VM Backup

Best Practices &

Strategies
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
In this e-guide:
Creating backups in virtual environments isn’t as straightforward as it is in physical
environments. While there are a variety of approaches for backing up virtual machines (VMs),
there are just as many pitfalls you may encounter due to their unique nature.
The Content Marketing team curated this two-part guide on VM Backup Best Practices &
Strategies to aid organizations in their VM recovery efforts.
In Part 1, we highlight several VM backup strategies and missteps to avoid, while Part 2
illustrates the essential tips and tools for protecting and backing up VMware VMs.
Page 1 of 35
In this e-guide Table of Contents:
• Introduction (pg. 1)
Disaster recovery vs. backup: Plan for and prioritize VM workloads
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
5 mistakes made when backing up VMs and how to prevent them
• Part 1: VM backup
Back up VMs with Azure snapshots and managed disks
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
Manage large volumes of VM data with these storage tactics
(pg. 3)
Back up VMware environments with these best practices and tips
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
6 VMware VM backup best practices you should know
backing up VMware VMs
VMware VM backup strategies combine tradition with new methods
(pg. 23)
These VMware and third-party VM backup tools make your job easier

Page 2 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Part 1: VM backup strategies &
pitfalls to avoid
Disaster recovery vs. backup: Plan
for and prioritize VM workloads
Brian Kirsch, IT Architect, Instructor
IT administrators must prioritize the criticality of VM workloads to plan recovery strategies that
make sense. Before making a decision, consider the benefits and drawbacks of disaster
recovery vs. backup.
Recovery isn't a task admins should take lightly. Outages can cost anywhere from tens to
hundreds of thousands of dollars, so effective recovery methods are critical to the overall
organization. The primary challenge is that different VMs have different levels of importance,
and using the same protection service for all workloads can be expensive.
Admins should prioritize whether to use disaster recovery vs. backup before designing a
comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Backups are designed to recover virtual workloads
through a process that might take hours or days, and it typically occurs in the same location.
Disaster recovery should be quicker and typically occurs at a different location from the
primary site on different hardware or in the cloud.
Beyond the technical and logistical aspects, cost is another issue to consider in the disaster
recovery vs. backup debate. Disaster recovery services are often significantly more expensive
Page 3 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
than backups because they typically duplicate entire production environments, but they aren't
used daily.
Most companies have both disaster recovery and backup strategies. It's important to
understand how workloads fit into each so admins can optimize these environments.
Fundamentally, backups should protect all workloads. This makes sense for the primary data
center, but what about the disaster recovery site?
Many people would argue that if admins have the ability to fail over the primary site to a
disaster recovery environment through data replication, then they don't need to back up those
virtual workloads again because they are essentially a clone of the primary site. This tactic
can lead to problems if the workloads run longer than expected at the disaster recovery site. If
the workloads are there for more than 24 hours, the disaster recovery site could end up
containing a sizable amount of primary data, which is an issue if it's not protected.
Duplicating a backup environment isn't going to be easy or cheap, but most organizations
can't afford to be rash with data. It's critical to understand which virtual workloads are going to
a disaster recovery environment and which aren't. A disaster recovery site needs some level
of backup, and those costs can add up quickly.
Evaluate dependencies when debating disaster
recovery vs. backup
Admins must prioritize which workloads require disaster recovery and which don't. This
decision isn't always easy because modern applications can have many dependencies.
Page 4 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Virtualization enables applications to scale out
horizontally. This application stack might include While it might be nice to
databases and web servers that support the have every single VM
application and other services, such as
and application at the
authentication and reporting servers. All of these
disaster recovery
components, including the primary storage for
them, need to exist and replicate to the disaster location, the simple fact
recovery site. is that some applications
Infrastructure servers pose another relevant aren't worth the effort
challenge to the disaster recovery vs. backup and cost.
decision. Infrastructure servers don't have to
replicate to the disaster recovery site, but they
need to exist and run at the disaster recovery site. Most of these include domain name and
dynamic host configuration protocol servers, Active Directory, single sign-on and other backup
management servers that may stretch across data centers. These infrastructure components
must be available for the application servers to run properly.
If there are limited host resources at the disaster recovery site, it might be better to run these
virtual infrastructure workloads lean. Use OSes such as Windows Server Core rather than a
GUI to reduce the resource overhead.
A lean mindset can also help admins navigate the disaster recovery vs. backup decision.
While it might be nice to have every single VM and application at the disaster recovery
location, the simple fact is that some applications aren't worth the effort and cost. This is more
of a business decision than a technical one.
For example, admins may have to abandon some important servers that the organization
considers critical when all systems are running normally, such as print or file servers. In the
Page 5 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
middle of a data center outage, is it really critical to print? Printing is important, but if admins
are trying to keep core systems online, then limited disaster recovery resources might be
more useful elsewhere.
Whether to use disaster recovery vs. backup isn't an easy issue to resolve, and it often
inspires multiple answers depending on the stakeholder. Everyone needs backups, and
everyone wants disaster recovery. The challenge is that admins rarely have enough
resources for both.
Use a lean mindset when it comes to VMs, investigate the criticality of different workloads,
and always test and optimize chosen workloads so that if disaster recovery becomes
necessary, workload performance meets expectations.
▼ Next Article
Page 6 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Top five mistakes made when
backing up VMs and how to prevent
them
Eric Siebert, Contributor
What you will learn in this tip: Creating backups in virtual environments isn’t as straightforward
as it is in physical environments. While there are a variety of approaches for backing up virtual
machines (VMs), there are just as many pitfalls you may encounter due to the unique nature
of virtual environments. In this tip, learn how to efficiently create VM backups and avoid
common mistakes.
Don’t back up through the guest OS
Backing up through the guest operating system (OS) is probably the most common mistake
made when backing up VMs. You cannot use traditional backup methods that use agents
installed on the guest OS to back up VMs. While this works, it is inefficient because the
virtualization layer sits in between the guest OS layer and the physical hardware layer. The
guest OS no longer has direct access to physical hardware where the data resides, so a
backup agent inside the guest OS must go through the virtualization layer to get to the virtual
machine data. This method also causes unnecessary resource usage on the host and if
multiple backups are running simultaneously, it can cause performance bottlenecks.
Instead of using guest OS backup agents, backup servers should go directly to the
virtualization layer and not involve the guest OS. By using this method, the guest OS is not
aware of a backup process, nor is it wasting host resources. It is also much more efficient as
Page 7 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
the backup server can mount the VMs virtual disk directly from the host data store. This type
of backup is known as an image-level backup because the VM’s disk is backed up at the
block level and not at the file level as traditional guest OS agents do. To properly do an
image-level backup at the virtualization layer you need to use backup applications that are
virtualization-aware and can leverage the APIs of the virtualization layer to access virtual disk
files.
You should never try and back up virtual disk files directly at the physical storage device and
bypass the virtualization layer. The guest OS and virtual disk need to be prepared so they are
in a proper state to be backed up and if you bypass the hypervisor this does not happen.
Virtual machine snapshots are not backups
Virtual machine snapshots preserve the state of a VM from the point in time when the
snapshot was taken. Additionally, multiple snapshots can be created to provide multiple
restore points to choose from. While this can be useful in certain situations, it should never be
used as a primary backup method for your VMs. One problem with VM snapshots is that once
you revert back to a previous snapshot, you can’t go back to the present. The current state of
your VM is lost and you can only revert to previous snapshots. Snapshots are not useful for
restoring individual files because they only bring a whole VM image back to a present state.
Snapshots can also cause other problems because they grow in 16 MB increments: The
entire LUN that a VM is on has to be locked when they grow in size, which prevents other
hosts from writing to the LUN.
This process is known as SCSI reservations and too many of them occurring can decrease
the performance of your VMs as they wait for LUNs to be unlocked. Each snapshot is an
individual file that grows as data is written to it, and having a lot of snapshots running can
cause your datastores to run out of disk space. Snapshots are useful as a secondary backup
Page 8 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
method for short-term or ad hoc backups if you need to permanently revert to a previous
state, such as when applying patches or upgrading applications.
Make sure you are quiescing properly
Most virtualization backup applications back up at the image level and are not aware of what
is going on inside the guest OS. Before you back up VMs, you need to ensure they are
quiesced so they are in a consistent state to be backed up. If you don’t quiesce them, you risk
having data that is not in a state to be restored properly. The quiesce operation is handled
inside the guest OS, and for Windows VMs, the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) handles
this. Since the backup server is backing up the VMs at the virtualization layer—and not inside
the guest OS—it requires another application to tell the guest OS to quiesce the VM.
In vSphere, that application is VMware Tools, which tells the VSS service to quiesce the guest
OS. The application installs on the guest OS to serve as a conduit between the guest OS and
the hypervisor.
For VMs running Linux operating systems with no native services like VSS, VMware Tools
also provides a special vmsync driver that can provide the same functionality as VSS. This
makes it very important that VMware Tools be installed and kept up to date on all your VMs.
There are also instances where VMware Tools may not support certain guest OS versions, so
always check to see if your version is supported by the application.
Many backup vendors supply their own special agent that will handle the quiesce process if
VMware Tools doesn’t offer support.
Schedule backups carefully
VMs share the resources of a host and hosts share storage devices, and creating backups is
a resource-intensive operation. In a virtual environment, creating a backup can cause
Page 9 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
resource starvation among your hosts and VMs. While backing up at the virtualization layer
reduces resource usage on your VMs when backups occur, resource usage will still be high
on your hosts and storage devices when backups are running.
To avoid too much concentrated I/O—which can affect the performance of your VM—you
should schedule your backups to limit the number of concurrent VM backups on a host and
shared datastores. Hosts typically share the same datastores in virtual environments, and
bottlenecks caused by too many simultaneous VM backups on a single datastore will affect all
hosts that have VMs running on that datastore.
Likewise, if too many VMs on the same host are being backed up at the same time, it will
create bottlenecks for all the VMs on that host.
You should plan backup schedules carefully to ensure that backups occur in a balanced
manner which do not cause resource problems for your VMs. And don’t rely on sluggish VMs
to tell you that you have a problem while your backups are running. Instead, look at
performance statistics taken at the virtualization layer to learn whether you have a problem.
This allows you to monitor the I/O and make adjustments as needed to balance it out.
Don’t resource starve your backup server
Backup servers are basically like pumps: Data is read from a source and goes into the backup
server, and then the data is sent from backup server to the target device. The volume that a
backup server can handle is determined by the resources assigned to it, and the more
resources available, the faster it can pump data. Backups can heavily tax network and
storage resources, but there is more to backups then just moving data from point A to point B.
Backup servers handle advanced functions like deduplication, compression and determining
which disk blocks need to be backed up.
Page 10 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
For your backup server to achieve maximum throughput, it needs to have sufficient resources
to avoid creating a bottleneck in any one resource area.
You should monitor the resource usage of the backup server: In practice, it’s better for a
backup server to have too many resources than too few. If those resources are maxed out,
chances are the backup server will need more. By ensuring that your backup server has the
resources that it needs, you can ensure that it pumps data at maximum speed and decrease
the time of your backup windows.
The virtualization architecture introduces a lot of unique and creative ways to back up your
VMs when compared to traditional physical environments. Backup applications that integrate
with virtualization can take advantage of these features and leverage them to increase the
efficiency of backups. VMware has developed specific APIs that benefit backup applications,
such as the vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP), which allows backup applications to
interface directly with hosts and storage devices. VADP offers more efficient access to virtual
disk files and contains features—such Changed Block Tracking (CBT)—which can greatly
reduce the time it takes to perform incremental backups.
A big part of an incremental backup is figuring out what changed since the last backup. CBT
queries a virtual machine’s VMkernel, which keeps track of disk block changes, to quickly
determine which disk blocks of a VM’s virtual disk have changed since a specific point in time.
Backup applications normally figure this out on their own, so making this information instantly
available can mean faster completion of the incremental backup process.
In order to achieve the most efficient backups possible, always make sure your backup
application takes advantage of the many benefits provided by the virtualization architecture.
About this author: Eric Siebert is an IT industry veteran with more than 25 years experience
covering many different areas but focusing on server administration and virtualization. He is a
Page 11 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
very active member in the VMware Vmtn support forums and has obtained the elite Guru
status by helping others with their own problems and challenges. He is also a Vmtn user
moderator and maintains his own VMware VI3 information website, vSphere-land. In addition,
he is a regular contributor on TechTarget's SearchServerVirtualization and SearchVMware
websites.
This article was previously published on SearchDataBackup.com.
▼ Next Article

• Part 2: Tips and tools for

backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)

Page 12 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Back up VMs with Azure snapshots
and managed disks
Mike Pfeiffer, Chief Technologist
Organizations frequently use virtual machine snapshots on premises in case they need to
revert their systems back to a previous state, but the process works slightly differently on
Microsoft Azure. Unlike on premises, there isn't a one-step option to take a snapshot of an
entire VM state in Azure.
Disk snapshots on Azure VMs must be done individually for each virtual disk connected to a
virtual machine. However, admins can still use Azure snapshots in a number of scenarios,
including for custom backups, point-in-time restore operations and disaster recovery.
Custom backups
Azure Managed Disk snapshots, which require VMs configured with managed disks, is the
default disk configuration for new VMs in Azure.
Unmanaged disks introduce administrative overhead that includes building and maintaining
additional storage accounts for virtual disks. Also, the snapshot process can only be managed
from the command line. For these reasons, Azure Managed Disk provides the best
experience to create and restore snapshots.
You can use the Azure Portal to create a managed disk snapshot. First, navigate to the VM
resource, select the disk that you want to back up and click Create snapshot, as shown in
Figure 1.
Page 13 of 35
In this e-guide

• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
You can also search for the snapshot resource in the Azure Portal to start the process. You'll
(pg. 3) be prompted to enter the server resource and disk you want to snapshot, as shown in Figure
2.
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)

Page 14 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Azure Managed Disk snapshots must be done on a per-disk basis, as there's no way to
snapshot all the disks at once. This has data corruption implications for software RAID and
storage pools configured across multiple disks from within the VM's operating system. To
ensure snapshot consistency across all the disks attached to a VM, you should turn the
machine off before you take the snapshots.
Azure snapshots consume storage space and can affect your costs, so be mindful of how
often you take them. If you take multiple snapshots of the same disk, they are full snapshots,
not incremental, and those costs can add up quickly.
PowerShell and the Azure command-line interface (CLI) can also be used to perform disk
snapshots. These tools are useful if you want to automate the process of snapshotting your
VM disks.
The Azure CLI commands to invoke a snapshot of the OS disk for a VM named SERVER1
are shown in Figure 3.
Page 15 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
The az snapshot create command requires the source ID for the disk you want to snapshot,
as shown in Figure 3. The az vm show command is used to capture the disk id in a variable,
and the next command runs az snapshot create to initiate the snapshot.
If you plan to do this frequently, you might want to use Azure Backup instead. You can easily
schedule full VM backups rather than run these commands for every disk attached to your
VMs. To implement Azure VM backups, deploy a Recovery Services vault and configure a
backup schedule.
Restore or rebuild VMs from Azure snapshots
You can use Azure Managed Disk snapshots to rebuild a VM or perform a point-in-time
restore based on a previous snapshot.
First, create a new managed disk resource either in the Azure Portal or from the command
line with PowerShell or the CLI. Search for the managed disk resource in the Azure Portal and
provide the name of the OS disk snapshot for the VM you want to restore, as shown in Figure
4.
Page 16 of 35
In this e-guide

• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)

• Part 2: Tips and tools for

backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Navigate to the new managed disk resource after the build process is complete. As shown in
Figure 5, you'll see a Create VM button in the properties of the disk resource that can be used
to launch a new VM with all of the data from the snapshot intact.

Page 17 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Disaster recovery
Some IT teams use managed disk snapshots for disaster recovery. It's possible to use
PowerShell or the Azure CLI to copy Azure snapshots from one region to another, but the
process requires a fair amount of work. The administrative overhead with this approach can
become unmanageable with a large number of servers each with their own individual set of
attached virtual disks.
The Azure Site Recovery service provides a much better experience for VM disaster recovery.
It natively supports VM replication from one region to another and captures all the data from
both the OS and data disks. Azure Site Recovery replication can be enabled, monitored and
controlled in the Azure Portal without any additional code.
▼ Next Article
Page 18 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Manage large volumes of VM data
with these storage tactics
Brian Kirsch, IT Architect, Instructor
Many organizations still struggle to virtualize servers that contain large amounts of VM data.
But with the creative application of storage tiering and disk allocation techniques, admins can
finally virtualize all of their servers.
After the advent of virtualization, most organizations started virtualizing low-hanging fruit. As
the technology proved itself, organizations virtualized more and more important production
servers. The last remaining servers weren't always the most critical CPU-heavy production
servers -- they were usually the largest ones.
Most data centers have some of these heavyweights. They're large in terms of disk size, but
not in terms of CPU, memory or even disk I/O. The data in these servers can stretch to multi-
terabyte levels.
Organizations often leave large servers out of the virtualization process because the amount
of VM data they produce can use too much expensive shared storage. This problem is even
worse with solid-state drive frames.
Large VMs continue to present several challenges, but with a few techniques, admins can
figure out how to store them.
Use storage tiering to reorganize VM data
Page 19 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
One of the key questions with large VMs is where to put them. All-flash arrays are expensive,
so admins must understand their data profiles. If VMs are mostly unused or if the VM data is
rarely useful, then all-flash arrays aren't the right place for them.
Storage tiering can enable admins to shuffle unused VM data onto slower disks so the frame
can do it all. However, storage tiering is often expensive, and it requires disks with enough
speed and capacity to make it work.
If admins can't afford to implement this method, they might have to get creative with disk
allocation. Admins should first see if they can separate VM data. Depending on the guest
configuration, multiple drive letters can enable multiple hard drive files. This enables the
manual separation of the drive files, so admins can use slower or even local disks rather than
an expensive storage area network (SAN) disk.
Admins must be cautious, though, because
separating VMs on different frames can cause If admins can't split the
issues if one disk location fails without adequate drive or group it into
redundancy. Manually tiering disks isn't easy, and
logical segments, other
allowing the frames to do it is best, if possible.
challenges can arise.
If admins can't split the drive or group it into
logical segments, other challenges can arise.
VMware and Microsoft systems can support large volumes of VM data, but that isn't an ideal
situation for admins to be in.
As these large servers grow, admins often add and configure more disk groups, but these
additions don't always offer the same disk speed or I/O profile. Having different IOPS for parts
of the same disk volume can lead to unpredictable performance.
Page 20 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Large VMs challenge hyper-converged infrastructure
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platforms can also present problems with larger VMs.
Admins can use HCI platforms for large VMs, but by their nature, HCI platforms aren't the
right fit. HCI platforms combine the necessary resources for virtualization in a convenient,
self-contained package.
Technically, admins could map external storage to an HCI platform to deal with extensive VM
data, but that tactic defeats the overall purpose of a compact HCI platform.
Admins might not be able to split a single large volume's load on the storage controller of the
SAN or network-attached storage. This is dependent on storage frame features, but load
balancing in storage frames focuses on volumes, not bandwidth, so it's possible to overload a
controller or front-end port.
There isn't a perfect solution to storage overload because it's not always possible to shift or
separate VM data, but admins should try to partition the storage before it continues to grow.
VM data presents backup challenges
Backing up large data volumes can also pose problems. In theory, traditional snapshots
address this, but the delta change logs on a multi-terabyte volume can quickly grow out of
control. Backup tools that incorporate some level of deduplication are critical to avoid the risk
of runaway and corrupt snapshots. Block-level deduplication is preferable, but admins should
at least use file-level deduplication.
Large volumes are often too large to do full backups outside of production hours, so synthetic
full backups and deduplication are essential. The same challenges can arise with traditional,
Page 21 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
non-hypervisor-based antivirus scanners. Scanning large volumes of VM data with traditional
tools can take an excessive amount of time and can monopolize server resources.
Admins must consider protecting these types of volumes at the hypervisor layer. This can be
better for performance and security, but if admins don't plan for it, adding a tool that enables
this can prove costly.
Many other traditional tasks, such as Storage vMotion, run into challenges when VM data
reaches the multi-terabyte range. This can be even more difficult if storage has additional
logical unit numbers that don't have the same I/O profile.
▼ Next Article
Page 22 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Part 2: Tips and tools for backing up
VMware VMs
Back up VMware environments with
these best practices and tips
Allyson Larcom, Associate Site Editor
Even in a virtualized environment, backup plays a key role in workload protection and sound
data center operations. With the right tips and tools, you can efficiently back up VMware
environments for simple restoration.
You can ensure useful, quality backups that can help you in the event of an outage, a
malicious attack or a natural disaster with a mix of select best practices, tips and tools. Such
practices include avoiding the use of snapshots as backups and automating the backup
process.
You can also use VMware native tools such as VMware Consolidated Backup and third-party
tools such as Veeam Availability Suite to ease the burden of backups.
VMware backup best practices
You can maximize backup efficiency with a handful of strategies. First, ensure you don't back
up VMware VMs at the guest OS layer. Instead, back up your data at the virtualization layer.
Page 23 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
This eliminates resource consumption so your VMs still have all the resources they require to
run their workloads.
Also, don't use snapshots as backups. Snapshots work for making short-term copies of VMs
but take up significant disk space on your VM's disk file and your data stores. When you run
out of data store space, your VMs shut down. Merging snapshot data back onto the original
disk can also affect VM performance, because the merging process is a heavy I/O task.
Finally, be aware of backup alternatives, especially for VMs that use the Fault Tolerance
feature, which doesn't support snapshots and can be difficult to back up. You can create a
copy of a VM by cloning it using vCenter Server or vCenter Converter, back up that copy and
then delete the copy. You can also use an agent installed in the OS to back up a VM.
Additional best practices include using
incremental backup technologies such as Even with the help of
Changed Block Tracking, quiescing vital automated backups,
transactional applications such as email servers
ensure you test your
and databases, and testing restoration regularly
to ensure it works as intended. Ensure you have restoration process
a secure and protected place to store your regularly.
backups; keeping physical, offline backups is
often a great way to ensure your backups remain
uncompromised.
Traditional vs. new backup strategies
The traditional method for backing up VMs involves backing them up just as you would a
physical machine. Normally, all you require for this method is a backup agent installed in your
desired VM, which then can move files and data to available backup servers. This creates one
Page 24 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
consistent backup approach across a data center, and you can use the same software to
quiesce applications. However, this method places a significant load on the system and
network, and the backup software must be able to identify and work with VMs as well as
physical machines.
A more recent strategy is to save workloads as VM files. This method is quick, simple and
takes full advantage of an environment's virtualization capabilities. VM file backups use
shared storage, and you can easily back these files up without placing an additional load on
your system. The drawback to this method is that you can't just save part of a VM; you must
save the whole thing. As a result, the restoration process can be lengthy, because the system
must process more data to recover.
Automate backups with vCSA
You can automate backup and recovery through the vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) to
save yourself time and avoid manual backups. To automate backup, save the backup script
into a text editor and save the file as "backup.sh" with script details filled in:
VC_ADDRESS=
VC_USER=
VC_PASSWORD=
FTP_ADDRESS=
FTP_USER=
FTP_PASSWORD=
Page 25 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Next, copy the script to your vCenter host and use a command in the directory to make the
script executable:
chmod +x /usr/backup.sh
You can then run the script with a final command:
./usr/backup.sh
You can also run an automated backup as a separate user, which presents a much smaller
security risk than backing up as the root, and schedule backups to run periodically. To run a
backup as a separate user, log out of the Secure Shell client and reconnect using the
following command:
localaccounts.user.add --role operator --username backupuser –password
Even with the help of automated backups, ensure you test your restoration process regularly.
Take advantage of backup tools
There are a number of tools -- both VMware and third-party -- that can assist you in backup
and recovery tasks.
VMware offers several native tools, such as VMware Consolidated Backup, which protects
VMs by offloading the backup workload to a backup proxy server, and vSphere Replication,
which automates the failover of virtual servers to a recovery site. VMware vCSA contains
native backup capabilities, and you can use VMware disaster recovery products such as Site
Recovery Manager to automate failover and DR testing to speed up DR time.
You can also use third-party tools, such as Veeam Availability Suite, which provides VM
backup and image-based VM replication, and Acronis Backup, which offers a backup and
recovery platform for ESX hosts, VMs or clusters across an entire virtualized environment.
Page 26 of 35
In this e-guide
▼ Next Article
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)

• Part 2: Tips and tools for

backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)

Page 27 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
6 VMware VM backup best practices
you should know
Stephen Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor
Countless caveats, cautions and priorities can guide workload protections, but consider
incorporating some VM backup best practices to help improve your processes.
Use caution with backup agents
Although modern backup software can recognize and accommodate virtualized environments,
experts debate the role of backing up VMs as though they were physical machines. Instead,
many emphasize the use of virtualization layer backups of entire VM files, such as VMDK
files. It's worth evaluating deployment performance to ensure any backups implemented at the
OS level minimize the performance load on the application and host system. This is
particularly crucial when multiple VMs use the same physical host, and backing up multiple
VMs simultaneously could congest network communication.
Avoid snapshots for long-term backups
Snapshots are a quick and time-efficient approach for protecting many common VMs over the
short term, enabling the hypervisor to use a differencing disk file to record changes rather
than the original disk. Snapshot technology enables you to easily restore previous VM states,
but this technology also uses large amounts of additional storage to track changes. Any
storage problems can affect the integrity of a snapshot or restoration. You should limit the
Page 28 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
number of snapshots for each application and regularly consolidate snapshots into the original
VM disk file.
Use incremental backup technologies
Incremental backup technologies, such as Changed Block Tracking (CBT), can vastly
accelerate backup speeds. CBT tracks any storage blocks that change between backup
processes, enabling the backup application to query the hypervisor -- such as VMkernel -- to
determine which blocks have changed and then back up only those changes. This is far faster
and easier than relying on the backup application to track changes.
Quiesce vital applications
Transactional applications, such as email servers
and databases, typically must be quiesced -- Backups are only useful
paused -- before you back them up. This enables when accessible and
the creation of application-consistent backups
secure. Select the
that ensure the system writes all pending writes
to the disk before you perform the backup. Such backup target location
quiesced backups also ensure that no data is lost with care.
if you must restore the backup. However, such
quiescing behavior requires that the backup tool,
virtualization drivers and application all work together to observe the proper pause-and-
resume behavior. You must test and verify this behavior to ensure that everything works as
expected.
Protect backups
Page 29 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Backups are only useful when accessible and secure. Select the backup target location with
care. As a rule, the target should be a physically remote location from the production system.
Otherwise, the same event that compromises the production system -- such as flood or fire --
could also compromise the backup. In the early days of tape backups, businesses frequently
transported physical tapes to an off-site location or even shipped them to a remote storage
facility. Nowadays, remote replication and cloud-based storage protect backup accessibility.
You can also employ encryption to secure backups against theft or loss, preventing valuable
data from exploitation and possibly exposing the organization to costly regulatory compliance
breaches.
Test restoration regularly
VM backup best practices don't guarantee successful restorations, so test recovery processes
on a regular basis. In most cases, you can restore VM backups to test servers, where you can
verify the recovery process and VM integrity without affecting the production environment.
Testing not only validates the backup, but also reinforces the recovery process -- the workflow
-- and strengthens the skill sets of IT staff.
▼ Next Article
Page 30 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
VMware VM backup strategies
combine tradition with new methods
Stephen Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor
When it comes to a VMware VM backup, organizations can adopt several approaches.
Businesses can choose to back up VMs like physical machines or as VM files -- or to tailor a
combination of these approaches to each workload.
Traditional VM backups
First, IT administrators can back up and restore VMs like physical machines. This approach
works because each VM includes its own OS that exists in complete isolation from other VMs.
In most cases, admins can accomplish traditional backups by installing a suitable backup
agent in the desired VM. The backup agent then moves VM files and data across the network
to available backup servers.
One notable benefit of this traditional approach is consistency; an organization can basically
use the same approach for physical machines and VMs in the data center. The backup
software itself must be capable of identifying and working with VMs, but admins can often use
it to quiesce applications during the backup process, enable both incremental and differential
backups, and support file-level backups and restoration. However, when using this physical
approach, the system might protect the OS and application components but not the VM as a
complete entity. In addition, traditional backups can place significant loads on the system and
network.
Page 31 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
Protect workloads as VM files
The second approach to a VMware VM backup is
An admin must consider
to protect workloads as VM files, such as VMDK
files. Such backups take full advantage of the the tradeoffs involved,
virtualization environment, backing up or
as well as the
restoring entire VMs as a single, quick and
cohesive step. In most cases, this approach relies importance and recovery
on snapshots to periodically capture a VM's state point objective/recovery
and then uses the change log files to commit time objective needs of
changes to the VMDK file later.
each workload, before
The main benefit with this approach is speed and adopting either method.
simplicity. An admin can capture a VM file in
almost real time so it doesn't affect system
overhead or network traffic. Additionally, when VM files use shared storage, such as a storage
area network or network-attached storage, an admin can employ replication-type protection to
back up VM files without ever placing additional load on the system running the VM.
However, capturing the VM file captures everything in it: all of the OS components, application
files and working data. Recovery means restoring the entire VM file because there's no
means of recovering individual file components. Consequently, restorations process more
data -- because VM files can be large -- and consume more time than recovering an individual
file using more traditional approaches.
So, which approach is best for a VMware VM backup? Both have advantages and
disadvantages, so an admin must consider the tradeoffs involved, as well as the importance
and recovery point objective/recovery time objective needs of each workload, before adopting
Page 32 of 35
 either method. These approaches aren't mutually exclusive, so an admin could employ both in
In this e-guide the same environment to best suit the needs of each workload.

• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
▼ Next Article
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)

• Part 2: Tips and tools for

backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)

Page 33 of 35
In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
These VMware and third-party VM
backup tools make your job easier
Stephen Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor
The right tools enable organizations to capture host and guest states quickly and often with a
high degree of automation. Not only do VM backup tools figure prominently in operations, but
the choice and deployment of VM backup tools can profoundly impact the organization's
business continuity, disaster recovery and regulatory compliance posture.
VMware offers several native tools that to can help with VM backups and restorations. IT
administrators can take -- or even script -- protective actions through vSphere CLI and
PowerCLI. VMware vCenter Server includes native capability for backup and restoration.
VMware Consolidated Backup protects VMs by offloading the backup workload to the backup
proxy server. More sophisticated options include VMware vSphere Replication and DR
products, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager.
There is also no shortage of third-party tools to assist with VM backup and restoration under
major hypervisors. Veeam Availability Suite provides VM backup and image-based VM
replication for full DR. Zerto IT Resilience Platform offers data protection and DR for on-
premises and hybrid or multi-cloud environments. Acronis Backup presents a flexible backup
and recovery platform for ESX hosts, VMs or clusters to hybrid storage across the entire
virtualized environment. Commvault Complete Backup and Recovery delivers backup and
recovery for on-premises and cloud resources.
Page 34 of 35

In this e-guide
• Introduction (pg. 1)
• Table of Contents (pg. 2)
• Part 1: VM backup
strategies & pitfalls to avoid
(pg. 3)
• Part 2: Tips and tools for
backing up VMware VMs
(pg. 23)
When considering VM backup tools, admins must
evaluate factors such as current and future When considering any
business needs, product performance, product VM backup tools,
compatibility/interoperability, product support,
admins must evaluate
licensing and other tool costs, and product
factors such as current
features roadmap. Admins should take the time
to experiment with each potential product and and future business
conduct thorough proof-of-principle evaluations of needs, product
finalists before committing to any specific VM
backup and restoration product. performance, product
compatibility/interoperab
The notion of a backup might sound almost
archaic in today's virtualized data centers, but
ility, product support,
backups continue to play a vital role in everyday licensing and other tool
workload protection and sound business costs, and product
governance. Virtualization has brought new
options and alternatives to backup tasks, but
features roadmap.
organizations must still apply diligence and best
practices to make the most of backup operations.
Page 35 of 35