Way to limit multiple policies to only one concurrent job?

[Seth_Bokelman]

I have several VMWare servers that all share a common NetApp filer for their backend.  It's a pretty small filer, and I don't really want to hammer it with too many simultaneous jobs, but as the VMs have multiple OS types, I need multiple policies to back them up.  Is there a clever way to limit it (without trying to spread their schedules way out) so that only one client backs up at a time?  Like a way to group the policies?

Thanks!

[Seth_Bokelman]

The only semi-clever way I've come up with to do it is to create a disk staging unit and limit the number of simultaneous jobs to 1...

[schmaustech · Accepted solution]

You could also create a storage unit that only has one tape device (either virtual tape or physical tape) and assign that storage unit to the vmware policies.  Only one job will be able to use the tape drive at a time.

Regards,

Benjamin Schmaus

[J_H_Is_gone]

check mark "Limit jobs per policy"  then put in the number 1.


and have them use the same storage unit as suggested, to bring down the number of items run at once.
 

[Seth_Bokelman]

Thanks, I'd thought about doing it with a tape storage unit, but the throughput off the VM system is usually too low to keep an LTO-4 drive from shoeshining.  I hate to use a couple TB of disk just for this, but I guess it's the best option I have going now.

I've already limited the individual policies to only run one, but I have something like 6 policies that all share that same filer, so I really couldn't lower it to less than 6 effectively.

Let's hope some better way of doing this makes it into NBU 7.  :)

[Will_Restore]

multiple OS types, multiple policies
and he effectively wants only one policy to run at a time

[Alex_Vasquez]

Here's an excerpt from a whitepaper I have

"NetBackup for VMware provides an alternate-client backup technology for VMs with integrated file recovery capabilities (Figure 3). In conjunction with VMware Consolidated Backup off-host data protection technology, NetBackup 6.5 builds on and significantly enhances VMware Consolidated Backup. Basic VMware Consolidated Backup integration is included with NetBackup 6.5. Enhanced Granular File Restore from a vmdk backup was originally released with NetBackup 6.5.1 and has been enhanced for NetBackup 6.5.2 (and later) with additional features such as incremental backups.

Advantages:
-- Two restore options are available from a single backup; single file restore or entire (vmdk level) VM restore.
-- NetBackup integration with the VMware Converter technology greatly simplifies restores of VMs (extremely useful in disaster recovery scenarios).
White Paper: Data Protection: Backing up VMware with Veritas NetBackup
11
-- All backed up data is correctly referenced in the NetBackup catalog to the originating VM.
--Backup impact on the target VM and other VMs hosted on the same physical machine is minimized.
-- No NetBackup client software needs to be installed on the VM or inside the ESX Service Console. Optionally, client software can be installed to assist with file level restores.
-- Integrated with VMware Virtual Center to provide easy VM discovery.
-- Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) and VMotion aware.
-- File level incremental backups are now possible (requires NetBackup 6.5.2 or higher and VMware Consolidated Backup Framework 1.1 or higher—Windows only). This can significantly reduce backup times, data stored on disk/tape, and backup impact.
-- Supports SAN, iSCSI and NAS environments. Datastores created on NAS require NetBackup 6.5.2 or later and the VMware Consolidated Backup Framework 1.1 or later.
-- With the NetBackup 6.5.3 release, a VMware provided VSS Writer is supported within the VM. VSS Writer can provide basic application (and database) backup functionality by quiescing the application before the VMware Consolidated Backup snapshot is created. VSS support is only available when using the ESX 3.5 U2 or later release as well as the VMware Consolidated Backup Framework 1.5 or later.
Disadvantages:
-- A VMware backup proxy is required. This can be hosted on a Windows 2003 or 2008 server and in many cases can be hosted on the same server as a NetBackup media server.
-- Live (hot) application or database backups require additional pre- and post-backup processing to ensure backup data consistency.
-- Granular file restore and incremental backups are currently available only for Windows VMs.

[TimBurlowski]

I believe this is the most correct answer. Also if you stage it to disk first, they you should be able to deupe without shoeshining.

[schmaustech]

VCB is a great suggestion if the clients are only Windows clients, but if they are Linux/Solaris/etc, there currently is no support for incremental backups, only full vmdk backups.   Once Symantec offers incrementals for all VMWare clients, then you most certainly could corral all the clients into one policy.  Now if we are only interested in full backups, then this would definitely work.

Regards,

Benjamin Schmaus

[backmeupson]

Is there a suggestion for what multiplexing should be set at on the storage unit and policy?