Thank you very much for detailed information.

Grigori G. Solonovitch

Senior Technical Architect

Information Technology  Ahli United Bank Kuwait http://www.ahliunited.com.kw

Phone: (+965) 2231-2274  Mobile: (+965) 99798073  E-Mail: Grigori.Solonovitch 
AT ahliunited DOT com

Please consider the environment before printing this Email


-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
louw pretorius
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 2:42 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] ESXi and ESX

Grigori.

1. VCB is still officially the "right" way for backing up VM's from
VMware's (and IBM's) perspective and TSM 6.2 has some nice enhancements
to get this done.  Unfortunately VCB will be discontinued
<http://app.connect.vmware.com/e/es.aspx?s=524&e=12880125> after ESX 4.x

2. vDR is the new kid on the block but lacks flexibility and has many
limiting factors (ie. Scheduling, capacity, disktargets) and no TDP-like
functionality.

3. TSM and vDR cannot officially interface; to get TSM to backup a vDR
datastore it needs to reside on CIFS or other shareable resource or you
have to try and install tsm client withing the appliance(currently
CentOS if I'm not mistaken)

vDR limitations (some of them)
- VSS support for Windows guests but "crash-consistent" for all other OS'es
- 2 disk targets/dedupe-stores max
- 500GB CIFS dedupe-store size limit
- 1 TB size limit on disk target ie. VMDK or Raw Lun Mapping
- Grandfather-father-son type scheduling
- non-specific backup timing - window-size is only scheduling method
- 100 VM's max clients per vDR appliance(10 appliances max per vCenter)
- 1 vDR appliance per  VMware server
- 8 streams/sessions max
- MS-clusters not supported (using shared SCSI bus)
- no email notification system

So we are in a quandary as VCB is dying and vDR is not mature enough, we
can but hope that IBM will start coding furiously on integrating the new
VADP
<http://www.vmware.com/products/vstorage-apis-for-data-protection/features.html>
which will become the Official interface for backups of VMware VM's

Regards
Louw
"Keep the faith but don't drink the Kool-Aid"

On 22-Jun-10 10:39, Grigori Solonovitch wrote:
> Louw,
>
> If VCB has no future with ESXi, maybe VMware Data Recovery for image backups 
> with global de-duplication for all guests + FLR on guests to restore files is 
> the best solution now?
>
> For me is not clear, what is the relationship between TSM and VDR backup 
> appliance?
>
> I hope it is possible to backup de-duplicated VDR images by normal TSM Client?
>
> Kindest regards,
>
>
>
> Grigori G. Solonovitch
>
>
>
> Senior Technical Architect
>
>
>
> Information Technology  Ahli United Bank Kuwait http://www.ahliunited.com.kw
>
>
>
> Phone: (+965) 2231-2274  Mobile: (+965) 99798073  E-Mail: Grigori.Solonovitch 
> AT ahliunited DOT com
>
>
>
> Please consider the environment before printing this Email
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf 
> Of louw pretorius
> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:03 AM
> To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
> Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] ESXi and ESX
>
>
>
> Grigori,.
>
>
>
> As I understand it VMware is moving away from the VCB framework method
>
> of backups and is starting to develop their own backup appliance called
>
> VMware Data Recovery - currently at v1.2 - which is a simplistic
>
> disk-to-disk only in-line deduped solution for VMware free with VMware
>
> Advanced licenses and up.
>
>
>
>   From VMware version ~4 backing up from the Console is network limited
>
> so this is becoming a future-less option.
>
>
>
> VMware does provide Storage API's but I assume TSM is still assimilating
>
> them for future features.
>
>
>
> So after all is said and done VCB is your best option - clunky as it is
>
> - and backing up from the console is not recommended.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Louw
>
>
>
> On 21-Jun-10 11:19, Grigori Solonovitch wrote:
>
>
>> I will deeply appreciate any answers on the next quiestions:
>>
>
>>
>
>> What are the current problems with backup/restore in case of using ESXi 
>> instead of ESX?
>>
>
>> Which version of TSM Client supports ESXi completely?
>>
>
>> What kind of additional software is required to backup/restore ESXi virtual 
>> machines?
>>
>
>>
>
>>
>
>> Grigori G. Solonovitch
>>
>
>>
>
>> Senior Technical Architect
>>
>
>>
>
>> Information Technology  Ahli United Bank Kuwait http://www.ahliunited.com.kw
>>
>
>>
>
>> Phone: (+965) 2231-2274  Mobile: (+965) 99798073  E-Mail: 
>> Grigori.Solonovitch AT ahliunited DOT com<mailto:Grigori.Solonovitch AT 
>> ahliunited DOT com>
>>
>
>>
>
>> Please consider the environment before printing this Email
>>
>
>>
>
>>
>
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CONFIDENTIALITY AND WAIVER: The information contained in this electronic mail 
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