Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
Post Reply
casaubon
Novice
Posts: 7
Liked: never
Joined: Jan 26, 2012 3:54 pm
Full Name: Antoine
Contact:

HotAdd from a VBR placed on a ESX outside the ESXi cluster

Post by casaubon »

Hello,

i am working on a VBR 6 design architecture. The goal is to backup VMs hosted in a ESXi 4.1 Cluster. This ESXi Cluster use FC IBM Storage (DS Series).

I would like to install the VBR6 server in a VM outside this cluster on a ESXi 4.1 stand-alone with vSphere Enterprise license. This ESXi stand-alone has an attachement to the fabric with its propers HBA and can access all the VMFS datastore of the ESXi cluster placed on the DS storage. This ESXi has 8 cores and will be dedicated to the VBR6 VM (SQL Express, enterprise manager, backup proxy and backup repository) and the vCenter Server VM.

So, The idea is to use the 'virtual appliance' mode with hotadd in my VBR6 server and to place the backups files in the ESXi standalone local disk through a RDM volume.

Is it possible to do that ? Does the VDDK/HotAdd functionnality permit to mount a vmdk from a VM inside my cluster to my VBR6 VM on a standalone ESXi outside the cluster ?

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

Re: HotAdd from a VBR placed on a ESX outside the ESXi clust

Post by foggy »

Hello! The main requirement for hotadd is that the host running backup proxy server VM must have all datastores where protected VMs' disks reside connected to it. If your backup proxy has access to the cluster datastore, then hotadd is most likely possible (find some other limitations of using this mode in this KB article). Thanks.
casaubon
Novice
Posts: 7
Liked: never
Joined: Jan 26, 2012 3:54 pm
Full Name: Antoine
Contact:

Re: HotAdd from a VBR placed on a ESX outside the ESXi clust

Post by casaubon »

Thanks you foggy !

My standlone ESXi running the backup proxy server VM have an access to all datastores where is residing the protected VM of my VMware Cluster.

I asked this question because i heard some limitation about the VDDK API for hotadding VMDK belonging to VM in a cluster to a VBR Virtual Appliance outside this cluster...

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

Re: HotAdd from a VBR placed on a ESX outside the ESXi clust

Post by tsightler »

Probably because, in most setups, the cluster is the boundary for shared datastores, i.e. a cluster is generally defined as a group of hosts which share the same datastores. However, technically this doesn't have to be the case.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: karsten123 and 63 guests