Backing up VMs on the Cheap?

[six_storm]

I'm about to embark on a decent size P2V project in the next month; virtualizing 6 old servers to a brand new ESX box and needed some advice on backing important data up. There isn't a ton of important data and I thought about rolling with ShadowProtect as an image based backup solution (easy, been working with this product for years), however, the licenses are about $1K per. This will be for a state school so the budget is tight enough and we won't be able to afford it.

I thought about going with the built-in Windows backup but we only have one server with 2008 on it (backups in 2003 are pretty lame IMO).

Is there any image based backup solution that is cheaper and on-par with ShadowProtect? Or should I just bit my lip and roll with the Windows built in backups?

EDIT: All backups will be going to a local NAS device BTW.

 

[REDYOUCH]

Check out Veeam. They may have what you are looking for.

 

[six_storm]

Check out Veeam. They may have what you are looking for.

So Veeam has a free product now? Wow, I didn't know that. Has anybody used this free version before?

 

[Eulogy]

I have the free version of Veeam, but I have yet to install and implement it myself heh.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Their signup form is pretty poorly designed. You need a "corporate" email address, it's licensed only for businesses, and you grant them authorization to physically inspect your system to determine license compliance. And even when I put in an email address it was willing to take, it wouldn't show me the user manual.

It'd be a good idea to show how this software is actually used on your website somewhere, guys. Not to mention pricing; if I have to ask, I will always assume I can't afford it. Even with a corporate budget to play with.

 

[jimh425]

If it is for a school, look into the education license for System Center and Data Protection Manager.

 

[Thuleman]

I would avoid Windows Backup especially since you say that those are old servers (conceivably Server 2003). The problem with Windows Backup is that if the archive becomes corrupted, which it frequently does, you got nothing.

I don't quite understand the question though. You say it's a P2V, you also seem to imply that you are looking to back up the physical servers prior to virtualizing them. Your topic however says that you want to back up VMs. Which is it?

 

[AceXsmurF]

Thuleman has a great point. What exactly are you looking to backup and how are you ultimately wanting to do it?

 

[six_storm]

I would avoid Windows Backup especially since you say that those are old servers (conceivably Server 2003). The problem with Windows Backup is that if the archive becomes corrupted, which it frequently does, you got nothing.

I don't quite understand the question though. You say it's a P2V, you also seem to imply that you are looking to back up the physical servers prior to virtualizing them. Your topic however says that you want to back up VMs. Which is it?

Yeah, I would like to avoid Windows Backup.

I'm looking to implementing a backup solution AFTER I P2V these older servers; preferably running a few times per day. Even though I would like to have some ShadowProtect licenses, they will be too expensive for the small amount of real important data IMO; it doesn't justify the cost.

My goal is to slowly but surely replace all Server 03 instances with new Server 08 builds, keyword is slowly. My school (administration) is not huge on change but it will have to happen eventually.

Sorry for any confusion in my previous post.

 

[markwo]

Look at ghettovcb.

Veeam has a free product, but it only does on-demand backups, and it's not supposed to work with the unlicensed version of ESXi. Although it currently does with 5.0 in my testing, I wouldn't design a solution with it and count on it to continue to work.

 

[six_storm]

Look at ghettovcb.

Veeam has a free product, but it only does on-demand backups, and it's not supposed to work with the unlicensed version of ESXi. Although it currently does with 5.0 in my testing, I wouldn't design a solution with it and count on it to continue to work.

I'll take a look at ghettovcb today.

The free version of Veeam loses IMO since you can't automate backup jobs and it doesn't work with ESXi free.

 

[Thuleman]

I'll take a look at ghettovcb today.

The free version of Veeam loses IMO since you can't automate backup jobs and it doesn't work with ESXi free.

IMHO you should go and get a vSphere Essentials Kit which will give you the paid ESXi and vCenter to manage it. You will be able to use VMware Data Recovery which isn't ideal but will certainly get you stated down the backup path. The price is like $1,500 after the edu discount. Veeam also has great edu pricing so it's definitely worth checking out.

Lastly, you may want to consider not imaging the VMs but rather just backing up the data, depending on what your needs are.

I am not familiar with ShadowProtect but spending $1,000 per server on a backup license is beyond crazy from where I am looking. Veeam will do backup and replication for a lot less.

Also, I hope that you don't move all those physical servers onto a single host. If that host fails all the VMs are down and it sure sounds like they are mission critical. That's where the vSphere kit will also come in handy, up to three hosts so you can easily spin things back up if something fails (provided that you have shared storage).

I work in edu myself so I know that cash can be tight. BUT, I also know that IT types tend to not be able to drive the message home that spending money isn't just about "more better" stuff. It's about risk mitigation. Once you make that point the little cash you are asking for will seem like chump change.

What happens when a server, or service, goes down? How much downtime is acceptable before it needs to work again? How much money is lost if you have an hour of downtime, what about 8 hours? Is downtime going to create a PR problem (the consequences of that can't even be measured ahead of time)? Once you create a reasonable estimate of costs that will be incurred if something goes wrong the cost of just buying the right stuff to make it all work will be miniscule.

Let's not forget that it's also your ass on the line. If you don't have a paper trail that shows that you time and again recommended to create an implementation that adequately protects the school against disasters then your career may suffer especially if you are fired after the disaster.

I would recommend to get in touch with your VAR and explain the situation. Work with them to design something that will be a good solution for what you need to do and be honest and upfront about that you have no money at this time. Ask whether they would be willing to sponsor the system either in full or at least partially. Sometimes the VAR has a need to create some publicity for themselves and local news covering that they gave you two servers to run your stuff on is a lot cheaper than a direct marketing campaign.

Just some stuff to think about. Bottom line; Don't half-ass this.

 

[TheBlueChanell]

Unitrends Enterprise Backup may be something of interest for you. I've used their appliance based solution and I'm very happy with it. Based on what little reading I've done on their EB line, it may fit your bill.

I would also look into MS's ESS licensing like someone mentioned above.

http://www.unitrends.com/unitrends-enterprise-backup/features

 

[gabi_cavaller]

IMHO you should go and get a vSphere Essentials Kit which will give you the paid ESXi and vCenter to manage it. You will be able to use VMware Data Recovery which isn't ideal but will certainly get you stated down the backup path. The price is like $1,500 after the edu discount. Veeam also has great edu pricing so it's definitely worth checking out.

Lastly, you may want to consider not imaging the VMs but rather just backing up the data, depending on what your needs are.

I am not familiar with ShadowProtect but spending $1,000 per server on a backup license is beyond crazy from where I am looking. Veeam will do backup and replication for a lot less.

Also, I hope that you don't move all those physical servers onto a single host. If that host fails all the VMs are down and it sure sounds like they are mission critical. That's where the vSphere kit will also come in handy, up to three hosts so you can easily spin things back up if something fails (provided that you have shared storage).

I work in edu myself so I know that cash can be tight. BUT, I also know that IT types tend to not be able to drive the message home that spending money isn't just about "more better" stuff. It's about risk mitigation. Once you make that point the little cash you are asking for will seem like chump change.

What happens when a server, or service, goes down? How much downtime is acceptable before it needs to work again? How much money is lost if you have an hour of downtime, what about 8 hours? Is downtime going to create a PR problem (the consequences of that can't even be measured ahead of time)? Once you create a reasonable estimate of costs that will be incurred if something goes wrong the cost of just buying the right stuff to make it all work will be miniscule.

Let's not forget that it's also your ass on the line. If you don't have a paper trail that shows that you time and again recommended to create an implementation that adequately protects the school against disasters then your career may suffer especially if you are fired after the disaster.

I would recommend to get in touch with your VAR and explain the situation. Work with them to design something that will be a good solution for what you need to do and be honest and upfront about that you have no money at this time. Ask whether they would be willing to sponsor the system either in full or at least partially. Sometimes the VAR has a need to create some publicity for themselves and local news covering that they gave you two servers to run your stuff on is a lot cheaper than a direct marketing campaign.

Just some stuff to think about. Bottom line; Don't half-ass this.

Great advice

 

[six_storm]

IMHO you should go and get a vSphere Essentials Kit which will give you the paid ESXi and vCenter to manage it. You will be able to use VMware Data Recovery which isn't ideal but will certainly get you stated down the backup path. The price is like $1,500 after the edu discount. Veeam also has great edu pricing so it's definitely worth checking out.

Lastly, you may want to consider not imaging the VMs but rather just backing up the data, depending on what your needs are.

I would like to make exact copies (backups) of the VMs themselves instead of creating images. I know that this would greatly reduce the amount of downtime. Bringing a small server (200GB) back up from backup images would take a few hours to get it back to 100%.

I am not familiar with ShadowProtect but spending $1,000 per server on a backup license is beyond crazy from where I am looking. Veeam will do backup and replication for a lot less.

Yeah, it's pretty expensive. I didn't realize just how expensive it was coming into this. My last job must have got a crazy deal on the licenses somehow.

Also, I hope that you don't move all those physical servers onto a single host. If that host fails all the VMs are down and it sure sounds like they are mission critical. That's where the vSphere kit will also come in handy, up to three hosts so you can easily spin things back up if something fails (provided that you have shared storage).

Depending on the budget and how much my bosses are willing to spend on this project, we may or may not have 2 hosts to play with. One of my bosses understands that we would need to virtual hosts for redundancy and he is going to push for this, but we don't have a final answer yet.

I work in edu myself so I know that cash can be tight. BUT, I also know that IT types tend to not be able to drive the message home that spending money isn't just about "more better" stuff. It's about risk mitigation. Once you make that point the little cash you are asking for will seem like chump change.

Unfortunately, the director of my school does not take IT serious and as much as I have "drove it home", I haven't been able to really show her how important this is. The assistant director (guy who makes all the purchases) understands and is pushing for what we really need, especially since he wants me to do as little maintenance as possible and work with my class (I teach too). When I got here a few weeks ago, they had some whack job backup for their stuff, their Quickbooks server went down after a power outage and they were screwed. Magically the server came back up after another power outage (haha) and I was able to make a backup before it died again. I then ran quick backups of all servers onto a disk and I've yet to have someone to take it offsite. Blows my mind how unimportant IT is to them.

What happens when a server, or service, goes down? How much downtime is acceptable before it needs to work again? How much money is lost if you have an hour of downtime, what about 8 hours? Is downtime going to create a PR problem (the consequences of that can't even be measured ahead of time)? Once you create a reasonable estimate of costs that will be incurred if something goes wrong the cost of just buying the right stuff to make it all work will be miniscule.

Fortunately we dont have a lot of data so downtime isn't a huge thing. Teachers can still teach and it isn't imperative for faculty to input grades/payroll/etc right as soon as it happens.

Let's not forget that it's also your ass on the line. If you don't have a paper trail that shows that you time and again recommended to create an implementation that adequately protects the school against disasters then your career may suffer especially if you are fired after the disaster.

This is something I brought up to my bosses when I showed them quotes for a new virtual host. I told them that I was super worried about their dinosaur servers going down any second and that we needed to get new hardware in ASAP. "It's my job to worry".

I would recommend to get in touch with your VAR and explain the situation. Work with them to design something that will be a good solution for what you need to do and be honest and upfront about that you have no money at this time. Ask whether they would be willing to sponsor the system either in full or at least partially. Sometimes the VAR has a need to create some publicity for themselves and local news covering that they gave you two servers to run your stuff on is a lot cheaper than a direct marketing campaign.

Just some stuff to think about. Bottom line; Don't half-ass this.

I appreciate the long response and advice. Budget or no budget, my school has ran on old, crappy equipment for far too long and I'm shocked that it hasn't hit them where it hurts. No real security and a poor design from all aspects (network, topology, VPN, etc).

I made a comment about the poor backup solution and was immediately stopped because "the previous IT instructor/admin just made it work with what we had". It's almost a shock that I'm coming in here and throwing quotes around, asking for tens of thousands of dollars to be spent. If they would have properly kept up with the hardware, they wouldn't be in this position; it's almost like starting all over with nothing. Just my opinion anyways.

 

[Thuleman]

I would like to make exact copies (backups) of the VMs themselves instead of creating images. I know that this would greatly reduce the amount of downtime. Bringing a small server (200GB) back up from backup images would take a few hours to get it back to 100%.

Whether or not it would take hours is largely a matter of disk IO and whether you can do an "instant recovery" of the VM by spinning it up at its current location without having to copy the files prior to booting. The VM can then be moved to the production storage with vMotion or some such.

Still, what you are describing is replication which most all VM backup software will also do. Replication is essentially a near-real-time clone of the VM that is ready to be used in seconds in a failover type of scenario. Of course replication only works if you have a server to replicate to so you do need at least 2 physical servers.

Unfortunately, the director of my school does not take IT serious and as much as I have "drove it home", I haven't been able to really show her how important this is. [...] Blows my mind how unimportant IT is to them.

I am not convinced. More about this below ...

I made a comment about the poor backup solution and was immediately stopped because "the previous IT instructor/admin just made it work with what we had". It's almost a shock that I'm coming in here and throwing quotes around, asking for tens of thousands of dollars to be spent.

That's part of the problem. You are the new guy telling "them" that they suck and that you need what amounts to "them" as a lot of money to fix it.

That's not going to work. The good news is that you did ask for tens of thousands because that's now your anchor price which will allow you to go back and say that you heard what they said and you can make it work with half that, or a quarter or some such.

Strictly speaking you don't have to buy new servers. You could buy two or three Dell 2950 III boxes on eBay. With 32 GB RAM and a couple 2.0 Ghz CPUs they run like $600 shipped. I would buy three so you have the redundancy you need for such old systems. At some point they will be dropped from the VMware HCL but right now it's an inexpensive way to get you going as opposed to buying new servers for ~2k+ each. Those servers are loud so you definitely don't want them if you don't actually have a server room.

Anyway, right now you are a problem for your director. You are new and you are making waves. Try to identify some ways to actually solve problems for her, preferably by using existing resources. Maybe the school would benefit from shared network drives if you don't use them yet, put printers on the network, set up desktop backup with SyncToy (which is really easy for non-IT folks to understand since it doesn't create a backup archive). Ask her which of her current problems you can help solve, IT or otherwise. Everyone has issues, help her solve one of hers and you'll have a better shot at her helping you solve yours.

 

[summy]

*snip*

Great advice, but most school districts won't allow purchasing of used equipment Generally they have plenty of antiquated equipment sitting on shelves that might work well for this need though.

 

[six_storm]

Whether or not it would take hours is largely a matter of disk IO and whether you can do an "instant recovery" of the VM by spinning it up at its current location without having to copy the files prior to booting. The VM can then be moved to the production storage with vMotion or some such.

Still, what you are describing is replication which most all VM backup software will also do. Replication is essentially a near-real-time clone of the VM that is ready to be used in seconds in a failover type of scenario. Of course replication only works if you have a server to replicate to so you do need at least 2 physical servers.

Yeah, replication is what I would like to see be our end solution to prevent any downtime.

That's part of the problem. You are the new guy telling "them" that they suck and that you need what amounts to "them" as a lot of money to fix it.

That's not going to work. The good news is that you did ask for tens of thousands because that's now your anchor price which will allow you to go back and say that you heard what they said and you can make it work with half that, or a quarter or some such.

Oh I understand this POV and I see that it may be a problem. However, I've never told them that their current setup/network just "sucks". I basically just mentioned that the current backup solution did not work and that if we went down, we would have no way to restore the data. I showed them why I said this, better possible options and explained how they worked. Done. Guess it just depends on how you look at it.

Strictly speaking you don't have to buy new servers. You could buy two or three Dell 2950 III boxes on eBay. With 32 GB RAM and a couple 2.0 Ghz CPUs they run like $600 shipped. I would buy three so you have the redundancy you need for such old systems. At some point they will be dropped from the VMware HCL but right now it's an inexpensive way to get you going as opposed to buying new servers for ~2k+ each. Those servers are loud so you definitely don't want them if you don't actually have a server room.

You're right, I don't have to buy new servers. However my bosses want me to spend more time teaching my class than me working on busted, old servers and network equipment. If they want this to be a reality, then some money has to be spent. I've mentioned to them that we could always buy cheaper, used hardware but it increases the chance that I'll be replacing parts, working on it compared to a new server with a decent warranty and not spending my time in my class.

Anyway, right now you are a problem for your director. You are new and you are making waves. Try to identify some ways to actually solve problems for her, preferably by using existing resources. Maybe the school would benefit from shared network drives if you don't use them yet, put printers on the network, set up desktop backup with SyncToy (which is really easy for non-IT folks to understand since it doesn't create a backup archive). Ask her which of her current problems you can help solve, IT or otherwise. Everyone has issues, help her solve one of hers and you'll have a better shot at her helping you solve yours.

I understand that I'm making waves but IMO, waves need to be made here. All of the servers here are crazy unreliable and in order to help prevent any data loss or downtime, hardware needs to be replaced. I think the assistant director gets it and knows what risks we take daily with our current hardware and wants to change things.

There currently aren't any problems from my users, but I notice things like no real backup going on, no redundancy and things like that on the back end.

Finally, I've mentioned the following to my bosses multiple times: This is just my opinion/recommendation to have the most reliable and stable IT environment for all faculty or users. I understand that budgets can be small/short and that's where I look for your (bosses) opinion and insight to tell me how much we can spend.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[markcr]

Hi Six_Storm,
Not trying to sell you here but wanted to make sure you have correct information on ShadowProtect. In disclosure, I now work for StorageCraft in managing partner accounts but again, I'm not trying to sell you. You need to use what works and what is in your budget. I was a StorageCraft user for 6 years and agree with you that the product is super simple and most importantly, it works. I think it is important for you to know that the virtual server edition is considerable lower in price than suggested in this thread and furthermore there are edu discounts available. You are looking at under $200/server if qualified edu. If you want further info I can connect you with the right person in your area or answer any technical questions - like how to easily replicate or test backup images pre/post migration. Sorry to interrupt and I hope this helps. Good luck with the bosses!
Regards,
Mark

 

[danswartz]

"The problem with Windows Backup is that if the archive becomes corrupted, which it frequently does, you got nothing."

Do you have links to anything about this, or is it anecdotal?

 

[the-one1]

"The problem with Windows Backup is that if the archive becomes corrupted, which it frequently does, you got nothing."

Do you have links to anything about this, or is it anecdotal?

You've never had a Window backup from the 2003 era become corrupt? I've used it on several boxes and the amount of times (a few times, more than I can stand) it has failed me made me switch to 3rd party.

 

[danswartz]

Hmmm, I was thinking more of windows7 backup...

 

[schnell]

You've never had a Window backup from the 2003 era become corrupt? I've used it on several boxes and the amount of times (a few times, more than I can stand) it has failed me made me switch to 3rd party.

LOL. The built in windows backup and Microsoft Data Protection Manager are not even in the same universe. Microsoft DPM is legit and I use it to backup my entire 100 server VM-Ware infrastructure. You really need to look into it because you have no idea.