Del,
The VEEAM guys swear they do the right VSS calls to get a valid,
consistent data base backup.
(I'm in "trust but verify" mode still.)
VEEAM (and AFAIK all the other products) are backups at the VOLUME
level. I think the result of the VEEAM backup is a snapshot of the C:
drive that is the functional equivalent of the old-style "lets shut down
the server and do a track dump of the drive" cold backup (although some
products can pull individual files out of the backup, i.e. incremental
restore.
So yes, you would lose the ability for point-in-time restores, or
individual DB restores. Without the SQL backup, you wouldn't get the
logs truncated, either (but could go back to circular logging).
I'm not suggesting this is sufficient for large production apps. But a
lot of these sprout-like-mushrooms SQL DB's are packaged apps that
aren't getting anything but once-daily full dumps, anyway.
Thanks much for your response, I consider you to be the ultimate
resource for SQL recovery!
Wanda
-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Del Hoobler
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 11:29 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Guidance on TDP for SQL in a virtual world?
Hi Wanda,
My suggestion to you is to talk with the VEEAM team
to make sure that their snapshot/backup tool communicates with
the guest VSS SQL Writer to put the SQL Server
on the guest OS in the correct state in order to
make sure the database files are in a consistent state
for a backup. This is vital.
You will lose some of the other capabilities that
DP/SQL gives you like point in time restores,
Group, File, and Set backups, differential, log backups,
granular policy management, etc.
Also.. does VEEAM offer the ability to just
restore a single database or an older database?
Or.. is it all or nothing?
Many times, when you take away the granular backup,
you lose the granular restore.
Those are just some things to consider.
Thanks,
Del
----------------------------------------------------
Del Hoobler
Tivoli Storage Manager Development
IBM Corporation
"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu> wrote on 03/12/2010
10:53:37 AM:
> [image removed]
>
> Guidance on TDP for SQL in a virtual world?
>
> Prather, Wanda
>
> to:
>
> ADSM-L
>
> 03/12/2010 10:57 AM
>
> Sent by:
>
> "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT vm.marist DOT edu>
>
> Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager"
>
> I'm dealing with a 3 different customers who are in the process of
> migrating all their production Windows boxen to VMWare.
>
> They are using VM-centric backup products (VEEAM, VDR, and VRanger) to
> do the backups of their Windows systems at the .vmdk level.
>
> The VM backup products back up to disk, TSM backs up that repository
and
> copies to tape for vaulting.
>
> These products do file-level as well as full backups for the VM's so
the
> individual TSM baclient backups of the C: drive are being phased out,
as
> the systems move to VMWARE.
>
>
>
> So now I'm confused as to when we need TDP for SQL backups.
>
>
>
> (From here on I'll just refer to VEEAM, but I think all the
> issues/questions are the same for VRanger and VDR.)
>
> My understanding from talking to VEEAM, is that if
>
> 1) the data base on the VM is VSS-enabled (MSSQL is) and
>
> 2) the data base & logs are part of the .vmdk file (common for
> small MSSQL dbs, uncommon for big or clustered MSSQL DB's which are
> usually out in the SAN) and
>
> 3) the backup software has VSS support (VEEAM does)
>
>
>
> Then when you do a backup with VEEAM, you DO get a transactionally
> consistent, stable and usable copy of the DB in the VEEAM/VDR backup.
>
> So if you reload your VM from the VEAAM backup, locally or at DR, you
> get a working SQL back (along with its logs), and you don't have to
use
> the TDP to restore and roll forward.
>
>
>
> So, assuming that conditions 1,2, and 3 are met, are there cases we
> still need to use the TDP for SQL?
>
>
>
> (Now I realize that many large production DB's are out on a SAN and
not
> part of a .vmdk so condition 2 is not met. But 90% of the MSSQL DB's
I
> run into are small, on local disk, and get installed as part of some
> purchased application and nobody ever does more than a full backup of
> them anyway --they breed at night and pop up everywhere).
>
>
>
> How say you all?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Wanda Prather | Systems Integration Specialist | wprather AT icfi DOT com
|
> www.jasi.com
> ICF Jacob & Sundstrom | 401 E. Pratt St, Suite 2214, Baltimore, MD
> 21202 | 410.539.1135
>
>
|
