Posts Tagged ‘VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi 4.1’

VMware ESX/ESXi Backup Guide

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

VMware ESX/ESXi Backup Guide

If you have a licensed version of ESX/ESXi, (paid for license) you could purchase the following third party applications to perform backups. If you do not have a licensed version of ESX/ESXi, your options are limited, because a non-licensed (paid for) version does not give access to the licensed APIs for third party products to function. You will there for need at least a Standard license for ESX/ESXi for the following products listed in 1 to 3 below.

1. Veeam Backup and Replication v5 – very popular, won many awards at VMworld 2010

Download a trial here – http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html

2. Quest Vizioncore Vranger Pro – the first VM backup product with a good pedigree.

Download a trial here – http://vizioncore.com/product/vRangerPro

3. PHD Virtual Backup – very fast backup technology, using virtual applicance.

Download a trial here – http://www.phdvirtual.com/phd-vb-51-vmware-vsphere

4. VMware Data Recovery – supports dedupe, integrated with vCenter – maybe included with your current VMware License (available in vSphere Enterprise Plus, Advanced, and Essentials Plus Editions. VMware Data Recovery can also be purchased a la carte with vSphere Standard Edition.)

http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/overview.html

Free (download) alternatives for backing up VMs

5. ghettoVCB

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760 ((Will work on FREE ESXi, no licensed required.)

(can be performed whilst the virtual machine is live or powered on)

6. ghettoVCBg2

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9843 (needs licensed version of ESX/ESXi)

(can be performed whilst the virtual machine is live or powered on)

7. Scripts and NFS backup

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1029047 (Will work on FREE ESXi, no licensed required.)
(can be performed whilst the virtual machine is live or powered on)

8. VMware Converter Standalone 4.3

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vcenter_converter_standalone/4_0

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.x Documentation

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/converter_pubs.html

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 User Guide
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/convsa_43_guide.pdf

With VMware Converter you can convert and copy a Virtual Machine to another datastore, this advantage is you can do this whilst the virtual machine is Online or Powered-Up.

9. Veeam FastSCP

Free download here http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html

Fast Virtual Machine / File Transfer. Faster than WinSCP and other SCP-based tools as it uses full network capacity. The Veeam FastSCP engine also features traffic compression and empty block removal for best file copy performance.

You can use FastSCP to connect to the ESX/ESXi server, and download the entire virtual machine folder/directory to the current workstation or server, where yov’ve connected from. You must ensure that the virtual machines are powered off to complete this operation.

10. Datastore browser

The datastore browser is included in the vSphere GUI Client, and enables you access to the datastore, virtual machines are stored on. You can simple use the cut and paste, or download/upload options to backup and restore virtual machines. Again to copy a virtual machine, the virtual machine must be powered off.

Restoring with options 9 and 10, above, you must add the Virtual Machine manually to the inventory, by selecting the vmx file in the datastore browser, right click on the *.vmx file, and select “Add to Inventory”.

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A micro flash (HP v165w) drive for a HP ProLiant MicroServer N36L

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

For my “Skynet” project, I’ve been looking for a micro 4GB flash drive to hold the various operating systems I’ll be using, operating systems including VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) and  FreeNAS, possibly also Solaris and Nexenta Community Edition. Previously I’ve used Talent flash drives, but these seem in short supply, and are usually metal, and I’ve recently read an interesting Product Advisory about the heat from metal flash drives, and also some metal flash drives have been shorting out inside HP ProLiant DL series servers, using embedded versions of VMware vSphere Hypervisor. So my requirements were to find a plastic cased, in-expensive 4GB flash drive. Enter the HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive, this version comes in many different sizes, and is very small.

HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive

HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive

HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive on Samsung NC10 Netbook keyboard

HP v165w 4GB Flash Drive on Samsung NC10 Netbook keyboard (yes my keyboard really needs a clean!)

A Micro Flash drive for a Microserver!

Also manufacturered by HP (okay, PNY), so HP on HP should work okay. I found the most cheapest place on the Net, was Play.com, but I’ve had to wait over a week for delivery,  delivery is free, but why they had to send them all in individual boxes, I’ll never know. So I’ve not been able to do anything with Skynet, for the last week, waiting for them to arrive.

Eight boxes of HP v165w 4GB flash drives from Play.com

Eight boxes of HP v165w 4GB flash drives from Play.com

Here is the micro flash drive installed in a HP ProLiant Microserver

HP v165w installed in HP ProLiant Microserver N36L

HP v165w installed in HP ProLiant Microserver N36L

The micro server, has a purpose built bootable USB socket on the motherboard, designed for booting embedded operating systems, so the four internal SATA disks can be used to store data, so I you can install the OS on a USB stick!

The HP v165w does not have any LED, or flashing light to indicate the device is in read or write mode, for my purpose ideal, but some folk, may like this feature to see what the flash drive is doing, but personally I think it’s too small for general usage, I’ve had to attach my existing flash drive to 2.5″ hard disk spindle to stop losing it in my pocket! I’m also using this device to replace my existing HP v100w flash drives, installed in my existing DL servers, because I keep catching them and snapping them off!

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Creating an NFS Server using Windows 2008 R2 for VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi 4.1

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

I put this quick movie together, because some folk seem to have difficulty in setting up NFS on Windows 2008 R2 for VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi 4.1. I don’t know why, it takes me 60 seconds. They seem to get bogged down with User Mapping, Permissions etc – there’s no need! Don’t tick all the boxes, just because they are there! Anyway hope it helps!

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