The Backup Blog

VMware Backup with Avamar and vSphere Part 2

On the previous post I had a chance to review the major backup and recovery options for VMware. I put the discussion in terms of Avamar, but a lot of that is just for convenience. If you want, you can substitute your favorite backup application in place of Avamar, and you will get more or less the same result (minus the deduplication), albeit perhaps with greater operational pain and expense.

In any event, now that I have covered off the mechanics of the three major options, it is time to take a look at the why and the how of it all. Why would I want to choose one option over the other? How do we differentiate between them? Simply put: what is the best way to back up VMware?

I am going to start by breaking one of the cardinal rules of rhetoric. I am going to state my conclusion before my premises. And my conclusion is this:

Everybody that runs transactional applications in a VM should do guest level backup. You may also do image level backup as an additional method of data protection, but guest level backup is necessary. If you are protecting anything other than a transactional application with a Windows guest OS, then an image level backup (generated by vSphere 4.0 and Avamar 5.0) is sufficient. If you are protecting a Linux guest OS machine that is not running a transactional application, then you will likely find that guest level backups are sufficient.

Now why would I insist that guest level backup is the preferred methodology if you are running a transactional application within your guest OS?

VMware Backup with Avamar 5.0 and vSphere 4.0

One of the most important, and most frequent questions I get asked is this: what is the best way to back up VMware?

Well, "best" tends to be a bit of a slippery term. Usually the answer to the question should be "it depends." But I thought I would take the time to explore what it really means when we say "it depends." What does it depend on? What are the pros and cons of the different approaches? What are the most important considerations? And what new choices do we have with vSphere 4.0?

Now I am going to explore the answer in the context of Avamar. Mostly I am going to do so because I work for EMC and it is convenient to be able to put a label on these products and processes. Having said that, almost everything I say about the costs and benefits, the value of the various approaches with respect to each other, and the drawbacks of the various approaches is true irrespective of the backup product you are using. Guest backup has certain costs and certain benefits--no matter if you use Avamar or something else. Where benefits are specific to Avamar I will identify them. And certain things that that I identify as unique may only be unique as of the time of this writing; clearly some of the functionality is so desirable that other backup application vendors will be trying very hard to get this capability into their shipping product.

All that said, I think there are two primary methods of protecting a VM: guest level backup and image level backup. There are a couple of ways in which the number of options multiply however--do you use source deduplication or target deduplication? Do you want to use the array to generate a copy for image level backup, or do you want to rely on ESX/vSphere?

Data Protection Advisor 5.5

EMC is releasing the latest version of Data Protection Advisor (DPA) today, version 5.5

DPA has been with EMC for a while now, and it is one of those quiet little overachievers that probably doesn't get the recognition it deserves. One big reason for that is the chronic perception of backup as the most unwanted, and unloved, discipline in the IT organization. And it can be hard enough for backup folks to get funding for infrastructure and software, never mind a piece of software that is (in some senses) secondary to the whole process: software that monitors and reports on backup.

For better or worse however, this stuff is important. Simply put, the native reporting capabilities of most backup applications is not good.

As a result, most backup admins--and their organizations--benefit a lot from software that helps them monitor, report, trouble shoot, do trend analysis and so on. What is maybe not clear is just how much this stuff can help: we have found that it is often the case that DPA is so helpful that it pays for itself in a year or less. DPA can save so much administrative time and effort that it cost justifiable in a very short time frame.

Do You Need Backup?

Do you need backup?

And yes that is a serious question. (Given the name of this blog, and my chosen specialization for the last 20 years, it is understandable if you think I was asking it in jest!)

A recent real world situation makes me wonder. It also makes me wonder at what point something becomes a self-evident truth? And are we adequately equipped to answer this question with a logical and defensible answer based on data rather than opinion? Hmmm...

First, a story. One of my favourites in years of IT. And it really happened, about 12 or so years ago.

A certain organization had a badly aging mainframe. It was creaking badly (in the metaphorical sense). The maintenance cost way more than the lease on a newer system. It was bigger than a newer system--taking up too much space. It wouldn't run the most current operating system. And so on. And the only one that noticed was the lead sys admin. When he pointed this out to management--who were apparently surprised by this state of affairs--he asked for funding for a new system. His manager asked him to justify the funding request. The sys admin left, and came in early the next morning to drop off a one page business case for the upgrade. Actually, it was just three words (in 72 point text): "Think about it."

Avamar v5.0

Today EMC formally announced the availability of Avamar 5.0, which is loaded with new features and functionality. I am going to briefly review some of them here, focusing on the changes that I think will be most significant from a customer's point of view.

Having said that, please don't hesitate to ask questions or post feedback in the comments section if any of you are interested in any clarification on the material.

So what is new?

The big news is: bigger nodes, best server side task scheduling, more efficient checkpoints, new clients, desktop and laptop support, major performance enhancements for a variety of clients, and enhanced support for VMware environments.

That is the high level. Let's dive into these in a little more detail.