SMVI in VSC - where are the backups!

[GLOBELEQ]

I know this is going to seem like a totally NOOB question but just to satisfy myself can some nice person please answer me the following:

1)     Where does SMVI store backed up VMs?

2)     Are the VM's compressed in any way like Veeam does?

My initial thought was that SMVI stores the backed up VM's in the volume snapshot reserve of the volume it resides in?  But what happens if this is full?

Thanks guys

G

[bsti · Accepted solution]

Gavin,

  No problem asking. 

1) SMVI stores the backups as NetApp Volume snapshots.  The only place you can "see" them is by running snap list [volname] from ONTAP on your controller and looking at the list of snapshots.  Because SMVI stores them as snap backups,  they don't get copied and stored anywhere like a traditional backup solution.

2)  Better than that.  Because they are snap backups and not traditional backups, you only store  the blocks that have changed over time.  For instance, when you snap the backup initially, it takes 0 MB in space.  As you change 10 MB of blocks later, your backup takes up approximately 10 MB in space.  This is a vast oversimplifcation, but I think you get the idea.