vmware backup integrity eric siebert vexpert, author, blogger blog: ://vsphere-land.com twitter:...
TRANSCRIPT
VMware Backup Integrity
Eric SiebertvExpert, Author, Blogger
Blog: http://vsphere-land.com http://searchvmware.com
Twitter: @ericsiebert
About the speaker
25 year IT industry veteran.
vSphere Land blog: http://vmware-land.com/Author of popular books
vExpert nomination
Contributor to industry publications
Agenda
Why backup integrity is critical
Traditional backup verification methods
How virtualization makes verification easier
Quiescing is critical to consistency
VMware Tools is important
Why backup integrity is critical?
Good Restore?
APP
Good backup
Good backups are important, good restores is more important Backups worthless without proper restore capabilities No errors reported doesn’t imply recoverability Test and verify backups are working and recoverable
Restore
Backup
The challenge of verifying backups
Good backup Non-production environment
APP
Reporting a successful backup is not a complete verification File, application, database and server restores needed Proper verification can be time-consuming Restoring files is easy, applications or whole VM is complicated
Need to ensure that VM backups are usable
APP
Traditional backup verification methods
Same OS
Same Drivers
Same App
Non-production environment
Ensuring recoverability with legacy tools unfeasible
Restore
Backup
Verification can’t impact production VMs Requires un-used hardware to test restore Bare-metal restores for verification is impractical Difficult with many server models and generations
Data Restore Levels
3 Different levels to backup and restore
Application item level
File level
Image level
Restore
Backup
SQLrecord
How virtualization makes verification easier
VMs easily restored to host and powered on Network isolation prevents impacting production
systems Multiple VMs restored to tests applications No extra hardware required
Restore
Backup
The process is easier with virtualization
Consistency is the key to good backups
Restore
Backup
OS, applications and data need to be in proper state
Critical for transactional applications: AD, SQL and
Exchange
Server must be prepared before snapshot
Pending transactions must completed
Missing data can cause corruption
Exchange SQL Active Directory More
Transaction-based applications
Quiescing is critical to consistency
Not all applications support quiescing
Quiescing pauses VM while outstanding operations complete
Once quiesce is complete, VM snapshot can be taken
Windows uses VSS
Linux uses VMare Tools
Backup states
A VM can be in several states when snapshot is taken
Equivalent to hard power off
OS is quiesced
OS and applications are quiesced, best state
File system consistent
VMware Tools
Contains drivers and applications that help optimize the guest OS to run on a VMware host
Guest daemon
Toolbox/tray
VMmemtcl
VMxnet
VMsync
Host/guest communication
Configure VMware Tool settings
Memory balloon driver
VMware network drivers
Sync driver for freezing and thawing
VMwareTools
VMware Tools
Backup Server starts backup job
Backup Server contactsVMware Tools to quiesce VM
Microsoft VSS quiesce’s VM
Backup Server creates VMSnapshotUsing API
Backup Server begins image-Level backup
Backup Server deletes VM snapshot when finished
1 2 3 4 5 6
VMware Tools interacts with VSS VMware Tools may not immediately support newest OSes Backups can provide OS agents to quiesce VMs In Linux VMs, the VMsync driver can provide VSS-like
features
What we covered:
Verify recoverability of backups to avoid any
surprises
Regular verification of recoverability is required
Leverage virtualization for verification
Automation is essential
Verifying recoverability is critical
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