Devising a new backup plan for Virtualised servers

[zag]

So now most of our servers are Virtualized I'm looking at a new backup strategy. Traditionally we have used Backupexec 2010 to backup individual systems.

This is my new plan

- Backup Each virtual server every weekend using Veeam [Veeam: #1 for VMware vSphere, ESX & ESXi Backup and Virtualization Management]
- Backup individual SQL servers daily using SQLBackupandFTP [http://sqlbackupandftp.com/]
- Backup main file server, sims doc storage each weekend with Backupexec 2010 [http://www.symantec.com/products/data-backup-software].
- Run a 2nd Parallel file server which mirrors the main file server as an instant backup. Use Xcopy at weekends to sync?

Since all our servers are now SSD based the backups for everything take less than an hour. It used to take 14hrs with normal hard disks!!

Does anyone see any flaws in the plan? Disaster scenarios ect?

[glennda]

If SQL servers are VM's there is no harm in just letting Veeam back those up to.

If possible I would also recommend having a replica of each VM taken offsite for Veeam. Whether you partner with another school and just get a Nas Device and send it over to them and replicate to it.

[gshaw]

Are the SQL and File Servers virtual as well? If so just let Veeam do the lot then make a copy of the backup files either to the cloud (a bit pricey), tape (some say unreliable) or another disk (preferably removable so you can keep the copy offline)

[VeryPC_Ed]

Hey Zag,

What hypervisor are you using ?

If it was Hyper-V then I would have thought DPM would have fit perfectly for all the bullet points on there but I am guessing your possibly using VMware ?

We also use Veeam B&R for some of our clients and have had good experiences with it.

[zag]

Are the SQL and File Servers virtual as well? If so just let Veeam do the lot then make a copy of the backup files either to the cloud (a bit pricey), tape (some say unreliable) or another disk (preferably removable so you can keep the copy offline)

Yes all virtual, I just don't trust having one form of backup. Also that would only be weekly and SMT have asked for "daily backups" of the Finance System and Sims.

We are using Hyper-V 2008 R2 throughout other than our DC's. I tried DPM but didnt really like it. Maybe its improved since then.

The only thing I can think of is a DC going down, how do people backup those?

[gshaw]

Why not run Veeam daily? As it uses VM snapshots the daily backups are very quick then you can archive as often as you need.

For paranoia I backup our SQL database via Management Studio before any major upgrades but would avoid running Backup Exec and Veeam together on the same job

[Ric_]

So now most of our servers are Virtualized I'm looking at a new backup strategy. Traditionally we have used Backupexec 2010 to backup individual systems.

This is my new plan

- Backup Each virtual server every weekend using Veeam [Veeam: #1 for VMware vSphere, ESX & ESXi Backup and Virtualization Management]
- Backup individual SQL servers daily using SQLBackupandFTP [http://sqlbackupandftp.com/]
- Backup main file server, sims doc storage each weekend with Backupexec 2010 [http://www.symantec.com/products/data-backup-software].
- Run a 2nd Parallel file server which mirrors the main file server as an instant backup. Use Xcopy at weekends to sync?

Since all our servers are now SSD based the backups for everything take less than an hour. It used to take 14hrs with normal hard disks!!

Does anyone see any flaws in the plan? Disaster scenarios ect?

For a start, DPM rocks and will probably do everything you need for approx. 2p on your EES.

That SQLBackupandFTP thingy looks shocking - SQL will quite happily run a maintenance script and output to a network share adding less overhead and just being better.

If you decide to stick with BackupExec... that has licenses for backing up whole VMs too.

For your parallel file server look at DFS and rsync (or even RoboCopy) is far superior to xcopy.

Either way... with all those backups going on, you are going to destroy your SSDs.

[glennda]

Why not run Veeam daily? As it uses VM snapshots the daily backups are very quick then you can archive as often as you need.

For paranoia I backup our SQL database via Management Studio before any major upgrades but would avoid running Backup Exec and Veeam together on the same job

If all is virtual give it to veeam. I run hourly replications of some clients servers and you can't even tell. These run over the interweb to a DR site which only has a 10mb connection.

[ChrisMiles]

I cant recommend DPM 2012 enough, we use it to backup our VMWare infrastructire, as well as sql databases, files, basically everything you listed. Veeam is good at backing up virtual servers, but item level restoration is more work than with conventional backups.

DPM allows us to backup VM states every week but also do frequent file and database backups which can be restored almost instantly.

[plexer]

For your replication & recovery side of things take a look at Hyper-V 2012 and the shared nothing migration scenario See Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Shared Nothing Live Migration In Action

I use Hyperoo for backing up my 2008 R2 Hyper-V server.

Ben

[zag]

That SQLBackupandFTP thingy looks shocking - SQL will quite happily run a maintenance script and output to a network share adding less overhead and just being better.

The reason I chose that is it backs up, zips the file and transfers it to our google drive automatically with one click or scheduled. Seemed much better than scripts to me.

For your parallel file server look at DFS and rsync (or even RoboCopy) is far superior to xcopy.

Thanks, Roby copy has a mirror function I think. Could be perfect.

Either way... with all those backups going on, you are going to destroy your SSDs.

Said it a million times but SSD lifetimes far outway hard disks. Its an old wives tale that they have write limits that will in any way be reached in real world scenarios.

[gshaw]

I cant recommend DPM 2012 enough, we use it to backup our VMWare infrastructire, as well as sql databases, files, basically everything you listed. Veeam is good at backing up virtual servers, but item level restoration is more work than with conventional backups.

DPM allows us to backup VM states every week but also do frequent file and database backups which can be restored almost instantly.

Out of interest how do you back up the virtual machines themselves? Last time I looked I thought DPM couldn't do VMWare virtual machines and you had to back up the data via a client installed inside the VM, whereas with Hyper-V (as you'd expect) you could back up the entire VM via the host.

What made me go for Veeam was the fact if we lost the machines entirely (e.g. storage failure) you could drop the lot straight back in from a Veeam backup and carry on, whereas if you've only got the data inside the machine it'll be a lot more work to get back to a working state.

[zag]

For your replication & recovery side of things take a look at Hyper-V 2012 and the shared nothing migration scenario See Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Shared Nothing Live Migration In Action

I use Hyperoo for backing up my 2008 R2 Hyper-V server.

Ben

Would love to move to 2012 server and use the live cloning option. Not convinced until I see some people using it in the real world though

[Quackers]

Have you tried HV Backup - Home

We use it for our 2008 R2 Hyper V's.

Works great creates backups while the Hyper V is running.

So we just write a few batch files and schedule them for how often we want the backup to take place. (We have a standard PC with many TB's of disk space in another building that we copy the backups to).

[Ric_]

The reason I chose that is it backs up, zips the file and transfers it to our google drive automatically with one click or scheduled. Seemed much better than scripts to me.

You may want to be careful with using Google Drive... from Google itself at Google Terms of Service ? Policies & Principles ? Google

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Said it a million times but SSD lifetimes far outway hard disks. Its an old wives tale that they have write limits that will in any way be reached in real world scenarios.

^^^ Good luck with that! Incidentally, Dell of all people have a nice little document at http://www.dell.com/downloads/global...ive-FAQ-us.pdf which, on page 6, says that SSDs are not fit for heavy write usage (like in a files server of SQL server)... page 9 will help you calculate how long it is until you need to start replacing drives (which I can only hope you have in very tolerant RAID).