A couple of weeks back, I got a chance to play with VMWare and attend a web training session. Now I understand why Virtualization news dominates the Storage world.
Virtualization, which is an excellent solution for SMBs, is the process of running multiple virtual servers on one physical hardware. It helps in server consolidation, quick deployment, easier administration and efficient use of power; hence not only slashes the costs resulting in significant savings for an organization but also creates a green data center.
Backing up Virtual servers is not as simple as backing up physical servers. Backup softwares need to keep in mind the resource consumption. There are 3 approaches for backing up virtual machines:
1. Traditional backup which requires backing up each virtual machine individually involves installing backup agent on each virtual system. The limitation here is not only the cost of licensing each of them, but also backups utilize more resources and in turn affect the performance.
2. Consolidated Backup is a snapshot based technology. It requires no agents, reduces the load on host and can even backup virtual machines that are powered off. The limitations are it requires scripting to perform backups and also does not support application consistent backups.
Idealstor is currently working on a method to achieve this by using VSS with vmware consolidated backup (VCB) to ensure a consistent backup.
3. Snapshotting or cloning the virtual machines
IT users can also use a combination of the above backup methods to get the right data-protection solution for their environment.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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