Yes, it's a feature of VMWare ESX 2.1. 

cheers, wayne

markjessup AT northwesternmutual DOT com wrote:

>Wayne, is the snapshot feature you mention a built-in feature of VMware
>2.1 or a separate product from VMware or are you using storage vendor
>snapshop technology?
>
>
>
>Mark Jessup - IS Manager
>Enterprise Storage and Content Management/Imaging 
>Northwestern Mutual
>(414) 661-3968
>markjessup AT northwesternmutual DOT com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: wtsmith [mailto:wtsmith AT maine DOT edu]
>Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 11:25 AM
>To: veritas-bu
>Cc: wtsmith
>Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] RE: VMWARE
>
>
>We'll soon have a few VMWare servers, each with loads of disk space and 
>several virtual windows servers.
>
>We expect to use VMWare's snapshot feature for those Windows machines 
>where we don't expect much individual file restore activity.  The 
>snapshots will be backed up by NetBackup on the VMWare server.  Using 
>this method will make disaster recovery much quicker for us.
>
>cheers, wayne
>
>Ed Wilts wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Fri, Jul 23, 2004 at 10:04:14AM -0400, ChrisCosta AT tdwaterhouse DOT com
>>    
>>
>wrote:
>  
>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>We are rolling out a large VMWARE project within out QA environment.
>>>      
>>>
>Here is
>  
>
>>>a basic configuration of the new environment. There are going to be
>>>      
>>>
>three
>  
>
>>>large "Wintel" servers running Windows 2000, on each of the three
>>>      
>>>
>servers
>  
>
>>>will be running approximately 40 virtual VMWARE sessions. These three
>>>"Wintel" servers will have multiple HBA attached to a SAN Storage
>>>environment (Hitachi Series 9900) and will be engaged in LUN sharing.
>>>
>>>I am not trying to validate the configuration of the environment, what
>>>      
>>>
>I am
>  
>
>>>trying to do is understand how I will backup these three servers. I am
>>>assuming I will have to have the base Netbackup 4.5FP5 clients
>>>      
>>>
>software for
>  
>
>>>the Windows 2000 OS and a NetBackup 4.5FP5 Linux agent on the servers
>>>      
>>>
>to
>  
>
>>>backup the VMWARE sessions? I am making the correct assumption? And if
>>>      
>>>
>so,
>  
>
>>>will there be any special configuration setting I will need to make?
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>I haven't run VMware in several years, but I assume the overall design
>>hasn't changed.  Essentially you have a normal Linux file system plus a
>>few large container files for your Windows virtual machines.  I assume
>>that you would want to restore individual files for your Windows
>>    
>>
>systems
>  
>
>>and not an all or nothing approach.
>>
>>You would need a Linux Netbackup client to do the backups of your
>>overall system.  This will take care of things like the VMware software
>>itself and the normal configuration files.
>>
>>In your Linux NBU config, you'll want to exclude the container files
>>since backing them from Linux won't really do you a lot of good.
>>
>>You would then put a NBU client on each of the Windows virtual
>>    
>>
>machines.
>  
>
>>Treat them like you would any other Windows host in your environment.
>>They would get backed up and restored the same way.
>>
>>How Veritas licenses this type of ocnfiguration is beyond me.  I don't
>>know if you need 1 client or 40 per box.  If they try to nail you for
>>40, you may want to investigate another approach.  You could, for
>>example, get Linux to mount the Windows virtual machine as a share and
>>back it up that way but that makes your restores more complex.
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>_______________________________________________
>Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
>http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
>
>
>  
>