VMware Backup & Recovery

Doug HazelmanSenior Director, Product StrategyVeeam SoftwareDoug.Hazelman@veeam.comTwitter: @VMDoug

Agenda

• VMware image level backup overview• Considerations for Exchange Backup & Recovery• Considerations for Oracle Backup & Recovery

What are Virtual Machines?

They’re files on disk

Is the “Image” enough?

Traditionally, no

What about “Crash Consistent”image-level backups?

Microsoft VSS helps (application quiescence) but may not be enough

Applications – The biggest barrier

Traditional image level approach does not address application item-level restore (AD,

SQL, Oracle, Exchange, etc.)

What about “image” plus “agent”?

Solves many issues, but you’re backing up your data twice

It’s not about backup, it’s about recovery

Backup is easy, recovery is hard

Considerations for ExchangeImage-Level Backup & Recovery

3 rules of Exchange backup

Microsoft perspective:In order to be compliant with Exchange Server, VSS based backup applications must follow three basic requirements to ensure the integrity and recoverability of shadow copy backups. If these requirements are not followed, Microsoft ... will not be able to troubleshoot backup and restore issues.

Rule 1. Exchange must be backed up exclusively through the Exchange VSS Writer.

Rule 2. Backup should not be relied on until the backup application has completed integrity verification.

Rule 3. Restores to original location must be done exclusively with the Exchange VSS Writer.

Rule 1: VSS-aware backup

Veeam implements proprietary VSS integration since 2.0

Fully automated (no agents or manual deployment)

Supported directly by Veeam

More information: Veeam Backup v5 FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/v5FAQ

Rule 2: Verify before you rely

SureBackup Recovery Verification

Great flexibility (supports custom scripts)

Choose method of verification that is sufficient for you Remote run eseutil or isinteg on test VM (no stress on production)

Log on to test mailbox via HTTPS and query test email message

Keep in mind DC dependency! Exchange must see DC to be able to properly boot in the isolated

environment.

Rule 3: VSS-aware restore

Restores to original location must be done exclusively with the Exchange VSS Writer, and in correct sequence: Boot up Exchange VM with mailbox stores dismounted

Tell Exchange VSS Writer to perform restore from VSS snapshot

Mount mailbox stores

Veeam implements these Microsoft requirements

Most image-level backup vendors do not do this—,they just boot VM normally like there is no Exchange in it

Perform test restore to check your current solution!

Rule 3: VSS-aware restore

Look for presence of these events on the restored VMs:Event Type: Information

Event Source: MSExchangeIS

Event Category: Exchange VSS Writer

Event ID: 9620

User: N/A

Computer: ServerName.contoso.com

General: Exchange VSS Writer (instance GUID) has processed pre-restore events successfully.

Event Type: Information

Event Source: MSExchangeIS

Event Category: Exchange VSS Writer

Event ID: 9618

User: N/A

Computer: ServerName.contoso.com

General: Exchange VSS Writer (instance GUID) has processed post-restore events successfully.

Transaction logs

If transaction log files are not pruned after backup, the log files accumulate until they fill all the available disk space.

Exchange VSS Writer implements transaction log pruning capabilities.

However, VMware Tools VSS is NOT a backup application and cannot know if backup was completed successfully. Thus, it cannot process transaction logs by design.

Any application “riding” on VMware Tools VSS instead of providing specific integration will not truncate logs.

Transaction logs

Some solutions do provide transaction log pruning, but perform log pruning right after the snapshot is taken.

This approach is actually worse than no pruning: If backup does not complete successfully, you will not have a good

backup, and your transaction logs will be gone. You will not be able to restore in case of disaster.

Perform test backup to check your current solution! Perform backup, wait for the job to complete successfully, ensure

transaction logs are actually pruned.

Perform backup, but this time reset the backup server while the job is running (after virtual disk copy starts). Transaction logs should NOT be pruned.

Granular recovery challenges

Typically granular recovery from an image-level backup was difficult Restore entire Active Directory and Exchange servers to an isolated

environment (resource intensive and time consuming)

3rd party software that mounts Exchange data store – still requires data store to be extracted first (time and disk space), additional cost associated

Agent-based solutions could back up the Exchange data, but that’s backing up the data twice when working with image-level backups, additional costs for application agents

Granular recovery with vPower

Veeam’s patent-pending approach fully utilizes the existing virtual infrastructure Veeam application group and virtual lab features automatically create

an isolated environment

vPower allows you to run the AD and Exchange servers directly from the backup files, no extraction necessary

Veeam’s Exchange Recovery Wizard utilizes Microsoft Exchange APIs and connects to both the production and isolated environments

Exchange item-level recovery in minutes, not hours!

vPower NFS

Exchange AIR

vSphere

EXCHANGE

vPower

AD / DNS Isolated Sandbox

“Virtual Lab”EXCHANGE

VMFS datastore

Backup Store

Considerations for OracleImage-level Backup & Recovery

Oracle on Windows

Oracle 11g has a component Oracle VSS Writer Select Windows OCI Components on the Oracle 11g database install

wizard

Support for Oracle 10g started with patchset 10.2.0.3 and above

Requires ARCHIVELOG mode

Veeam app-aware processing supports transactionallyconsistent backups with Oracle VSS Writer installed. No additional settings required (works out of box)

Oracle on non-Windows

Research among our customers showed 3 equally popular approaches to transaction consistency, from most to least intrusive:

Method 1. Performing suspend/resume of database

Method 2. Putting all tables in hot backup mode

Method 3. Doing crash-consistent backup

All methods requires ARCHIVE LOGS mode, NOARCHIVELOGS mode supports cold backups only!

Method 1: Suspend/Resume

Effectively closest to cold backups

A few seconds downtime (which many smaller shops find acceptable during off hours)

Uses VMware pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts: Pre-freeze script executes ALTER SYSTEM SUSPEND;

Post-thaw script executes ALTER SYSTEM RESUME;

For more info on using pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts with Veeam Backup, see whitepaper below.

Hot backup of MySQL on a Linux VMhttp://www.veeam.com/backup_of_mysql_on_a_linux_vm_2_wpp.pdf

Method 2: Hot Backup Mode

This method puts all tables in hot backup mode that is specifically designed for hot backups.

No downtime. Oracle ceases to make direct changes to the database file, so it can be safely backed up.

Trade-off is increased use of rollback segments, redo logs, archive logs, and internal buffer areas.

Virtualization and VMware snapshots are huge win here, as database only stays like that for a few seconds: In legacy file-based backups, you have to size redolog files big enough

to survive the entire hot backup window, and account for the extra load from having to take copies of the changed datafile blocks.

Method 2: Hot Backup Mode

Uses VMware pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts: Pre-freeze script executes

alter tablespace TABLENAME begin backup;

Post-thaw script executesalter tablespace TABLENAME end backup;

Scripts must enumerate and cycle through all datafilesand place them in hot backup mode.

A number of sample scripts are available on Internet depending on your OS.

Method 3: Crash-Consistent Backup

Backup Oracle w/out special measures. Be sure VMware Tools quiescence is disabled (beware of SYNC driver!)

No downtime, trade-off is having to convince your DBA :)

Comments from backup administrators:We used this method for years, and although our DBA was skeptical for a while, I eventually won him over because we wrote a script that actually mounted our storage snapshots on the backup server, started Oracle, preformed the "crash recovery" and ran a dbverify every night. This ran for years without a single recovery failure.

…during the SAN corruption issue earlier this year that caused us to loose 4+ TB of VM's, we restored almost 1TB of Oracle databases with Veeam with no issues whatsoever. All of these databases were backed up with no pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts, and all restored correctly, performed media recovery, and ran flawlessly.

Method 3: Crash-Consistent Backup

Why this works? Virtualization and VMware snapshots make it possible!

Oracle works hard to protect data in the event of a system failure: Writes transactions to the log before committing them to the datafile

Provides methods for recovery of volumes after a hardware or system failure, or other issue.

VMware snapshots are "atomic" and snapshot every VM disk simultaneously. This is no different that if the system had somehow "crashed" at that moment and Oracle is about as safe as you get in that circumstance.

Oracle AIR

vPower enables granular Oracle recoveries at no additional charge

Restoring tables and individual records: Oracle SQL Developer is great tool – and it is free

Investigating schema changes and restoring schema Very common issue Oracle admins and developers have to deal with.

Tools are readily available such as RedGate Schema Compare™ for Oracle, but they require connecting running to previous copy of database - vPower make previous copy available for you in just a few minutes – then you just compare current and previous copy!

U-AIR No application-specific agents to license

No additional products to buy

No special backups to create

Durable—not tied to application internals

Supports ANY virtualized application, on ANY OS● Also includes wizards for Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory

and SQL Server

Administrator- or user-directed recovery

U-AIR workflow engine Maintains separation of permissions

between backup administrators and application owners● Application owners install wizards on their workstations

● Application owners submit restore requests to backup administrators

● Backup administrators approve/deny requests

● Application owners get notified, can then finish the wizard torestore items

Veeam Backup & Replication

Breakthrough technologyPublishes the backup as a regular VMDK file

● Compressed, deduplicated, incremental

Runs a VM directly from the backup file● Runs on regular backup storage● Does not make any changes to the backup file

Automatically manages an isolated virtual lab● Workflow engine manages requests● Proxy appliance provides access into the isolated environment

“This is why I love Veeam. They take all the virtualization technology pieces on the table and put them together into a functioning business solution.”

– Brett WestoverIT Administrator

Therapeutic Research Center

Instant VM recovery Fast: Start VM directly from backup file

Readily available: Uses existing backups and backup storage

Buys you time: Users keep working while you troubleshoot the problem

Instant VM recovery

Storage vMotion /Veeam Backup & Replication

How it works Publishes the contents of the backup file as a datastore

that an ESX(i) host can connect to

Uses vPower NFS server

Works with compressed, deduplicated and incremental backups

Use Storage vMotion, replication or hot VM copy to complete the recovery

But wait, there’s more!

Happy Holidays from Veeam!Announcing our NFR for VCP, VCI and vExpert program

Our thanks to the VMware community

2 socket NFR license for:Veeam Backup & Replication with vPower

Veeam ONE Solution (Veeam Monitor, Reporter and Business View)

http://www.veeam.com/go/free-nfr-license

Thank you!

For more information… Contact the presenter:

Email: doug.hazelman@veeam.comTwitter: @VMDoug

Go to www.veeam.com/vPower

Veeam Blog www.veeam.com/blog

Veeam Forums FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/v5FAQ

Follow @Veeam on Twitter

Contact your local Veeam ProPartner or a Veeam sales representative: www.veeam.com/contacts