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Best way to make Backup of Running Virtual Machines

I'm looking for a way to backup 4 Virtual Machines over Night. I just want to copy complete Images to an external Backup-HDD. The whole process should be automatic and i don't want to shutdown the VMs. Setting them on "Standby" would be possible. If possible i don't want to use any or just free third party software.

The VMWare Server is running on Windows Server 2003 64Bit.

BogdanSUA

Using Vmware Server 2 (latest version), you can take a snapshot of the VM right before you back up. You can then copy your VMDK files off to the external HDs. When the copy job is complete, use the "Remove Snapshot" option, and it will write any changes that have occured back to main VMDK.

Reference page 197 of http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmserver2.pdf for more info

Paul Solovyovsky

You can use Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Server to install on the virtual machines. It will take images, either full, incremental and image them to a location that you choose. You can then use the Symantec tool to convert to vmdk or use vmware converter to convert back to a virtual machine. This does V2V V2P P2P and P2V. You can download a trial version for a test

sam_berlin

ASKER

Hello Paul and Bogdan,

thanks for your answers. I would prefer Bogdans Solution because it is simple and cost-effective. ;)

Is there a way to automate the process of taking and removing snapshots?

Best Regards,

David

BogdanSUA

I think there, but I have to look into it later tonight.

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BogdanSUA

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