target (disk or tape)

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

Any windows client that can access requied resources can become VMware Backup Host.
VMware Backup Host interact with vCenter, and read data from VMware world. data from VMware is transfered to media server, and stored into storage there. data transer between VMware Backup Host and media server is passed thru network, so to reduce network traffic it is better to configure VMware Backup Host on media server, if possible.

Here is a brief of requirements for VMware Backup Host. For more detail, check NetBackup for VMware Administrator's Guide.

• VMware Backup Host can access vCenter host if you add credentials for vCenter in NetBackup.
• VMware Backup Host can access datastore storage through SAN when you configure SAN transer.
• VMware Backup Host can access each ESX host when you configure NBD transfer.
• NetBackup Client(or Server) software must be installed on VMware Backup Host.

[smwoodcrafts]

Ok, I have set 2 of my media servers as backup hosts. In the Admin guide, Netbackup for VMWare like it was another program, per se, that would need to be added to the host. Isn't this just part of the client software. We will be using our regular storage, do I still need to have the host be Zoned on the SAN?

[Mark_Solutions]

The VMWare backup host (usually people use a Media Server but it has to be a Windows Server) needs to be added in the VMWare Section in the NetBackup Master Servers host properties.

It needs the datastore LUNS mapping to it so that it has visibility of the LUNS - but you must not mount the disks for obvious reasons, hence the use of diskpart automount disable

You will then find that your polices are specific to the VMWare backup host (Media Server) as it gets specified in the policy so you need to manually share the jobs out - this means you cannot use storage unit groups for the storage units etc.

Hope this helps - you really need to follow the guide but hopefully we have all helped a little here

[smwoodcrafts]

I was going through the VMWare Admin guide to set this up and the only mention I saw about the datastore was that it must be available to the VMware backup host. There were no real instructions on how I do that. Sorry for askin NOOB questions, but this is something new for us and I am having trouble wraping my head around it. How do I go about mapping the datastore LUNs? Is there a further tech note that will shed a little light on this?

BTW Thank you all for your patience with me.

[smwoodcrafts]

Trying to validate to our VCenter and get "VMware crediential validation failed. Server not found (-1)" The Master server and the media servers I'm going to use as the backup hosts can all resolve the server name. Am I supposed to use a particular port for VCenter connection? It seemed to be pretty straight forward What can I do to troubleshoot this?

[Will_Restore]

was added to the Master properties

NetBackup Management, Host Properties, Master Servers, Properties, Servers, Additional Servers

[smwoodcrafts]

The backup host is one of my Media servers, so it's already in the properties. It appears to not be able to find the VCenter server even though I can ping it from the master server.

[Mark_Solutions]

Hi

As well as being in the Servers section of the Master Servers Host Properties you also need it in the section named "VMWare Access Hosts".

When you do a validate of credentials for the vCenter Server it uses the servers in this list to do the validation. If there arent any servers in the list it cannot do it.

As for LUNS you need to ask your SAN team to map all ESX datastore luns to the VMWare Backup Hosts but before you do so you need to run the following from a command line on the VMWare Backup Hosts and then reboot then:

diskpart

automount disable

automount scrub

This will prevent the server from trying to mount the disks and causing corruption

Hope this helps

[smwoodcrafts]

They are in the VMware backup hosts section.

A couple of dumb questions:

I put 2 of our media servers in as backups hosts so that I had more of our storage available. One has our dedupe appliance and the other is connected to our VTL and PTL. Could eitherof them run the backups?

Also, am I correct in assuming that the diskpart commands will not affect the connections to our storage units?

Thanks for your help and patience.

Dan Seymour

[Mark_Solutions]

Hi

No problems backing up to anything - the only restriction that i can think of is that the VMWare Backup Host must be a Windows Server

The diskpart wont disconect anything, it just stops new things trying to automatically mounting.

Remeber you cannot use storage unit groups for this, at least not if more than one media server is in the group, as each policy has to be specific to a media server (sorry VMWare backup host!)