May 25 2009 12:27AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Deduplication,
backup,
data centers,
replication,
VTL,
tape libraries,
robotic libraries,
terabytes
Hi folks, I wanted to talk backup for a second. Now in large data center environments backup strategies aren’t always cut and dry. You are usually dealing with large amounts of data and very small backup windows.
We’re talking about servers that need to be up 24/7 and 365 days a year and lots of data going through them on a daily basis. Once you get into counting your backup size by terabytes vs gigabytes it’s time to start looking at some different strategies.
VTL has always been a good idea, offloading to disk and then offloading to tape later when you have more time to do it. This way you can offload your backups at high speed in your short window. However an often overlooked method which has started to gain serious traction is deduplication. Many vendors offer it and some even combine it into their VTL offerings. Deduplication can achieve an average compression ratio of 20:1 and at it’s best go as high as 50:1 and even higher sometimes.
So take a moment to look at the deduplication offerings out there. Some of them even offer the ability to replicate the deduped data to an offsite location over the WAN without using tape at all. This way you can save on the cost of tape.
-RP
Feb 14 2009 11:22PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Windows Services for Unix,
Windows services for Unix 3.5,
NFS,
SFU,
MMC,
Mount Windows Share as NFS Share,
mount windows folder as NFS share,
NFS Server for Windows,
Windows 2003,
backups,
virtual machine backups,
VMware backups,
backup ESXi,
backups VMware ESXi,
VMware ESXi,
VMware ESX,
backup free vmware,
VCB,
backup without VCB,
backup script,
ghettoVCB,
ghetto VCB,
ghettoVCB.sh,
William Lam,
lamw,
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760,
how to implement ghettoVCB,
how to backup virtual machine,
how to backup ESXi,
how to backup ESX,
how to backup VMware,
file level backup,
virtual machine level backup,
putty,
plink,
Allegro NFS,
how to backup virtual machines,
script to backup vmware
Hello again folks! As I had mentioned previously, I want to talk a little bit about configuring NFS in Windows. Since last we spoke I had mentioned using the Allegro NFS product and that I was considering purchasing it after my trial was over.
NFS is a great solution to use along with the ghettoVCB scripts I mentioned in my previous posts. This way you can backup your virtual machines to USB storage connected to a workstation or server.
Well my trial is over and I have now purchased it for use in my home lab. I have to say it works flawlessly. I experimented with some free NFS software that is out there but nothing seemed to work perfectly. I found that a lot of products would just stop working after a period of time and then you’d have to restart the service or program in question.
Allegro NFS is pretty easy to configure. You start the program, you specify the windows path name you want to share out via NFS, then you specify the hosts and rights you want to give to the share. Then you just go to your client computer and mount the NFS share as you normally would. Pretty straightforward, it doesn’t get any easier than this. This is a great solution for users using workstation operating systems such as Windows Vista to share out external USB drives as NAS storage.
However if you want to use a workable free solution in your server environment then I would suggest using the Windows Services for Unix download with your Windows 2003 install. To get this working please do the following:
- Download the files /etc/passwd and /etc/group from your ESX or ESXi server using WinSCP
- Create a folder on your C drive called c:\nfs and place the passwd and group files in there
- Download Windows Services for Unix 3.5 from here and install it
- Make sure you install the Server for NFS and User Mapping components during the install
- During the user mapping configuration portion of the install, choose Local User Name Mapping Server and choose Password and Group files
- In the User Name mapping screen type in the path name for the passwd and group files (c:\nfs\passwd and c:\nfs\group)
- After it’s installed, click on Start and Run then type MMC
- Add the Windows Services for Unix Snap-in to the MMC console
- Select User Name Mapping on the left hand pane and then select the MAPS section in the right hand pane
- Ensure Simple Maps is checked and then click on Show User Maps
- Then click on list Windows Users and list UNIX users
- Select Administrator from the Windows user list and select root from the UNIX users list and then click Add
- Check the Display simple maps in Mapped users list checkbox
- Click on Apply in the top right hand corner of the MMC console
- Close the MMC console
- Create a folder and right click on it and choose Sharing and Security
- Click on the NFS Sharing tab
- Click share this folder and give it a share name, in this example we’ll call it NFSBackup
- Click on permissions
- Check the Allow root access box
- Change the Type of Access drop down menu to Read-Write and then click OK and then click OK again
Now you can mount the share from VMware. When you go to add NFS storage just point it at the IP of the server and the path. So if the server’s IP address is 192.168.1.10 for example, then the serer name would be 192.168.1.10 and the NFS path would be /NFSBackup.
That’s it!
-Cheers, RP
Feb 8 2009 12:29AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups,
virtual machine backups,
VMware backups,
backup ESXi,
backups VMware ESXi,
VMware ESXi,
VMware ESX,
backup free vmware,
VCB,
backup without VCB,
backup script,
ghettoVCB,
ghetto VCB,
ghettoVCB.sh,
William Lam,
lamw,
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760,
how to implement ghettoVCB,
how to backup virtual machine,
how to backup ESXi,
how to backup ESX,
how to backup VMware,
file level backup,
virtual machine level backup,
putty,
plink,
NFS,
Windows services for Unix 3.5,
Allegro NFS,
schedule ESXi ghettoVCB.sh,
schedule jobs in ESXi,
cron,
crond,
crontab,
cron jobs,
how to backup virtual machines
So continued from my previous blogs, I wanted to discuss scheduling jobs in ESXi. Due to the way ESXi is made, you cannot edit the cron jobs and expect them to still be there with their changes past a reboot. Rebooting an ESXi server clears the cron jobs. The cron jobs reset back to their default settings.
In my last blog post I spoke of a program called Plink. Plink is a command line interface to Putty. This allows us to connect to an SSH session from the command line. This can be leveraged using batch scripting and windows scheduled tasks to schedule ESXi jobs.
For my example I will show you how to schedule the ghettoVCB.sh script I spoke about in my last blog entry. Please see my detailed instructions on how to do this in my blog post here.
-RP
Feb 7 2009 11:09PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups,
virtual machine backups,
VMware backups,
backup ESXi,
backups VMware ESXi,
VMware ESXi,
VMware ESX,
backup free vmware,
VCB,
backup without VCB,
backup script,
ghettoVCB,
ghetto VCB,
ghettoVCB.sh,
William Lam,
lamw,
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760,
how to implement ghettoVCB,
how to backup virtual machine,
how to backup ESXi,
how to backup ESX,
how to backup VMware,
file level backup,
virtual machine level backup,
putty,
plink,
NFS,
Windows services for Unix 3.5,
Allegro NFS,
how to backup virtual machines,
script to backup vmware
Hello again, so here we go continued from my previous post. I am going to explain how to implement this script in VMware ESXi as this is the most likely way people will be using this script. Most peole using the full VMware ESX version will probably go with a commercial 3rd party product backup solution.
So in order to implement this script you will first have to enable SSH access to the ESXi server. You can do this by following my enable SSH instructions in my blog post here.
Then after you have enabled SSH, please follow my detailed instructions in my blog post here.
-Cheers, RP
Feb 7 2009 6:10AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups,
virtual machine backups,
VMware backups,
backup ESXi,
backups VMware ESXi,
VMware ESXi,
VMware ESX,
backup free vmware,
VCB,
backup without VCB,
backup script,
ghettoVCB,
ghetto VCB,
ghettoVCB.sh,
William Lam,
lamw,
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760,
how to implement ghettoVCB,
how to backup virtual machine,
how to backup ESXi,
how to backup ESX,
how to backup VMware,
file level backup,
virtual machine level backup,
how to backup virtual machines,
script to backup vmware
Hello again folks! Today I wanted to talk a little bit about virtual machine backups. When backing up in a virtual environment there are two types of backups you are looking at. File level backups and virtual machine level backups.
File level backups are self explantory, they are the backups you run with backup software to backup the individual files, folders and system state data on a server. Everyone should already be doing these kinds of backups.
Virtual machine level backups are backups of the entire virtual machine itself. Virtual machine backups consist of the actual files that make up the entire virtual machine. For example in the case of VMware, the vmdk and vmx files for example. By backing these files up, you can restore the entire virtual machine to another location if your ESX server and the storage area that holds the virtual machine blows up. You can install a new ESX server and restore the entire virtual machine to a new storage location managed by a new ESX host.
One of my favorite products to do this is the free script from William Lam called GhettoVCB. You can read more details about it in my post here.
-RP
Jan 14 2009 2:14PM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
VMware ESXi,
white box,
home computer,
build an ESXi computer,
storage controller,
hardware compatibility with ESXi,
HCL ESXi,
Whitebox HCL
Hi folks, sorry I haven’t posted as of late, I’ve been busy playing catch up after the Christmas holidays. Anyways now that things are more or less back on track I’ve decided to build a test ESXi white box for my computer lab at home.
Over the next little while i’m going to look into different components that may work and I will post my final build when I am done. As you may or may not know, VMware ESXi is built to run on Enterprise platforms so the HCL isn’t really comprehensive when it comes to listing home based computer components.
However there are a few resources out on the net that you can use to help you build that white box for home. Just remember that if you want to use a storage controller with RAID capabilities, make sure you use a controller that uses hardware RAID and not software RAID.
Nov 21 2008 1:11AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
HP,
single instance storage,
Deduplication,
Data Domain
Hi folks, long time no talk, I’m sitting here enjoying my vacation and it’s time to catch up on some blogging as it’s almost over.
So who here has heard of deduplication? Deduplication is essentially a form of single instance storage. What it allows for is the ability to store lots of data without replicating the similar pieces of data over and over again while it’s storing it. Instead there are just pointers to the duplicate pieces of data so what happens is you end up with greatly enhanced storage capacity.
The storage ratio goes along to the tune of 20 to 1 on average for most deduplication solutions out there and as large as 50 to 1 in best cas scenarios. A few companies can provide you with this solution such as HP or even Data Domain. If you haven’t had a chance to read about it, check it out!
-RP
Oct 13 2008 5:50AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
HP,
SAN,
iSCSI,
LeftHand Networks
Hi folks, there’s some more news from the storage world. HP bought LeftHand Networks to the tune of $360 million dollars. Now that’s a big chunk of change. They also went out and bought Colubris. Also don’t forget their acquisition of EDS earlier this year.
HP has definitely been on an acquisition binge and that leaves one wondering what the heck are they positioning themselves for. Well the purchase of EDS is well known. That just leaves the other two. I suspect HP wasn’t happy with their current wireless strategy and would like to focus it a bit more with the purchase of Colubris which specializes in wireless technologies. I’ve worked with Colubris devices and they have a myriad of options and features not available on similar wireless devices.
The purchase of LeftHand would be to shore up their lower end iSCSI storage offerings I suspect. I’ve worked with the current HP iSCSI offerings on a regular basis so it should be interesting to see how this development plays out with the current product line.
-RP
Sep 29 2008 6:24AM GMT
Posted by: Raj Perumal
Symantec,
Virtualization,
VMWare,
virtual machines,
backup,
Microsoft,
virtual,
Backup Exec,
Hyper-V,
ESX,
ESXi,
Symantec Backup Exec 12.5,
backup agents,
windows agent
So this just in. Just in case if you were still wondering if there was anything to the virtualization mantra that is being constantly recited through the IT community, Symantec has announced that you no longer need to purchase individual Symantec Backup Exec agents for each guest OS that exists on one physical box. Instead you only need to license once per Hypervisor with Symantec Backup Exec 12.5.
That’s right, you heard me, one agent, multiple virtual servers, one physical box. Can I get a booyah!?!?! I told you this competition would be great for consumers! Microsoft breaking into Hyper-V to compete with VMWare has been great for the market. First VMWare’s ESXi becomes free, then Microsoft relaxes their licensing restrictions in relation to VMWare, and now Symantec makes it cheaper for businesses to use Symantec’s backup software if they virtualize.
Now that’s what I’m talking about! It’s about time companies stopped penalizing people for virtualizing and instead start encouraging it! This is a great move and I commend Symantec for taking this step. Symantec Backup Exec is probably one of the most popular pieces of backup software out there and this announcement will definitely help push business in what I believe is the right direction towards virtualization.
I hope this war doesn’t end for a long time, because the longer it plays out, the more benefits to the consumer it will bring! You can read more about the announcement here.
-RP
