Hi Wanda, interesting post

So we can back up the VDR backup store to TSM for offsite/DR purposes.
What about restores?  do we have to restore the whole VDR storage to a
point in time in order to run a restore where TSM has a longer retention
than VDR?  Can we just restore a part of it and if so how do we
determine which part?

Other than offsite/DR I can't see much point in backing up the VDR data
store at all unless you can do more with it.

Regards

Steve.

Steven Harris
TSM Admin
Paraparaumu, New Zealand

On 9/11/2010 6:13 PM, Prather, Wanda wrote:

TSM is way behind the curve on VMWare backups.
If you have ESX 4.0 Enterprise:

a) ESX 4.0 enterprise includes a VMWare backup utility called VDR
b) Set up VDR to back up to a disk repository.  It does fulls and incrementals, 
and dedups them.  It's fast, it's easy, it's efficient, knocks the sox off of 
VCB.
c) if you want to get the VDR backups into your TSM hierarchy, the disk for the 
repository MUST be on a Windows host, shared out to VDR as a CIFS share.
d)  install the TSM Windows client on the Windows host that owns the disk, let 
TSM back up the VDR repository (you must stop VDR while TSM is running the 
backup.)
e) VDR very conveniently creates 2 GB stripes in the repository, so you can 
turn on TSM subfile backup for it if you want to really cut down the backup 
load.

I have multiple customers doing this.  Most recent one that tried this, got it 
working in about 30 minutes.
I think you'll find whitepapers on VDR on the VMWare site.

There are other VMWare backup products that are implementing the 4.0 backup 
architecture already.  They may have features you like better than VDR, which 
is pretty simple.  But if you have ESX 4.0 Enterprise, you already own VDR, and 
it's far, far better than running VCB.

W



-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
TSM User
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 5:18 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] VMware backup questions

I've been searching online, including a number of listserv posts, and what
I'm finding is that the information I'm looking for seems pretty
fragmented.  I'm trying to figure out what the options are for backing up a
VMware version 4 implementation in an all-Linux environment.  I've
determined that a proxy server is needed still for VADP/vStorage, just as
for VCB.  It appears that the proxy server must be run on Windows.  I'm a
bit confused about what's supported, though.  So my questions are:

--In one place in the client manual, it says that file-level backups are
only supported for Windows VMs.  I read on another website that TSM only
works with VADP for file-level backups as of now, and for full VM backups,
VCB is still required.  Does this mean that VCB must be present in order to
back up Linux guests, and that only full VM backups are available?  That
doesn't seem right to me, but that's where the bits of information I've run
across leads me.

--If the answer to the above is yes, does anyone know if there will be more
options for Linux VMs any time soon, and what it's likely to be?

--Has anyone been able to locate a single, comprehensive resource describing
what functions are available in what circumstances and what's required for
TSM with VADP?

Someone please tell me I'm missing something....

Thanks!