TSM - with VMWare ESX or Xen?

[micha]

Hi,

we are using TSM for backing up all our AIX-, Linux- and Windows servers and have to decide which (Intel platform) virtualization solution to implement for productive use in future. Now we need to decide between Xen and VMWare ESX.

Which product is better integrated with TSM? What would you suggest?

Thanks in advance,
Michael

 

[rwhtmv]

Only know VMware with TSM

I cannot speak for XEN, but I have been using TSM and ESX for some time with great success. Also if you go with Enterprise, VCB works well also.

 

[Jeff_Jeske]

We have around 1000 servers total with 400 of them being VMs on ESX. We are installing TSM on each individual VM as if they were a physical machine. We have had excellent backup and restore throughputs and zero issues with ESX.

We use fully loaded 3850s with 45-50 VMs on each. They are load balanced and running Vmotion. We host both Linux and Windows machines and its painless.

I know TSM 5.5 has added more VM support for backing up the entire ESX machine or the BAK files but we haven't had any issue with treating them like physical machines so we aren't going to change the process. Keeping it the same allows us to use the same documentation for both reducing complexity in the environment.

The only issue may be licensing but I don't know enough about that to explain the pro and cons of each method.