Initiating backup on powered-off VM, then powering on

[fcambot]

I am using vSphere 5.01, and my storage is a Dell SaS box.
I have a big VM (1.2T provisionned, ~800Gb used) to backup.
My problem is it runs a proprietary database system, one which is not designed for VSS (a combo of home-brewed MariaDb and proprietary app).
I was wondering if i could power off the VM using powershell script, then start the backup, and once snapshot is created, power on .
It would give me a nice proper backup with a small downtime (in my expectations ).

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Florian,

Yes, that should be possible, but I would rather prefer to stop all application services, than stop the entire VM. I guess it would be much easier to write these scripts and then use VMware Tools quiescence to run these scripts on pre-freeze and post-thaw operations.

Thanks!

[dellock6]

Depends on how much you can keep that service stopped, and if that time is enough for backing up the server. If yes, I would go for Vitalyi solution also because while a VM is powered off CBT is not available, so Veeam has to scan al the disks for changed blocks, resulting in longer backups. Keep the VM powered on so CBT will speed up the backup, and only shutdown services.

Luca.

[fcambot]

Thanks for the feedback, i did not know vmware tools was able to execute user scripts
I did alos not know that CBT was not available on powered off VM.
I'll try a backup with proper stop/start of the databases.