Tim, when it comes to VCB backups so long as your VCB Proxy can "see" the disk 
the VM is on you can perform a VCB backup of it. If not, you can't.

Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Timothy Hughes
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:48 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] ESXi and ESX

Question,

Is there any documentation on backing up a VM that's on a different TSM Server 
that the PROXY or the VCB server? Both the Proxy and the VCB server's are 
Windows boxes.

Tim





Prather, Wanda wrote:

>HI Alan.
>
>Most of my customers who are moving into VM for production systems
>need/want "full" VM backups as well as TSM-type  file-level backups.
>The "full" VM backup is an image backup of the .vmdk file containing
>the VM guest.
>
>The horror of running production apps on Windows is the dreaded DR
>situation.
>Since MS doesn't have a supported method for doing Bare-metal recovery
>to different hardware, recovery of a Windows system to different
>hardware at DR is a slow, multi-step process prone to complications.
>However, if you have a copy of the .vmdk, you can drop it back onto an
>ESX server at DR, in one step, and you DON"T have to deal with the move
>to unlike hardware and the universe of issues dealing with Windows
>system state.
>
>And you can't get those .vmdk images with the TSM client.  While it is
>possible to do file-by-file BMR for a VM guest, it's not something I'd
>recommend if .vmdk images are available.
>
>TSM file-level backups are still useful for versioning.  I have 2
>customers using TSM (installed on the guest in the normal way) for the
>VM file-level backups, and full VM's for DR.
>
>The problem with using VCB, is that doing those full VM's puts you back
>into the business of dumping LOTS of data every week.
>
>I much prefer the use of VDR, which is VM's replacement tool for
>backups in V4.  With VDR you get your fullvm's, but deduped into a disk
>repository.  Then you back up the repository using TSM subfile backup.
>Your first step then at DR, is to restore the repository from TSM tape.
>Etc.
>
>If you need more info, feel free to contact me directly.
>
>Wanda
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf
>Of Allen S. Rout
>Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 11:14 AM
>To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
>Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] ESXi and ESX
>
>
>
>>>On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:41:48 +0200, louw pretorius <louw AT SUN.AC DOT ZA>
>>>
>>>
>said:
>
>
>
>>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.
>>
>>
>
>
>I'm aware that using VCB permits you to shift backup work from "the
>real server" to some proxy.  Is there any other reason to prefer VCB to
>simply managing your guests like any other machine?
>
>
>- Allen S. Rout
>
>


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