Where does the processing occur?

[howartp]

Hi.

We've got a powerful HP server as our main backup server running VBR 7, with plenty of local disk space to hold the last months' worth of VBR/VBK backups which we then run onto tape each month.

I came across a situation this week where I needed to restore the .vbk from an old tape backup (file to tape) and had nowhere to restore it to. I managed to free up enough space to restore it, and I only needed a few mb out of it so that was ok. But it got me thinking - if this was a disaster recovery, I would need 4TB of space to restore the VBK and 4TB for the contents to be restore out of it.

First question - if I restore a VBK from tape to a repository, then double-click the vbk to launch the restore wizard, does a 'entire vm' restore need additional space to restore the data to, or does it run from inside the vbk? I know vPower uses the vbk if it is still part of the on-disk backup, but does this apply if it has been restored from tape?

Now, when considering how to increase my disk space, I have various options to me. I have an unused SAN and VM estate which I can bring back into use, though it is only ESX 3. I can purchase a disk enclosure and attach it locally. Or I can use a spare / little used server.

Second question - if I am using vPower to restore an 'entire vm' that is in a remote Repository (which is also a Proxy), where does the processing occur? Does the remote proxy do the processing and hosting of the virtual machines, or does the main Veeam server do the processing and hosting of the virtual machines, but using the files on disk in the remote Repository? Is the same true if that restore is from tape (connected to the main Veeam server) rather than already on a repository?

Third question - if I setup ESX 3 or vSphere 4 on my old ESX hardware (it won't support vSphere 5), can Veeam use that VMware estate to execute vm's that are still on my main Veeam repository? And the same if it's on my remote Repository? If so, I'll only need the local hard drives in the ESX servers with no other datastores, which will be great.

Peter

[foggy]

First question - if I restore a VBK from tape to a repository, then double-click the vbk to launch the restore wizard, does a 'entire vm' restore need additional space to restore the data to, or does it run from inside the vbk? I know vPower uses the vbk if it is still part of the on-disk backup, but does this apply if it has been restored from tape?

vPower is not involved during full VM restore, VM is restored directly to the VMFS datastore you select in the restore wizard, so you do not need any additional space in the repository. Do you probably mean Instant VM Recovery?

[howartp]

vPower is not involved during full VM restore, VM is restored directly to the VMFS datastore you select in the restore wizard, so you do not need any additional space in the repository. Do you probably mean Instant VM Recovery?

Is 'Instant VM Recovery' available from a restored VBK? I only saw the option for 'entire VM'.

Peter

[foggy]

Well, what Instant Recovery does is actually running VM directly from the backup file, using vPower technology to place all VM changes on the vPowerNFS datastore. While full VM restore extracts the VM image to the production storage.