Backing up VMWARE ESX partitions

[ccnguy]

Can I backup all ESX partitions at the same time using 1 backup drive? Is there a tool that can help me do this?
Any help here will be greatly appreciated.

 

[comtec17]

Which partitions? There are many + VMFS Volumes/Partitions?

If you are looking to backup /, /var, /home then any backup client, ufsdump, tar, cpio, etc will work.

 

[ccnguy]

I have 4 vm's running on a blade server. I noticed that I need 1 seperate backup device for each vm running. I would like to backup all 4 vm's in 1 night unattended. How can this be done? Do I need to purchase a seperate software package to do this, or can 1 backup drive backup all data on all 4 vm's?

 

[comtec17]

you need to have a tape device dedicated to each VM or use a backup server and backup the VM's using a Backup client.

Another method is using the perl script provided by VMWare.

Also, for $200/CPU there is ESXRanger from Vizioncore.

http://www.vizioncore.com

 

[Arisap]

I agree with comtec17. ESX ranger is a very good way of backing up running VM's. When you restore the ESX Ranger backup, the server comes up just as if it as been powered down unexpectadly. I dont see any good reason for backing up the service console (the Linux partitions). I would simply copy all the vmx files to a directory on another server that gets backed up to tape. In the event that the ESX server fails completly, a new build of ESX server will probably take less time than restoring it from tape. Then all you have to do is copy back the vmx files and bring up your VM's.

 

[paintballer]

CommVault is also a pretty good backup product if you can put in a new solution.

http://www.commvault.com/data_protection.asp

Paintballer