VCB - Maximum number of servers?

[PhilipB]

Does anyone have any examples of the number of VMWare ESX virtual machines that 1 VCB proxy server can backup?

We are looking to virtualize 40 of our servers onto VMWare ESX. This will be hosted on 3 HP blade servers. All VMs will have their drives (just C: and E on a SAN (fibre connected).

• We would need the backups of all 40 servers to complete in about 12 hours maximum.
• The total drive space for all these servers is about 1.4TB.
• We would want to perform file-level incremental backups.

Does anyone have examples of how many VMs their VCB installations handle and how long this takes. Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks

PhilipB

 

[Leigh]

I can't find this either. We're about to virtualise about 350 file servers, and I'm intending to have a proxy server per 50 virtualised servers... unless anyone knows better than this.....

 

[PhilipB]

Anything???

Sounds like we're on our own Leigh!
Does anybody have any information on the number of virtual servers they are backing up via VCB, so I can try and guage how many we might successfully be able to backup from 1 VCB server.

Any information you could give would be very handy!

Thanks

PhilipB

 

[sgabriel62]

All;
Here is what Ive found in the manual. Gauging the VCB environment is based on two things - Full file-level backups or "snapshots" of each VM guest of the VM host.
========================================
Performing full VM backups and restores requires actual disk space on the proxy node. The
actual amount required varies according to the number of simultaneous full VM backups to be
performed and the size of the images generated. You should plan on having storage space
sufficient to keep the largest guest, plus some extra, and to increase this if you will make
multiple simultaneous full snapshots. If you will only perform file-level backup, disk space is
not required on the proxy node, since the guest file systems are attached as virtual mount
points. We strongly recommend pre-production prototyping of VCB solutions in order to more
accurately predict resource requirements for your particular environment.
============================
Leigh - your baseline of your 40 servers in my opinion will assist Phillip on how many VCB Proxies to implement.
Keep in mind, TSM clients software installed on in the VM guest partition is not Lanfree supported whereas TSM clients software installed on a VCB proxy is....Perhaps this also assist you in baselining your backup windows.

In a previously supported client, the VMWare team implemented 12 VM nodes on 1 VCB easily. The immediate task at hand is the "scheduling" of backups of the VM guests so that the Host itself can support them without bottlenecks.

Hope this helps

 

[PhilipB]

VBC - How did it go?

Thanks for the information Steven, useful to know.

Leigh, did you finally get your VCB installation completed? How was it with 50 virtual machines as you mentioned?
We haven't yet implemented our system so I can't provide any details as yet.

Regards

Philip B