Backing up Virtual Servers

[MSLonghorn]

Does anyone have any suggestions for backing up windows virtual server? i am running Galaxy 5.0, and cant find any documentation on Commvaults website for best practices. not sure if the virtual server needs to be shut down or not prior to backup.

 

[BkpAdmin]

Commvault suggests that you load a filesystem IDA on all physical nodes of the cluster. The installer is cluster aware and will prompt you to select virtual install. The installer is dependent upon name resolution so you may run into problems if you have your heartbeat resolving wrong. Setting up hosts files will get you around this.

We run Commvault on our exchange/sql clusters and the Exchange/SQL agents reside on the virtual so to answer your question there is no need to down the virtual server.

 

[JG5]

I'm running MS Virtual Server 2005 and have loaded the iDA on all of the virtual servers. It backs up just as any other physical client, and I haven't seen any real performance issues. You could script VS to shut down all of the virtual machines so you could back them up, but that could be more trouble than it's worth in the long run - you may spend more time powering on the virtual machines than you would like.