Impact of Vmotion on incremental backups

[Hoppac]

Hello,

I have a couple of questions about RSM V6.3 VE and backing up VM that have been move between ESXs through Vmotion.

Here’s the scenario. Have ESX1 with VMA and VMB and ESX2 with VMC and VMD. I back up ESX1 using a full backup on Monday and an incremental the other days of the week. I back up ESX2 using a full backup on Friday and an incremental the other days of the week. On Tuesday the load on ESX1 is to high and VMB is Vmotioned to ESX2 to allow the systems on VMB to perform at acceptable levels.

I understand VMB will be discovered as a new VM on ESX2 by the backup system. How is VMB treated then? Will a full backup be taken the TSM since VMB appears as a new VM to ESX2? Or does TSM realize the VM has been Vmotioned from ESX1 and perform an incremental based on the backup that was taken on ESX1?

My concern is if VMB were to Vmotion between ESXs daily to allow the application to perform at acceptable levels that I would be performing a full backup daily in VMB.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,
Charlie

[drivechip]

Welcome Hoppac

I guess you are using TSM4VE and created the schedulers using vCenter Plugin. When you have a look to the schedulers on your TSM server you will recognize that a -mode parameter makes the difference between full and incremental backup. The schedulers just backups all VM on the host. This means that TSM4VE doesn't detect the need of a full backup of a specific VM instead of an incremental backup. This is one of the big disadvantages by using a host bases scheduling approach.