Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
maxfontana
Influencer
Posts: 24
Liked: never
Joined: Nov 04, 2010 4:37 pm
Full Name: Massimiliano Fontana
Contact:

[VCSA] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by maxfontana »

Hi.
I've recently switched from Vcenter 4.1 to Vcenter Server virtual appliance based as you know on a linux distro.
I'm recreating all my jobs and would like you to give me some advices on how to best configure my replica and backup jobs for this vm.
Should the Vmware tool quiescence be enabled or not?
A always, many thanks in advance.
Best regards.
Max
Italy
Vitaliy S.
VP, Product Management
Posts: 27055
Liked: 2710 times
Joined: Mar 30, 2009 9:13 am
Full Name: Vitaliy Safarov
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Vitaliy S. »

Hi Max,

Generally speaking my recommendation would be to use VMware Tools Quiescence for every non-Windows VM to keep it in transaction consistent state. As to other tips and tricks, then please search these forums for more info about vCenter Server (Windows box) backup job configuration, as these guidelines can still be applied to your scenario.

Hope this helps!
pendragoncrw
Enthusiast
Posts: 38
Liked: 3 times
Joined: Jun 14, 2010 3:06 am
Full Name: C White
Contact:

[MERGED] Using Veeam to Backup VCSA

Post by pendragoncrw »

We have started exploring the vCenter appliance (most of our installs are 4.1 so they have vCenter on a windows server) for some selective use with our smaller clients. Before I jump into it though, I wanted to find out what specific considerations need to be taken to back it up using Veeam aside from using a different proxy than the vCenter appliance itself. Are there some special scripts that should be run? Do we need to disable the VMWare tools quiesece?

My experience with the appliance in the past (initial 5.0 release, initial 5.1 release) were very hit-or-miss so I don't want to just toss it in a backup job and see what happens.

Thanks
Vitaliy S.
VP, Product Management
Posts: 27055
Liked: 2710 times
Joined: Mar 30, 2009 9:13 am
Full Name: Vitaliy Safarov
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Vitaliy S. »

There are no special scripts that should be used to backup a VCSA, just make sure you add it to the backup job through the standalone ESX(i) server connection. Thanks!
Simonx182
Influencer
Posts: 14
Liked: 3 times
Joined: May 31, 2012 4:01 am
Full Name: Simon Tauber
Contact:

[MERGED] Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by Simonx182 »

Hi,

I have a general question about backing up the vCenter Appliance itself. I've searched around in this forum but couldn't find the answer that I needed.

We are running on our customer installations vCenter as Appliance which is stored on the SAN Storage and run daily backups with Veeam of all VM's to a NAS storage.
What happens in a disaster situation if the whole SAN Storage fails? Will I need to install a new vCenter to be able to restore the VM's successfully?
How do I safe my vCenter Appliance from that? Is there a way to "copy" the vmdk Data Files to lets say a local storage on a ESX Host?

I hope you can understand what I mean. In a disaster situation I want to be able to restore the system as fast as possible, withour reinstall the whole vCenter.

Thank you very much.

Regards
Simon
tsightler
VP, Product Management
Posts: 6009
Liked: 2843 times
Joined: Jun 05, 2009 12:57 pm
Full Name: Tom Sightler
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by tsightler » 1 person likes this post

You can just add an ESXi host directly to Veeam and then restore vCenter directly to the host. Once that's done you can boot up vCenter, make any adjustments, for example by removing/readding any rebuilt hosts, then start restoring other VMs. Of course, there may also be other VMs that are critical before you start vCenter (DNS/AD, etc.), but once again you could restore all of them directly to any ESXi hosts and then go from there.

For small/mid-sized deployments I don't even really consider vCenter all that important since it's really part of the infrastructure. I'd normally say most companies are more concerned with getting their business focused systems up and running so you could always just add multiple ESXi hosts directly to Veeam and restore all of your critical VMs quicky, then worry about vCenter later. It's really up to you, but Veeam is flexible enough that it doesn't really matter.

Of course, since you have Veeam, and you mention having local ESX host storage, another great option is to use Veeam replication to replicate those VMs to local storage, that way you don't even have to restore those systems, just failover/power on their replicas from the local storage.
Simonx182
Influencer
Posts: 14
Liked: 3 times
Joined: May 31, 2012 4:01 am
Full Name: Simon Tauber
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by Simonx182 »

Thank you for your fast reply. Didn't know that.

Now last question to comlete this: What is the fastest way to make this restore Operation (vCenter Backup -> Local Storage)? Let's say the complete infrastrucure is down (after SAN outage) and I have no physical Server. Can I also use a small tool on my Notebook to do the restore Operation? Or do I have to install the full Veeam Product?
veremin
Product Manager
Posts: 20270
Liked: 2252 times
Joined: Oct 26, 2012 3:28 pm
Full Name: Vladimir Eremin
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by veremin » 1 person likes this post

Hi, Simon. You can install a new backup server, then, import required backup file and run a restore operation. Otherwise, you can put into use our standalone utility named extract.exe that goes with every product installation. With extract utility you will be able to restore VMs without install Veeam backup console.

Thanks.
Simonx182
Influencer
Posts: 14
Liked: 3 times
Joined: May 31, 2012 4:01 am
Full Name: Simon Tauber
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by Simonx182 »

Thank you very much for this informations. I tried the extract.exe today. Worked perfectly.
All clear. No need for a extra backup of the vCenter.

Thank you guys for the fast responses.

Simon
m.novelli
Veeam ProPartner
Posts: 504
Liked: 84 times
Joined: Dec 29, 2009 12:48 pm
Full Name: Marco Novelli
Location: Asti - Italy
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by m.novelli »

Hi guys, one quick question: with Veeam Backup 7 can I safely backup the vCenter Appliance 5.1 itself? I've checked "enable tools quiescence" and "disable application processing" for that VM

The Veeam Backup is connected only by LAN to the VMware Infrastructure, but looking the Job logs I can see that Veeam try SAN mode first

1/15/2014 9:57:03 AM :: Saving [VMWARE1 LUN1] vCenter 5.1/vCenter 5.1.vmx
1/15/2014 9:57:03 AM :: Saving [VMWARE1 LUN1] vCenter 5.1/vCenter 5.1.vmxf
1/15/2014 9:57:03 AM :: Saving [VMWARE1 LUN1] vCenter 5.1/vCenter 5.1.nvram
1/15/2014 9:57:04 AM :: Using backup proxy VMware Backup Proxy for disk Hard disk 1 [san]
1/15/2014 9:57:04 AM :: Using backup proxy VMware Backup Proxy for disk Hard disk 2 [san]
1/15/2014 9:57:04 AM :: Hard disk 2 (100.0 GB)
1/15/2014 9:57:04 AM :: Hard disk 1 (25.0 GB)
1/15/2014 9:57:07 AM :: Unable to establish direct connection to the shared storage (SAN).
Please ensure that:
- HBA is properly installed in the Veeam Backup server computer, or software iSCSI initiator is configured correctly.
- SAN volume can be seen by operating system in the Windows Disk Management snap-in on the Veeam Backup server.
- Read access is allowed for the Veeam Backup server computer on the corresponding LUN (refer to your SAN documentation).

Cheers

Marco
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by foggy »

m.novelli wrote:Hi guys, one quick question: with Veeam Backup 7 can I safely backup the vCenter Appliance 5.1 itself?
Yes, you can, however this is not related to the issue you're seeing with transport mode selection. For some reason, Veeam B&R assumes that SAN mode is available (probably iSCSI Software Initiator is installed and configured). Btw, do you have failover to network mode enabled?
m.novelli
Veeam ProPartner
Posts: 504
Liked: 84 times
Joined: Dec 29, 2009 12:48 pm
Full Name: Marco Novelli
Location: Asti - Italy
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by m.novelli »

Yes, Veeam Backup fail to network mode with success

Marco
btniko
Influencer
Posts: 11
Liked: never
Joined: Aug 29, 2012 9:33 pm
Full Name: Bjørn-Tore Nikolaisen
Contact:

[MERGED] Best practice for backup of vCSA 5.5 ?

Post by btniko »

Hi -

Is there any Veeam best practice for backup of VMware vCenter Appliance 5.5 with embedded Postgre db ?

Kind r

Bjørn.
Vitaliy S.
VP, Product Management
Posts: 27055
Liked: 2710 times
Joined: Mar 30, 2009 9:13 am
Full Name: Vitaliy Safarov
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Vitaliy S. »

VMware has a KB article describing how to backup VCSA database via built-in functionality, however if you want to backup it with Veeam I assume the recommendation should be the same as I have described above.
dellock6
Veeam Software
Posts: 6137
Liked: 1928 times
Joined: Jul 26, 2009 3:39 pm
Full Name: Luca Dell'Oca
Location: Varese, Italy
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by dellock6 »

Vitaliy, since VBR 7 with latest patches is able to backup vCenter without needing anymore the "direct ESXi connection" workaround, maybe also VCSA can be backed up directly as any other VM? Also, the problem was about the SQL server of vCenter, but CSA does not uses MS SQL...

Luca.
Luca Dell'Oca
Principal EMEA Cloud Architect @ Veeam Software

@dellock6
https://www.virtualtothecore.com/
vExpert 2011 -> 2022
Veeam VMCE #1
veremin
Product Manager
Posts: 20270
Liked: 2252 times
Joined: Oct 26, 2012 3:28 pm
Full Name: Vladimir Eremin
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by veremin »

I would also make sure that VCSA job doesn't take place at the time when other jobs that have VMs added via vCenter connection are running. Thanks.
Vitaliy S.
VP, Product Management
Posts: 27055
Liked: 2710 times
Joined: Mar 30, 2009 9:13 am
Full Name: Vitaliy Safarov
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Vitaliy S. »

Hi Luca,
dellock6 wrote:Vitaliy, since VBR 7 with latest patches is able to backup vCenter without needing anymore the "direct ESXi connection" workaround, maybe also VCSA can be backed up directly as any other VM?
Yes, I had the same assumption, but I have double-checked it with the QC team and the workaround we have implemented refers to MS SQL Server only.

Thanks!
dellock6
Veeam Software
Posts: 6137
Liked: 1928 times
Joined: Jul 26, 2009 3:39 pm
Full Name: Luca Dell'Oca
Location: Varese, Italy
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by dellock6 »

So the "Direct ESXi mapping" workaround is still needed for VCSA, good to know.

Luca.
Luca Dell'Oca
Principal EMEA Cloud Architect @ Veeam Software

@dellock6
https://www.virtualtothecore.com/
vExpert 2011 -> 2022
Veeam VMCE #1
lobo519
Veteran
Posts: 315
Liked: 38 times
Joined: Sep 29, 2010 3:37 pm
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by lobo519 »

Are there any plans to address this?
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
Posts: 31459
Liked: 6648 times
Joined: Jan 01, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Baar, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Gostev »

I am a little confused by this thread. Could you clarify what needs to be addressed? Frankly I am not aware of any outstanding issues around vCSA that are waiting to be addressed. Thanks!
lobo519
Veteran
Posts: 315
Liked: 38 times
Joined: Sep 29, 2010 3:37 pm
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by lobo519 »

Sorry - From what I read above, to backup VCSA we need to add the VM directly from the host instead of vCenter. A similar issue to backing up a SQL server hosting a vCenter database...

Maybe I am the one who is confused! ><
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
Posts: 31459
Liked: 6648 times
Joined: Jan 01, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Baar, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Gostev »

This should not be the case with vCSA, as that issue was Microsoft SQL specific. I don't believe Luca's last comment is correct, it just went unnoticed.
lp@albersdruck.de
Enthusiast
Posts: 82
Liked: 33 times
Joined: Mar 25, 2013 7:37 pm
Full Name: Lars Pisanec
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by lp@albersdruck.de » 2 people like this post

And a little experience from real life:

I do backup vCSA since B&R 6.5 without any problems. vCSA is added through vCenter (vCSA) and not via direct connect to the ESXi host. That backup is running when no other jobs are running normally, but it will work even when other backups start/run as well - tested by coincidence ;)
Gostev
Chief Product Officer
Posts: 31459
Liked: 6648 times
Joined: Jan 01, 2006 1:01 am
Location: Baar, Switzerland
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by Gostev »

Thanks for the confirmation Lars, that's what I thought.
EddyChong
Enthusiast
Posts: 52
Liked: 1 time
Joined: Dec 09, 2013 8:46 am
Full Name: Eddy Chong
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by EddyChong »

Hi,

I've come across to a situation to backup vcenter server appliance 5.5. The built in database is postgreSQL and If we want a consistent state of db backup we need to enable VMware Tools Quiescence? (There will be no application aware image processing vm within same job)
or we will need a script to freeze the db (like what vss did) before backup?

Thank you
Eddy
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by foggy »

Yes, to get transaction consistency, you should use VMware Tools Quiescence for every non-Windows VM. There are no special scripts that should be used to backup VCSA, as far as I know.

Please also see the adjacent thread regarding VCSA backup with Veeam B&R. Thanks!
EddyChong
Enthusiast
Posts: 52
Liked: 1 time
Joined: Dec 09, 2013 8:46 am
Full Name: Eddy Chong
Contact:

Re: Backup vCenter Appliance

Post by EddyChong »

hi Alexander,

Thanks! i'll look into the thread now
v.tom
Enthusiast
Posts: 28
Liked: 5 times
Joined: May 06, 2014 2:28 pm
Full Name: Tom
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by v.tom »

I've have made a script which can automatically backup the vCenter database: http://virtual-matter.com/backup-vcente ... t-5-1-5-5/

If you backup vCenter with Veeam including this file, you will always have a consistent backup of your vCenter Appliance.
VMCE certified
tomcek
Novice
Posts: 5
Liked: 1 time
Joined: Dec 09, 2015 8:33 am
Contact:

[MERGED] Best method for Backup VCSA 6

Post by tomcek »

Can anyone recommend some settings for a consistent backup of a vCenter Appliance 6 (VCSA).

Enable application-aware processing does not work because Veeam seems not to be able to login to the VCSA although shell is enabled (login to VCSA with putty you come direct to the shell with user root). The test always fails.

I ask because of the vPostgres database inside the VCSA. Best would be to stop and start database or services linke "vmware-vdcs" and "vmware-vpxd".

It would be nice if someone can share his experience in backup the VCSA 6.


Thanks!
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: [vcsa 5] Any recommendation for a backup/replica job?

Post by foggy »

Please review the thread above. Starting/stopping PostgreSQL services/daemons prior making the VM snapshot should guarantee you application-consistent backups.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Baidu [Spider] and 70 guests