On Fri, Jun 03, 2011 at 04:37:34PM +0200, Boniforti Flavio wrote:
> Hello to both of you, Adam and Andrew.
> 
> > Great suggestion, backing up the VM's as if they were normal 
> > clients...
> 
> That's an option I can't afford to implement. I've been asked
> *explicitly" to backup the images itselves!
> 
> > Your mileage might vary... one thing I do suggest is to 
> > monitor in some way that your directory of files is actually 
> > being updated with the most recent backup.... This can catch 
> > you unawares if your split script is failing :)
> 
> Indeed, the splitting would be OK, but still: I'm in need of backing up
> a *big file* which may change in some bytes...

Also you have to make sure that that file doesn't change while you are
backing/splitting it up otherwise you may be unable to restore it
(been there, not pretty trying to recover a corrupted NTFS
filesystem).

I usually shut down the VM do the backup and restart the VM.  If you
can't do that, is the vm on a filesystem where you can take snapshots
(NTFS/VSS or LVM)?  If so suspend/quiet the system, snapshot,
unsuspend the system. This should reduce your service interruption to
under a minute. Then back up the snapshot.

Worst case just try to make sure you aren't backing up the system
while it's doing a lot of disk activity on the file you are trying to
back up.

-- 
                                -- rouilj

John Rouillard       System Administrator
Renesys Corporation  603-244-9084 (cell)  603-643-9300 x 111

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