Hi Mani. Answers inline... -George Winter [email protected]
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ku, Manikanden (OCTO) Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 7:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Veritas-bu] VCB Hi All, I have few questions with regards to VCB backup 1. The document says that an Incremental/Differential backup can be achieved only by selecting option 3 under snapshot options which is only folder/file level backups for incremental/differential backups. Is there a way to achieve snapshot (VMDK) backup for incremental/differential backups also like full backups? [G]: Both the vmdk (full) and file level (incremental) backups snapshot the entire virtual machine. However, there is no current way of performing an incremental backup at the vmdk level. However, better incremental backup technologies are coming with VMware's release of vSphere. 2. My understanding is that Incremental/Differential backup using VCB does not backup system state and Windows System files. Is this correct? [G]: This is correct. VMware's VCB file level backup type (that NBU uses for incrementals) does not support backing up system state information. 3. Can someone share information about VCB implementation in their environment and if so what are the best practices? [G]: We've created a NBU for VMware "Best Practices" doc that you might find useful. It can be found here: http://www.symantec.com/business/products/whitepapers.jsp?pcid=2244&pvid =2_1 4. My understanding is that we have to create 2 policies, 1 for full and Incremental/Differential backup using VCB and 1 for just system state using traditional method. In case of a server crash, we have to restore from full (VMDK) first, then restore file/folder level backups from Incremental/Differential backup till the latest backup and then restore system state finally. Is this the only way for a full system restore or is there a better approach [G]: For general VMware incremental backups you do not need to create two policies. Both the full and the incremental backup(s) can be performed from a single policy with two schedules. The restore process you mention is correct. However, if you perform cumulative incremental backups, you would only need to perform 2 restores (vmdk and file) to restore the virtual machine to a point in time. Essentially, with incremental backups there is a trade-off between protecting the entire virtual machine during a full (vmdk) backup or performing quicker incremental (file) backups. But as I mentioned, with VMware's vSphere release better backup capabilities are coming. Thanks, Mani _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - [email protected] http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu _______________________________________________ Veritas-bu maillist - [email protected] http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
