staylor1972
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Snapshots in ESX Server on on the Array?
Hi Guys
I'm looking at virtualising some of our servers but have been scaratching my head over taking snapshots. what is the best way of impklenting these. through Esx server itself or taking the snapshots on the array. The San that i'm looking to purchase is the Dell Equallogics PS5000X and i believe this has software capable of taking snapshots of servers SQL and Exchange.
Any ideas would be welcomed
I'm looking at virtualising some of our servers but have been scaratching my head over taking snapshots. what is the best way of impklenting these. through Esx server itself or taking the snapshots on the array. The San that i'm looking to purchase is the Dell Equallogics PS5000X and i believe this has software capable of taking snapshots of servers SQL and Exchange.
Any ideas would be welcomed
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HeinoSkov
Just keep in mind that you have a virtualized layer in between that you need to present the snapshot'ted LUNs to.
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Be VERY careful using snapshots on exchange and SQL databases (or any other database that maintains state information for that matter). If you take a snapshot on a machine with a running exchange or SQL database, reverting to that snapshot will only give you a crash-consistent copy of your database. This is because databases are constantly being written to and often have cached data that has not been flushed to disk. If you need to take a snapshot of any server running these services, make sure that the exchange and/or sql services have been safely stopped before taking the snapshot to avoid potential severe database corruption.
That count as Active Directory servers as well :-)
Snapshotting won't truncate the Exchange or SQL transction logs either, they'll just grow and grow.
ASKER
Is there any software for ESX server that will allow you to get Exchange or SQL into a safe state before you take a snapshot, without having to stop the virtual server to take the snapshot?
I'm not aware of any software on ESX level that will do this kind of integration. Of course you can always do your own scripting.
For Storage environments, most big vendors (NetApp, I think also EMC, ...) have software product that tightly integrate with Exchange/SQL to take consistent snapshot backups and also allow e.g. partial restores of databases/single mailboxes from snapshots.
I'm not sure if Equallogics can do this.