backing up ESXi

[goodcooper]

there seems to be a lot of movement on this subject and new products are always coming out...

it seems vmware is discouraging it's partners to put out products to support robust backup features in ESXi (they want you to get the full ESX naturally)

but i know a lot of you guys are running ESXi boxes...

running local storage, how are you guys doing backups?

 

[defuseme2k]

Wow, you're completely off-base.

VMware doesn't want anybody to use ESX anymore, in fact, it won't be around anymore with the new release whether that is 4.5 or whatever.

ESX is considered legacy... old architecture. ESXi is the future and as far as features go is on par with ESX in about every way, although some things are handeled differently. If you want to "backup" your ESXi, use the vCLI and use the vicfg-cfgbackup command. That will save its configuration. If you want to backup your VMs, you can use normal in-guest based backups. If you want to use VCB or the vstorage API based backup methods, you need to have a licensed version of ESXi. ESXi "free" is the exact same as the enterprise version, but it does need the correct licensing for those technologies to work.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/esxi-and-esx/index.html

 

[Child of Wonder]

I'm a VCP so I got a free copy of Veeam Backup and Recovery.

Before I had that I was simply using Windows Backup within the VMs.

 

[goodcooper]

Wow, you're completely off-base.

VMware doesn't want anybody to use ESX anymore, in fact, it won't be around anymore with the new release whether that is 4.5 or whatever.

ESX is considered legacy... old architecture. ESXi is the future and as far as features go is on par with ESX in about every way, although some things are handeled differently. If you want to "backup" your ESXi, use the vCLI and use the vicfg-cfgbackup command. That will save its configuration. If you want to backup your VMs, you can use normal in-guest based backups. If you want to use VCB or the vstorage API based backup methods, you need to have a licensed version of ESXi. ESXi "free" is the exact same as the enterprise version, but it does need the correct licensing for those technologies to work.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/esxi-and-esx/index.html

ok, i was still under the impression that esxi was the free version, and the pay for was called something different (i knew the ESX name was going away)

but yes, i'm referring to the free ESXi

If you want to use VCB or the vstorage API based backup methods, you need to have a licensed version of ESXi.

this is what i'm trying to get, but without paying for it... i've heard a few of the products out there, like veeam, but i was looking for a free alternative... i've also heard of some scripts that will snapshot your systems for you and do the copy, i was looking for some input on those

 

[Mindflux]

If you use the free version and don't want to upgrade check out ghettovcb (google). It's a big fancy dancy batch/script file you run from the ESXi host to snapshot your guests and move them to an iSCSI or NFS stor. It works, especially for free.