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vhd files and deduplication

Kev_Lamb
Level 6

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone knows about vhd files and deduplication?

I currently backup our exchange servers using Netbackup which backs up an image that is produced by our Exchange Team in the USA, looking at the data that is backed up these are vhd files and xml files, the backups are made to an HP VLS12000 system which useds either Backup or File deduplication algorythms.

If using the Backup based deduplication the exchange servers take a very long time to complete their deduplication, on the reccomendation from HP these plocies were switched to File level deduplication, now we are having issues where the backups are not deduplicating at all as each successive backup cannot find a match.

Are vhd files compressed when created as this would certainly cause the issues we are seeing, has anyone seen this sort of behaviour with vhd files before?

Any help would be appreciated as i know nothing about vhd files :)

 

Kev

Attitude is a small thing that makes a BIG difference
4 REPLIES 4

V4
Level 6
Partner Accredited

How is the policy configured.

NetBackup Deduplication works at it's best when time to protect Virtulization (VMWare or Hyper-V)

 

Kev_Lamb
Level 6

The policy is configured as a standard backup policy with the path to the exchange backup files declared in the Backup Selection, this runs on a daily full schedule to the VLS12000, it is the VLS12000 that controls the deduplication and this is set as Backup rather than File based deduplication.

None of the Exchange backups are virtualised 

 

I am currently working with HP level 3 engineers on this issue as well and was just wondering if any other people had seen issues with deduplication of vhd files.

Attitude is a small thing that makes a BIG difference

V4
Level 6
Partner Accredited

I wonder this kind of strategy have seen far with NBU in place.

Presuming you are on NBU 7.x release. You can protect VHD directly with NBU no need of flatfile. I believe for flatfile you might require VMs to be in suspended or shutdown state for consistent state backup.

WIth NBU 7.x with vRAY vision Symantec ensured that we can go granular within VMs too

Sync up with local sales guy for enterprise client cal and give a try on True Hyper-V aware backup. That too when your    VMs are running.

If you have DeDupe liceses as well , the coin again falls on Your side. With True Hyper-V aware backup you get maximum of Dedupe ratio amongst VMs

Kev_Lamb
Level 6

These are not Virtual Machine backups, the files are produced by the Win2008 automated backups which no longer produce .bak files but a Virtual Hard Drive file.

Attitude is a small thing that makes a BIG difference