If you have been
using CommVault
to backup VMware
Virtual Machines for a while, you know that CommVault 7.0 and 8.0 used
Virtual Consolidated Backups (VCB) to do the backups of VMDK or even file
level backups. With the advent of the vSphere 4.x architecture, backups
and restores can be performed using the vStorage API for Data Protection.
This new API set provides significant performance improvements over VCB,
including the following:
During backups, virtual
machine data is not copied to a proxy server prior to moving to the storage
media. Rather, the Virtual Server iDataAgent creates a snapshot of the
virtual machine data directly from the datastore itself.
The snapshot is then moved directly to the storage media without
requiring any dedicated disk cache on the proxy server. This capability
significantly improves backup speed, alleviates large
amounts of resources on the proxy server, and allows for
many more virtual machines to be backed up simultaneously.
Incremental backups are enhanced with Change Block Tracking
(CBT), which quickly identifies only the data blocks
on the virtual machine that have changed since the last backup. This replaces
the need for the Virtual Server iDataAgent to scan the entire virtual
machine with complex checksum calculations to determine
what data has changed, which results in faster backup
time.
Virtual machines are restored directly to the appropriate ESX Servers
and datastores without the need for staging on the proxy
server with VMware Converter. This capability provides for much faster
restores.
Virtual machines with Fault Tolerance enabled are supported for protection
and recovery; this is not supported in VCB environments.
Overall, data protection and recovery in vSphere VADP environments is
significantly faster and resource efficient than VCB environments. As
such, it is recommended that data protection and recovery be performed
with vSphere VADP whenever possible.
If you are interested in using this new method of backing
up your VMs with CommVault you can obtain more information here.
EAGLE customers can call EAGLE support or email support@eaglesoft.com
for more information and implementation ideas.
About EAGLE
EAGLE distributes a full line of storage and backup products
including SAN
and NAS storage solutions, virtualization,
tape
library backup solutions, backup
and recovery software packages, and and
WAN optimization tools. EAGLE also provides pre-sales evaluation and
design, integration and support services.
For more information
on EAGLE's products and services, contact: EAGLE Software, 123 Indiana
Ave., Salina, KS 67401; Phone (800) 477-5432; Fax: (785) 823-6185; email:
contact@eaglesoft.com;
website: http://www.storagebyeagle.com.
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