SAVING BUSINESS DATA : in the virtual image file or straight on the SA 1

[elconomeno]

We're thinking about virtualization on our servers. the question that came up is where do we save our business data. We came up with two ways on how to handle this :
look at the pdf file :

http://elconomeno.tripod.com/BIN/SAVING_BD.PDF

my question :
what's the preferred way?
are there other ways?
your opinion?
other pro's and contras?

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

you should always separate your data from your OS.
Backup your data through normal backup agents,backup your OS'es with VM snaps.
Business critical data must allways be available.So,with VMware : vmotion or setup clustered hosts.

rgds,

R.

 

[elconomeno]

RMGBELGIUM, i appreciate your opinion
i think you're right but i can't find facts that confirm your opinion.

can you motivate it?

thank in advance

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

okay: suppose you keep business critical data on your ESX within a VM.Corruption of the VM occurs.You are unable to access the data in the VM.Only way to recover is restore a backup,thus you will be reverting your business data to the same restore point as you OS.Lets suppose it is a database server.rollforward of transactionlogs will not be possible, as they reside on the same location as the database,being within the VM.So you have dataloss.And trust me, these scenario's DO occur,I've been around in the san world long enough to see these kind of scenario's.


rgds,

R.

M

 

[ChawdogISC]

We use Vizioncore's software with a SAN snapshot solution also in place. When using the VM snapshot technology and not deleting them you run the chance of getting VERY large delta files (changes between snapshots) and really decreasing performance when you have to commit the changes. Sadly...I learned this the hard way last year and it was not fun. In my scenario I have multiple LUN's created within my Vi3 cluster. One for server OS's. One for page and high I/O files and one for data. It works great from a replication and restore stand point and limits corruption issues. I keep a copy of each VMDK's on a local and remote backup solution just in case.