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VMware backups for Lotus Domino Server VM's - What are the options?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Environment

  • NBU 7.1 (master server SLES11)
  • NBU 7.1 (vmware backup host Windows Server 2003)
  • vSphere 4.1 U1
  • Lotus Domino 8.5 on Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machines

With this environment: Is the only option to 'efficiently' backup Lotus Domino servers (emails and databases) to use a NBU Client and the NBU Notes DB Agent inside the Guest OS? and perform Full and Incrementals.

Reason for my question is I have tried the NetBackup for VMware backup method with Mapped Full VM, BLIB option, Exclude unused and deleted blocks, Full and Incremental schedules, ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES. The resultant backup size between Full and Incrementals is not much different. The total file numbers backed up IS different.

Example (data taken from the columns in Activity Monitor):

Full Backup of Domino Server = 301GB (Files: 60045)
next Incremental = 274GB (Files: 1450)

My initial understanding is that every day databases and email .nsf files seem to get changed, at least their timestamp on the filesystem is updated, and I presume that Indexing and Compression happens on each of these files regularly so the VMware Method is just not fit for the job.

Have not found a definitive answer to this or a decent paper to discuss protection for Lotus Domino servers in the Virtual environment.

Similar question posed on IBM's site, but no comments.
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd85forum.nsf/dba3ca7e515d55ff85256a0700727b35/2012c566df5821248525782c0...

What solutions are you using?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Anonymous
Not applicable

On the VMware backup host, the client properties:

Perform incrementals based on archive bit is unchecked.

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

pikachu
Level 6
Employee Certified

Did you disable "Perform incrementals based on archive bit" ?

Anonymous
Not applicable

On the VMware backup host, the client properties:

Perform incrementals based on archive bit is unchecked.

VirtualED
Level 5
Employee Accredited Certified

It sounds like you have answered your own question.  The nature of BLIB and how the Lotus Notes server is working makes it not a prime candidate for incremental backups on a VMware level.  So I may run a Full VMware Backup every week or every month.  And use the Agent base backups to cover the fulls and incrementals in between.