mikeleahy
asked on
storage device and second site
hi there
i have a main site with two esx servers that are in a cluster for DRS, HA etc. all works very nicely indeed.
i have a second site connected via fibre. i want to put one / two older servers out there running esx foundation and attach a large and VERY cheap storage device. the purpose of the site is soley for server backup in case of a disaster. they wont be used or booted on a daily basis, only if a virtual server in the main site blue screens etc.
i want to use vizioncore to send incremental backups of the vm's out to the storage device in the second site. will this work and if so should i use NAS or iscsi, san is out of hte question for the second site. will NAS do the trick for me i.e. store the incremental backups of the vms and let me start them up out there to an ok speed if the main site dies.....
thanks in advance
i have a main site with two esx servers that are in a cluster for DRS, HA etc. all works very nicely indeed.
i have a second site connected via fibre. i want to put one / two older servers out there running esx foundation and attach a large and VERY cheap storage device. the purpose of the site is soley for server backup in case of a disaster. they wont be used or booted on a daily basis, only if a virtual server in the main site blue screens etc.
i want to use vizioncore to send incremental backups of the vm's out to the storage device in the second site. will this work and if so should i use NAS or iscsi, san is out of hte question for the second site. will NAS do the trick for me i.e. store the incremental backups of the vms and let me start them up out there to an ok speed if the main site dies.....
thanks in advance
You can use Openfiler for your NAS (NFS v3)/SAN (iSCSI target) on your DR site: http://www.openfiler.com/
Set your DR ESX servers to connect with Openfiler's NFS store and access the incremental backups of your VMs.
With iSCSI you'd have to upload/import your VMs' files into your VMFS datastore.
Set your DR ESX servers to connect with Openfiler's NFS store and access the incremental backups of your VMs.
With iSCSI you'd have to upload/import your VMs' files into your VMFS datastore.
Have you already bought vReplicator ?
If not, I suggest you look at VM Explorer - http://www.trilead.com/Products/VM_Explorer/
If not, I suggest you look at VM Explorer - http://www.trilead.com/Products/VM_Explorer/
ASKER
i havent bought anything yet . cost here is the MOST critical factor. it has to be low. any recommendations on a storage device. the function of the DR site is only to
1. have a recent copy of the production servers
2. if our main site burnt down we would have a copy of our servers out there, not to run in a fast state, just to have them for transferring back to the main site when its ready
3. be able to copy a vm from the dr site back into the live site in case of a blue screen thats not fixable etc
1. have a recent copy of the production servers
2. if our main site burnt down we would have a copy of our servers out there, not to run in a fast state, just to have them for transferring back to the main site when its ready
3. be able to copy a vm from the dr site back into the live site in case of a blue screen thats not fixable etc
ASKER
ok guys
say i have vreplicator working away every day etc and incremental backups of the vms are being sent to the DR site. i will have esx foundation out there in the dr site. how will esx see the backups out there? will they appear in vi client? are they the same kind of files as in the main site , how will the esx start them up/??
say i have vreplicator working away every day etc and incremental backups of the vms are being sent to the DR site. i will have esx foundation out there in the dr site. how will esx see the backups out there? will they appear in vi client? are they the same kind of files as in the main site , how will the esx start them up/??
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vReplicator works fine so I think your have chosen well there.
As far as the storage at your secondary DR site goes. NFS will often out perform iSCSI but it does depend to some degree on the storage type you use.
As you have mentioned this is for DR purposes. Are you expecting your DR site to maintain production performance levels or is it intended to run production at a degraded rate?
Just consider that most cheap storage solutions are just that and often the maintanance/Administration