Hello Mario,
I am testing VMware cluster based on ESXi 4.0 Update 2.
ESXi server itself is very thin and has nothing to backup VMs.
I have tested carefully backup/restore and disaster recovery for VMs based on  
TBMR and TSM Client installed on guests.
I was using TBMR 6.3.1 (beta) and TSM Client 6.2.1 (32 and 64 bit):
1) full backup with compression at client site (must heavy backup operation) - 
acceptable time and not very heavy load for VMware host and guest. Using 
progressive backup strategy (1st backup - full and all others - incremental) 
allows to run this type of backup only ones;
2) incremental backups (journal based with compression on client site) - very 
short time and no heavy load on host and guest. This type of backup can be done 
at any time without any problems (scheduled);
3) usual for TSM perfect restore for files and directories including point in 
time restore (command line, GUI or WEB Client);
4) acceptable disaster recovery by TBMR WinPE1 including point in time recovery 
- everything very similar to standalone servers. Recovery time for standard VMs 
is 10 -20 minutes. For quite big VM (600,000 files) - around 90 minutes.
TSM licensing is standard PVU based for VMware hosts (depends on number of 
cores on host and does not depend on number of VMs).
TBMR licensing is by VMpacks. Each VMpack is for 4 VMs. VMpack has the same 
price as one standalone server TBMR license.
Overal result of testing is much better than it was expected. It is a good 
option till something better is available (VDR or something else).
Note I was not using image+incrementals backups to speed up recovery.
Kindest regards,
Grigori
________________________________________
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of Mario 
Behring [mariobehring AT YAHOO DOT COM]
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 9:32 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Online backup of VMs

Hi list,

Anybody doing online backups of Xen VMs? If not...is it possible to install a
TSM Client at the Xen host machine and backup Xen VMs snapshots ?

I believe the same question is good for VMware or Hyper-V VMs....for that
matter...

In the particular VMware case....we use ESXi Server, which means we do not have
Virtual Center ad stuff....so we have to come up with something to backup the VM
large files without having to shutdown the VMs....

Any help is appreciated.

Mario

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