VCB or Backup Exec 2010 r3 Backup Best Practices

[mrettl]

Hi!

Do we have any Best Practices how to do backups of VMWare Datastores using Backup Exec 2010 or VCB?

Some things I am not able to find out:

1. The VMWare LUN is mapped to a Windows Host (the Proxy). What do I use as ostype for the iGroup? Windows or VMWare?
2. Is the use of MPIO DSM on the Windows proxy useful or recommended?
3. Is there a way to map the LUN read-only to the Windows proxy or what is the best practice to avoid filesystem corruption (besides setting automount disable and automount scrub)?

Thank you in advance,

Matthias

[adamgross]

For question 1, whichever host interfaces with the LUN first is your os-type.  If it's a VMware DS this Windows host lives within or if it's a Raw Device Mapping, the igroup os-type would be VMware.  If this is a physical Windows host you're presenting directly to then os-type Windows.  I may be misunderstanding the question though.

#2 -- If it's a physical box I would definitely put the MPIO DSM on.  If it's  VMware guest, make sure the Host Utilities are installed on the VMware host.  (I think the MPIO DSM for ESX is in the Host Utilities package.  Double check that part, as I'm not 100% confident that is the case.)

#3 -- On the Windows side you can set the LUN read-only with diskpart.  Select your volume then do "attributes volume set readonly."  If that doesn't work as intended for you "attributes volume clear readonly" to revert.

Hopefully some of this is helpful.