Availability : Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5 : Comments

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

DWhittaker — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:38:44 GMT

Chris (or anyone),

Do you have any idea on the licensing requirements with Symantec when using the new BEWS 12.5 and the VCB agent for what you have described above? We are in the midst of sorting out a disaster recovery plan on a minimal budget and the above is our theorized best possible scenario.

E.G. Is the BEWS VMWare VI license per ESX Host or for an entire cluster/Datacentre? And are any other agents or options required on top?

I've been in contact with Symantec and our distributors and am getting conflicting reports, so thought I'd go to someone who's already been there and done it.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

ccskinner — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:20:16 GMT

Truthfully, this is best answered directly from Symantec. I am contacting someone at Symantec to get clairification as well.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

DWhittaker — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:44:28 GMT

The drones at Symantec that I've had access to seemed to quote me an overly complex bundle of required items (I don't think they understood the agent for VCB at the time).

My distributor's Symantec sales consultant has just come back and advised that it should be 1x BEWS core license, then 1x VMWare VI agent PER ESX host, covering unlimited numbers of guests per ESX. He indicated that no other licensing options (agents for Windows, etc) are required (which makes sense, but logic is not usually a motivating factor for licensing).

Please advise if you find any different from your own investigations.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

DWhittaker — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:15:35 GMT

Further research and clarification indicates that if you're running a VM with Exchange, SQL, etc. you require the agents for those programs installed on the relevant VM also in order to quiesce/backup/restore them correctly.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

ccskinner — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:08:28 GMT

I completely agree with Daniel's post. The intent of the document was to simply show how to Symantec is integrating the new version Backup Exec with VCB and VirtualCenter. For mission critical applications like those mentioned, definitely treat them as such.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

thorswitt — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:15:30 GMT

Are you sure differential or incremental with modified time is possible?

From Symantec Virtual Infrastructure FAQ

3. Can I perform Incremental or Differential backups of Guest virtual machines?

Answer-

VMware VCB technology does not currently provide any means to perform Incremental or

Differential backups of Guest virtual machines. Currently, Incremental or Differential

backups of Guest virtual machines can only be performed using traditional file-level

backup methods of using a Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Systems or Remote

Agent for Linux/Unix Servers inside of the Guest virtual machine.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

steveh@cmicro.com — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:35:17 GMT

It looks like it is licensed per ESX host. The quote I received for 10 hosts was over $2100 per host.

It can't do differential or incremental backups. So, you still have to do regular backups for applications or files that require daily backups, which of course, require their own agents. IMHO, this should be licensed once for the vcenter server or not require a license at all. The ability to handle VCB backups by (policy, does it in fact allow this?), and restore individual files from a full VM backup are great steps in the right direction, but the added benefit doesn't justify the cost for me.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

GuyChapman — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:13:49 GMT

Yes, it is per host (not per socket). The price is steep, I am trying to see if we can wrestle it down some for our environment.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

GuyChapman — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:16:41 GMT

Chris, I have had difficulty making VCB work using the proven practice documents; specifically, the VM unmounts after 60 minutes or so and I can't find the place where that is specified; also the Symantec scripts don't seem to support backup by UUID so that makes backing up offline VMs (for archival) a challenge. I'd be interested in a bit of dialogue offline to maybe document the wrinkles.

RE: Proven Practice: Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5

steveh@cmicro.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:48 GMT

In the Pre/Post command page of settings for your backup job, change the "Cancel command if not completed within" value from the default of 60 minutes to something more appropriate. I use 240 as my standard, with a longer timeout if it is a large server.