During VMworld I quickly wrote down the steps that VMware vCenter Data Recovery takes when backing up VMs. I added one step which isn’t unimportant, changed block tracking(4):
- Create a snapshot of disk(s)
- Hot add disk(s) to Data Recovery appliance
- Create hashes of (hopefully variable) blocks
- Read data of changed blocks if previous backup exists
- Dedupe(using variable chunk sizes) and create SHA1 hash for index
- Store data (possibly encrypted)
- Remove hot add disk(s)
- Remove snapshot
Compared to the current VCB installable and current feature set VI 3.5 offers this is a huge enhancement. (VMware vCenter Data Recovery will be part of the vSphere products.) Creating deduplicated back ups of only the changed blocks based on variable chunk sizes will give every user the opportunity to have a decent backup scheme. VMware vCenter Data Recovery utilizes the new VMware Consolidated Backup API by the way. For those afraid that the dedupe datastore gets corrupted an automated short integrity check is performed once a day and a thorough integrity check once a week.
Keep in mind that not only VMware will be able to utilize these new features. Because VCB is changed to an API a much tighter integration with 3rd party backup tools can be expected in the near future!
I would love to get my hands on a beta version of the product as soon as it’s available to play around with it some more and tell you more about the rich feature set this product will have. Unfortunately it’s not available yet and you will all have to wait, but I will keep you posted.
I would also like to get a beta of vCenter Data Recovery and test it out.
Sounds good so far.
How will restores be handled?
Still with the converter?
Thanks,
Hannes
Restores are done with one click. I suprised by how easy the product works. But i was even more impressed bij vAppSpeed.
Restore is indeed also done with the same tool!
Sounds like this could still be expensive by way of requiring a separate VCB server, which I do not like…it’s an added cost and extra server to maintain…
Expensive? Separate VCB? Where does it state that you need an additional server for VCB? You don’t need one… it’s an API not an installable.
I’ve tried it @ VMworld Hands on Lab.
Very nice tech preview.
What puzzled me is that if the snapshot is hot added to the appliance how come that you don’t see it appear as an additional disk in the VM config and how come that looking at the performance monitoring (in vCenter) you see only network activity (no disk IO) ?
Waiting for the beta to do a deeper analysis.
; )
The disk i/o is handled by the ESX I/O stack instead of the VM. This is why you didn’t notice this.
Doesn’t present usage of VCB require a separate server (proxy)?? I thought that would carry over into the vSphere setup too. And having another server for VCB is another server license, etc. etc.??
I’m also curious how phd esXpress will differentiate themselves from this. From what I have seen so far, their forthcoming 3.5 release looks really similar to what VMware is doing here.
Currently yes, Future products no.
How is the handling of snapshots?
Most products that I have seen will NOT backup VM’s where an existing snapshot exists.
This is OK, but there are times when you will need snapshots on the VM’s to faciliate upgrades, etc. If a snap exists, the VM does not get backed up.
Will that still be the case with this product, or will this new API allow for pre-existing snapshots?
hello,
sorry, I came late in here after it released and now I’m testing now. Seeing huge difference between vRanger and vDR. vRanger with VMs having RDM attached as physical compatibility mode cannot be backed it successfully. however, with vDR it doesn’t care about the RDM. cool features!!
But how can i take care of my Deduplication Store? since i cannot install third-party agent on the vDR nor i can write the Deduplication Store to a tape for off-side storage?
Or there is away how to do this?
Thanks,
Habibalby