Agent or VMware integration for Database backups?

[mark49808]

I have probably a simple question. I am working through a design exercise for backing up MS SQL and other databases. I have VMware hosts running VMs, as well as standalone physical hosts. Obviously on the physical hosts I need to install the appropriate agent (veeam agent for windows, linux, etc). But on the VMs i could either do the application-integrated backup via the VMware backup, or install an agent within the VM. Which is better? Is there a difference?

Add on to this the complexity of the VMware admins are different from the SQL admins. So some separation of console or B&R environment is desirable here (i want DBAs to be able to interact with Veeam for their databases, but NOT for other VMs in the same environment). That would suggest that co-mingling database backups with my VM backups would make this more difficult.

How are other people doing this?

[HannesK]

Hello,
one difference is that the agent option needs agent management. another that agent backup traffic goes via network while VM backup can be done via NBD / HotAdd / SAN (including storage snapshots).

separation can be done in enterprise manager. you can give the SQL admins only permissions to restore SQL databases

Best regards,
Hannes