Comments on: Simple [NOT FREE] VMWare ESX virtual machine backups http://www.motogobi.com/2009/01/27/simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups gobi, mobilized Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:36:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: mike http://www.motogobi.com/2009/01/27/simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups/comment-page-1/#comment-791 mike Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:28:48 +0000 http://www.motogobi.com/?p=180#comment-791 Thanks for the heads-up, John and Tony - I did look at <a href="http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup.html" rel="nofollow">Veeam Backup</a>, but unless I'm missing something, they don't offer a completely free version of their product. In my current situation, faced with tight budgets and lack of familiarity of virtualization infrastructure on the part of management, finding a tool like esXpress was like stumbling on a gold mine, albeit a little bit slower gold mine. Cecil: it's my job, dude. I happen to like this stuff ;) Tony, I understand the lack of support from VMWare - but I've always been somewhat surprised that an enterprise-class product like VI3 doesn't come with an EASY backup tool to use. VCB is somewhat of a mystery to anyone getting started with their products (including me at first) and legacy agents defeat the purpose of easy bare-metal restores of your VMs. As for support, I'll take the risk! :) What I've found with the last two virtualization deployments I've worked on, time was spent on purchasing the product (VMWare) and hardware (in our case, nice HP DL-series servers) but not backup solutions. Trying to get a few extra thousand dollars allocated after the fact is often hard to do, and this is where esXpress has stepped in quite nicely for us. - mike Thanks for the heads-up, John and Tony – I did look at Veeam Backup, but unless I’m missing something, they don’t offer a completely free version of their product. In my current situation, faced with tight budgets and lack of familiarity of virtualization infrastructure on the part of management, finding a tool like esXpress was like stumbling on a gold mine, albeit a little bit slower gold mine.

Cecil: it’s my job, dude. I happen to like this stuff ;)

Tony, I understand the lack of support from VMWare – but I’ve always been somewhat surprised that an enterprise-class product like VI3 doesn’t come with an EASY backup tool to use. VCB is somewhat of a mystery to anyone getting started with their products (including me at first) and legacy agents defeat the purpose of easy bare-metal restores of your VMs. As for support, I’ll take the risk! :)

What I’ve found with the last two virtualization deployments I’ve worked on, time was spent on purchasing the product (VMWare) and hardware (in our case, nice HP DL-series servers) but not backup solutions. Trying to get a few extra thousand dollars allocated after the fact is often hard to do, and this is where esXpress has stepped in quite nicely for us.

– mike

]]> By: Tony http://www.motogobi.com/2009/01/27/simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups/comment-page-1/#comment-789 Tony Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:44:02 +0000 http://www.motogobi.com/?p=180#comment-789 esXpress has free edition which is good. But unfortunately their backup approach is not supported by VMware, so cannot be used it in production. According to VMware support statement, currently the only supported VMware backup methods are VCB, and legacy agents running inside VMs. But esXpress does not support VCB. Alas! esXpress has free edition which is good. But unfortunately their backup approach is not supported by VMware, so cannot be used it in production. According to VMware support statement, currently the only supported VMware backup methods are VCB, and legacy agents running inside VMs. But esXpress does not support VCB. Alas!

]]> By: CecilTheTurtle http://www.motogobi.com/2009/01/27/simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups/comment-page-1/#comment-787 CecilTheTurtle Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:03:06 +0000 http://www.motogobi.com/?p=180#comment-787 BOOOOOOOOOOORRRring!!! BOOOOOOOOOOORRRring!!!

]]> By: John http://www.motogobi.com/2009/01/27/simple-free-vmware-esx-virtual-machine-backups/comment-page-1/#comment-786 John Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:14:18 +0000 http://www.motogobi.com/?p=180#comment-786 Did you ever evaluate or consider Veeam Backup. I find it has substantial features, great speed, and very easy to use. In our environment we tested vRangerPro which was old antiquated software like you mentioned. We also evaluated the PHD ESXpress solution and Veeam. Veeam Backup built on top their great free tool FastSCP just won hands down. Just curious to see if you took a look at it as well. Cheers! Did you ever evaluate or consider Veeam Backup. I find it has substantial features, great speed, and very easy to use. In our environment we tested vRangerPro which was old antiquated software like you mentioned. We also evaluated the PHD ESXpress solution and Veeam. Veeam Backup built on top their great free tool FastSCP just won hands down.

Just curious to see if you took a look at it as well. Cheers!

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