[BBLISA] VMware backups

[Alex Pennace]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 05:33:23PM -0400, Rob Taylor wrote:
> Hi All. I'm starting to look at some software for backing up Vmware VM's.
> Currently we have backup agents installed in each VM. but we are looking
> into whether software from VEEAM, or Quest software's vranger is worthwhile.
> Does anyone out there in BBLISA land have any experience with either of
> these products? (Or others for vm backup, as we have just started looking)
> 
> I would be interested in any details that people would be willing to share.

We just rolled out Acronis hypervisor-level backups at one site with
three VMware hosts and a bunch of guests. So far so good.

It works best when tied in to vSphere. Since that was already running
on a (non guest) Windows Server 2008 box, we put the Acronis
management gizmos on there as well. Acronis gives you the usual
expected functionality for backing up each individual guest.

With vSphere integration, you can work on groups of guests and it drops
each guest's backup in its own file. This is adaptable, so if you
already have a backup plan that works on all guests in a specific
folder, adding another guest to that folder means it will be picked
up. It worked well at this site because many guests had the same
backup plan.

Among its drawbacks: It is a pain to get set up, and Acronis Management
Server can be a bit of a resource hog.