Protecting the VMware environment has its own unique set of data protection challenges. There are basically three ways to protect VMware: the guest OS method, the console backup method and the VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) method. The guest OS method treats each virtual machine as a standalone server and backups take place as usual as if the virtual is physical server. The second practice is the console backup practice, in which virtualisation administrators back up the VMware ESX Server with no regard of the underlying virtual machines in the ESX environment. (There is a “free” product, ESXi, but it has no console, and requires add-ons to manage.)

VCB Backup requires VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) and initially SAN attached disk (iSCSI or Fibre Chanel) but now supports VMFS with local, JBOD, iSCSI and Fibre-Channel-attached disk, network file system (NFS) and virtual compatibility mode raw device mapping (RDM). The only mode not currently supported is physical...

I saw an analyst report the other day that predicts that in spite of the economic downturn companies, large and small will be spending the same, or even increased, amounts on backup and recovery in fiscal year 2010.

Huh?

To make matters more “huh-like”, this study found that the adoption of disk based technologies is accelerating. Actually, when you think about it this makes sense - disk based backup improves recovery capabilities, backs up virtual environments more effectively and eliminates or reduces the physical requirement (and security hazard) for tape transport.

Actually, it’s making more sense the more you think about it. Older backup solutions or older hardware is less effective, more administratively heavy, time consuming, costing money and effort; new hardware technology on the other hand is more efficient and with new software there is more opportunity to automate more. The automation of IT processes can improve overall IT...

Exit Status Codes

Today organisations of all sizes are faced with managing their disk backup storage growth and improving the speed and ease of recovery of application data, all of which has led to increased complexity for IT administrators. Unfortunately, data protection solutions of old are failing to keep pace with this overwhelming data growth and complexity whereas new data protection solutions are trying to centralise on a single code base and common platform to deliver next generation data protection. The fact is: it just doesn’t work like that.

Next generation data protection solutions need to be complete, powered by disk, and centred on recovery - regardless of size. All organisations are required to protect data in the most efficient way to maximise time and resources - irrespective of size or location. But not only this, they are required to ensure service level requirements are consistently met and at the same time squeezed to improve backup windows and recovery time - all...