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VMware Backup FAQ

Any virtual infrastructure you develop requires you to store a VMware backup copy of a virtual machine and all of its data in order to survive a failure. Without it you can lose important data and your job. Here are some frequently asked questions can help sort through VMware backup tools to find the best approach for your needs.

What technologies are available for VMware Backup?
There are two major technologies:

If you’re coming to virtual machines from a physical machine environment, you could use existing legacy server backup tools to carry out traditional file-and-folder-based backups. But these 20th-century approaches to 21st century problems back up only half of the data you really need for a full virtual machine recovery. And they require you to take the machine offline, a huge drawback in today’s always-on virtual computing environment. Industry experts recommend snapshot technology overwhelmingly for SMB and many SME environments. It takes an image of a complete virtual machine while it’s still running and it permits recovery of either individual files or the entire machine in just minutes to meet today’s tight recovery time objectives.

What is a snapshot?
It’s a point-in-time view of the virtual machine, complete with operating system, application, all the data associated with it, and settings. Most solutions don’t require taking the machine offline even momentarily to capture a snapshot image. Look for solutions that are application aware to support complete recoveries of SQL and Exchange software environments.

How do snapshots improve VMware backup?
They’re fast, with all the information needed to recover not just individual files, messages and database items (granular recovery), but whole virtual machines, too. Look carefully for VMware Backup software that doesn’t rob CPU cycles from the VMware ESX or ESXi host. Some 1st generation solutions routinely register spikes of up to 80%, slowing VM performance to a crawl.

How do snapshots guard against data loss?
The more frequently you can take a snapshot, the better a job you’ll do guarding against data loss. The best disk imaging solutions can support taking snapshots as frequently as every five minutes, effectively eliminating the risk of data loss.

Can I use VMware’s built in snapshots?
The short answer is yes, you can. The question is, what are you trying to protect from? If you want to recover when the service pack you just installed fails and hoses the machine, a VMware native snapshot is fine. But if you want to protect from a failed VM or bad disk or disaster of any kind, then the answer is no. Each snapshot is tied to the original data. If the original data goes away, the snapshots are worthless. To protect that data, you need an extension of snapshot technology, separate from main storage, where VM native snapshots live alongside their full production machines. Snapshot-based backup products that have their own copy of the original data and automate the snapshotting process will keep them separate and enable a full recovery from any kind of failure.

How can I manage storage of all my VMware backup data?
Virtual environments tend to create more data than the physical environments they replace, so taking steps to reduce the amount of data you actually have to store and transmit takes on added significance. VMware backup software with built-in data deduplication should be on your list, and it’s even better if you combine data deduplication with file compression for maximum data storage reduction.

How can I protect my virtual machine data offsite?
This is no idle question in a virtual server room, because you never know if a fire or flood could wipe out your local backups. While some 1st generation VMware backup software schemes don’t support online or cloud-based storage, more advanced solutions build it right in to ensure local disasters won’t result in permanent business problems.

I have a hybrid computing environment. Do I really need multiple backup products to support my virtual and physical machines?
It depends on the software. First generation VMware backup software applications work only in hypervisor environments, offering no help to administrators tasked with backing up physical servers too. Better to choose a solution that takes snapshots of all your servers – virtual and physical – and manages them all through a single screen: you’ll halve your administrative workload and simplify recoveries. (see Windows Server backup, VMware backup, and Hyper-V backup for more details and tips.)

Learn More About VMware Backup >


AppAssure vs Symantec

Dell AppAssure Software for Exchange continuously protects and monitors the health of your Exchange data stores and allows administrators to quickly search, recover, and analyze mailbox content. With Dell AppAssure Software for Exchange you can backup and restore individual email messages, folders, or mailboxes to a live Exchange server or directly to a PST, thereby solving some of your most costly and time consuming challenges.
Dell AppAssure Software for SQL is an enterprise SQL server backup and disaster recovery software solution developed to assure comprehensive protection - including system and user databases, SQL binaries and the server - making it possible to restore both servers and databases in just minutes.
Dell AppAssure Software for Hyper-V is an enterprise-class backup and disaster recovery software solution designed for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V environments. Dell AppAssure Software for Hyper-V supports both host and guest level backup methodologies while delivering accelerated backups, fast local recoveries and disaster recovery, all-in-one solution.
Dell AppAssure Software for SharePoint is an enterprise backup and disaster recovery software solution developed to assure comprehensive protection - including front-end servers, SQL servers and the web servers - making it possible to restore both the entire SharePoint environment, individual SharePoint servers and databases and individual SharePoint objects in just minutes.
Dell AppAssure Software for Windows Servers is an application-aware, server-based backup and disaster recovery software solution that delivers fast application backups, fast local recoveries and off-site disaster recovery, all-in-one solution.
Dell Small businesses typically have limited IT resources and smaller staffs than large enterprises, but with Dell AppAssure Software for Windows Small Business Server they have full access to the same powerful server backup and recovery software tools found in larger organizations.
Dell AppAssure Software for VMware is an enterprise-class backup and disaster recovery software solution designed for Windows workloads running VMware virtual environments. With one price for an unlimited number of guests, Dell AppAssure Software delivers accelerated backups, fast local recoveries and disaster recovery, all-in-one solution.
Dell AppAssure Software for Windows Desktops (VDI) simplifies and automates backup and disaster recovery processes, while giving an administrator the ability to remotely monitor and manage large VDI deployments or geographically distributed machines from a single console.
DocRetriever for SharePoint dramatically simplifies the process of restoring individual documents, sites, sub-sites and folders. SharePoint Administrators no longer need to spend countless hours rebuilding your entire production database, or worry about deploying a temporary SharePoint recovery farm, just to recover an individual document or list item.
MailRetriever for Exchange is an affordable and easy-to-use e-mail recovery software package for browsing, recovering, searching, exporting, and analyzing e-mail and mailbox content directly from any unmounted Microsoft Exchange Data Store (EDB). MailRetriever for Exchange can even open and repair corrupted EDB files. With MailRetriever for Exchange, you are never more than just a few clicks away from recovering a message or mailbox. MailRetriever for Exchange eliminates the need for time-consuming full-server and EDB restores for message recovery.
For individual message or mailbox recovery, Dell AppAssure Software and Microsoft Storage Solutions have partnered together to deliver MailRetriever for DPM, enabling Microsoft Exchange administrators around the world to gain efficient and economical access to message-level recovery.
Dell AppAssure´s Backup software for Kaseya lets you recover from any server failure to physical or virtual machines in minutes, backup and recover either locally or offsite, and provide offsite DR to customers with low bandwidth through integrated deduplication and replication.
Dell AppAssure Backup & Disaster Recovery Software is best way to back up and protect your VMware virtual machines. It doesn´t just support your virtual environment - rather; it leverages VMware ESX, ESXi and vSphere to provide a whole new level of protection for all your virtualized applications, services and desktops. Dell AppAssure Software lets you meet your VMware backup RTO and RPO objectives for less.