running replication and backup jobs - best practices

[coolgod]

I have configured continuous replication of 2 vms from 1 ESXi to another.

I also have 2 separate VM copy jobs for each of the Vms without any schedule...so they dont run
automatically for the moment.

in addition to the replication i also want to run the VM copy jobs for e.g on every friday.

please help me to configure the schedules so that they dont clash and create nightmare .

thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Vicky,

Can you please clarify one thing before we proceed to discuss your job schedules - in the subject you say backup jobs, but in the body of the post you refer to VM copy job. What exactly do you want to use?

Thanks!

[coolgod]

oops, sorry the title should be "running replication and VM copy jobs - best practices"

I mean "VM copy" jobs ignore the "backup job"

[Vitaliy S.]

That's what I've thought. Why don't you want to use backup jobs that store VMs in a compressed and deduped image and has a retention policy settings as opposed to VM copy jobs? Where do you copy VM images to?

[coolgod]

Why don't you want to use backup jobs that store VMs in a compressed and deduped image and has a retention policy settings as opposed to VM copy jobs?

i want the same Virtual machine format which is VMDK so that I can take the "VM Copy" to another ESXi host and start the VM there.

Where do you copy VM images to?

On the same server where I installed Veeam BR

[Vitaliy S.]

Ok, but please be aware VM copy jobs do not track changes, thus you will always have full job passes every time. Furthermore, you cannot specify retention policy for VM Copy jobs and they do not preserve thin-provisioned disk format, meaning that all thin disks will consume all space you have provisioned to them. See this topic for more information on job types and its recommended usage.

Restoring VMs from backup will take the same time as just copying VM image files to the ESXi server, so if you want to do proper backups of your infrastructure, I would suggest using backup jobs instead.

As to the scheduling options, then Veeam backup server will not process the same VM with two jobs at the same time. It will wait till first job finishes and then will start the second one.

Hope this helps!

[coolgod]

lets say i configure my "replication schedule" as follows:
Monday 12.00 to Friday 17.00

and my "Vm Copy schedule" as follows:
Friday 17:30 to Sunday 20.00

what will happen if the replication does not complete by Friday 17.00 ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Your second job will start to process VMs that have already been replicated by first job, and then it will process VMs that were put in a queue due to a lock state by a first job.

[veremin]

I second Vitaliy in proposing usage of backup jobs instead of VM copy ones. If you're concerned that backup data can't be restored without full product installation, you can always put extract.exe utility into use. Thanks.

[dellock6]

A dirty trick could also be to use an NFS export as the target storage for replication. If needed, the NFS share can be opened with a linux or windows computer and it's content read and copied; in this way you can achieve both the need for native format and the usefulness of incremental copies coming from proper Veeam replicas.
Be aware anyway that the VMs will be versioned using snapshots, so the parent VMDK will represent the first restore point of the chain, not the last.

Luca.