Leveraging SSR to automate virtualization of a test environment?
We are running a mix of 400 physical & virutal servers in my production environment. SSR2011 Vmware4.1 A need has recently been identified to allow certain department to test production servers (physical OR virtual). my problem? Create a process that would automate the creation of production servers to a test environment. Can I leverage SSR to do this? My toughts: I stand up a VMware test enviroment, use existing jobs that backup production servers to v2i using SSR, create/automate a conversion job that converts SSR v2i backups to vmdk on the test enviroment EVA Attach vmdk to the vmware host, fire up the VM Test When test is over, Nuke the VM (not sure about this one) repeat every month as needed. (idealy, I only repeat turning on the VM as the jobs are set to run automatically) Will this work? Am I doing this the hard way? Can anyone recommend a simpler way to do this? Are there symantec products I can purchase that would help me accomplish this more efficiently? Or am I not using SSR for what it was intended to be used as? Other questions I have: Based on my understanding of SSR, I can't go directly to vmdk from the server agent (makes sense as SSR is a backup tool and not a conversion tool). I need to create the job that backs up to v2i, then run a job to convert to vmdk. Is this correct? Can the two jobs be automated so that the vmdk is always updated? If I take 1 full and 4 incremental jobs during the week, does the v2i to vmdk conversion update ONLY the changes since the last conversion? Or will it start a FULL conversion each day? I guess thats it for now, Let me know if you'd like me to clarify anything.
Unable to create file & folder backup - Symantec BESR 2010 - Error EC8F1C50
Hi, I have Symantec BESR 2010 installed in a Windows 2008 server. The details of the software is as follows. Name: Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 NFR Version: 9.0.1.36527 The machine details are as follows OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Architecture: 64-bit Operating System Physical/Virtual : vmware virtual machine The issue that I am facing is that, I am unable to run 'file and folder' backup using the application. I would like to stress the point that, we have instealled Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 also on the server. The error that I am getting while trying to run a 'file & folder' backup is as follows. og Name: Application Source: Backup Exec System Recovery Date: 3/21/2012 8:12:26 PM Event ID: 100 Task Category: High Priority Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: <machine name> Description: Error EC8F1C50: Cannot create file backup for job: File Backup. Error E7B70005: Snapshot error Error EBAB03F1: OS error 2147754774.. (UMI:V-281-3215-7248) I had already checked the following things. Volume shadow copy service is running. I had restarted the service, and tried the job again, which also failed. I had verified that all the services of Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery is running As per the error code listed in the Symantec website, it says that the file & folder backup cannot backup more than 300000 files. I had confirmed that the number of files is only 229. Still the backup job fails. Any help regarding this is highly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Regards, Tom Jacob
BACKUPEXEC 2010 Backing up VMWARE 2003 OS backs up too much data.
Hello I am backing up a VMWARE server 2003 with backupexec 2010. I have done it twice. the second time I backed it up activating hardware or software compression. the VMwas powered off the backup is backup to disk (no tape) VMWARE reports the used space of the serverto be under 1.7 GB but allocated is 50 GB (available but unused). The backup takes 48 minutes over 10/100 network and backs up 26 GB. 1) is this normal that it saves 26 GB when the actual space used is less than 3 GB? Any way to change a setting to shrink this? thank you The size of the 2003 OS is listed from VMWARE at
Questions about BESR Virtual Edition
I have three ESXi4 hosts and 8 guests which include Exchange, Active Directory, SQL, etc. I'm contimplating getting BESR Virtual Edition but I have some questions before I pull the trigger. I know it can backup exchange servers and recover down to the message level but is it a real exchange aware software where backing up will get rid of the logs? Where is BESR VE installed? Can it be and should it be installed on a virtual server? Seems obvious but can it recover down to the file level? Just want to be sure. Would I need different agents for exchange, sql, etc.? Sorry again if these questions seem obvious but I was looking for an faq on this product and couldn't find one.
BESR 2010 scheduled VMware conversion jobs fail due the numerical name change in the .v21 files
I have two physical servers, each runs on ESX4, one holds my VMGuest OS Windows 2008 R2 Fileserver/Domain Controller and the other holds my VMGuest Windows 2008 R2 Exchange 2010 Server. I have a third server running Windows 2008 R2 Server that runs the following processes/apps: VCenter server, VMware client and VM Host update server, Backup Exec 12.5 for tape backups and BESR 2010 server for image backups and VM Conversions. The VM'd OS servers each also have BESR 2010 installed and configured. Each of the physical servers are configured with their datastore exally portioned that allows either physical machine to run both VM'd OS's (FileSrv and ExchSrv) so with this in mind we are making a nightly full Image backup of each of the VM'd servers off to a storage point on the VCenter server each night and then in turn each is to be converted to ESX bootable VMDK files over to it's own opposite server physical server so that should either server encounter physical problems then both VM'd OS's would be able to run on the remaining good server as of last bood image backup. We have made this process work previously and so it should work now. We have found that the nightly scheduled VM Conversion which should run based solely on the .sv2i file created each night will not run because of the numerical name change that happens to the .v2i files each night an new image backup is completed for either the FileSrv or ExchSrv VM'd guests... Error reported in the BESR 2010 log: Error EC8F1F48: The 'Vmware VMDK' conversion process could not be completed. Error EC8F1FDB: Unable to create virtual disk. This could be due to one of the following reasons: - Destination path does not exist. - Insufficient disk space. - Invalid credential or permissions on destination path. - Network errors. (UMI:V-281-3215-8008) Details: Source: Backup Exec System Recovery The UMI:V-281-3215-8008 error takes me to a page where Symantec reports that they're "Working" on the problem...! Anyone have any ideas or info?
