Best Practices for VMware Backups Rick Vanover MCITP vExpert VCP Software Strategy Specialist Veeam Software

About the Speaker Contributor to industry publications

Agenda About VMware vSphere Backup requirements and how-to Difference-making technologies Considerations of image-based backups Virtual machine design and provisioning Separation of source and target Organization of backups Ensuring application consistency Testing recoverability Considerations for multiple OSes and applications Retention, availability and integrity Job notifications, alerts and management

About VMware vSphere

VMware backup requirements  Key metrics: RTO and RPO  Recovery time objective—The amount of downtime tolerable to get back up and running.  Recovery point objective—The tolerable amount of data loss during an availability incident. RTO & RPO

How are requirements going to be met  Bottom line: Confidence in the restore Leverage the platform for optimized backups

Difference-making technologies  By leveraging the platform, fundamental improvements in data protection can be achieved. vSphere platform enables changes to be made VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows Restore Backup

Consideration of image-based backups Image, agent and file-level backups all different VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows File-level VM Windows VM Windows Agent

Virtual machine design and provisioning

Separation of source and target VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows VM Windows ESX(i) host(s) Shared storage resources Backup software

Organization of backup jobs Intuitive flow from production source to backup target Organization in vSphere with Folders or Resource pools Organization in vSphere with Folders or Resource pools Jobs in backup Software with the same name as folder in vSphere Jobs in backup Software with the same name as folder in vSphere Folders or shares on file system with same names as backup jobs vSphere Source Backup Software Backup Target

Design example – vSphere folders  Used as a container for VMs  View accessible by selecting “VMs and Templates”  Can also be a parent object for permissions  Can be nested

Design example – backup targets  Good example is a folder or share  Caution not to make it too complicated  This again will function as a container

Ensure application consistency  Difference between crash-consistent and application- consistent backups Quiescing of application critical VM Windows VM Windows

Test recoverability  Different than backup verification Ensure a VMware virtual machine backup is usable

Consideration for multiple OSes and applications  Things are easier in a Windows-only world Arrange best tools for each platform

Backup retention, availability and integrity Ensure all requirements are met Tape offload? VM replication? Backup file replication? VM Windows VM Windows Restore Backup

Job notifications, alerts and management Critical for ongoing success

What We Covered About VMware vSphere Backup requirements and how-to Difference-making technologies Considerations of image-based backups Virtual machine design and provisioning Separation of source and target Organization of backups Ensuring application consistency Testing recoverability Considerations for multiple OSes and applications Retention, availability and integrity Job notifications, alerts and management

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