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When to use SME and SMSQL in Vmware environment

aleskosek
8,814 Views

Hi!

We have a customer who have a Netapp solution in a VMWare environment. It is smaller installation so they also have Exchange and SQL in VMWare servers. We will implement SMVI for backup but we are wondering when to use SM for Exchange and SM for SQL. We have follwoing concerns:

1. Can SME and SMSQL work with SMVI? Is there a need to use both solutions?

2. What advantages will bring for example SME if we are already using SMVI?

3. Will SME or SMSQL work on the same virtual machine as SMVI or those products do not work together?

4. Does SME and SMSQL work at all with VMDKs?

5. Is there any whitepaper how to use SME or SMSQL in VM environment?

Thanks for all your help, regards, Ales

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

bjornkoopmans
8,812 Views

Hi Ales,

Any backup (snapshot or traditional) needs to contain a complete set of related data to be useful for restore. So to properly back up your database application (Exchange, SQL, Oracle, etc.), you should always use some sort of agent to bring the database in a consistent state. Meaning that any data in the RAM is written to disk, the logfiles are up to date and the database is quiesced.

You use SME or SMSQL to bring your database in that consistent state. SMVI doesn't bring your application in a consistent state, only the OS (if you incorporate VMware snapshots). So SMVI is great for static data, such as application binaries, OS and webservers (without database), but not for databases. On the other hand, SME and SMSQL don't backup the OS and application binaries.

1 + 2) So in short: you'll need both solutions. 🙂

3) They'll work perfectly together, but you might want to consider not scheduling snapshots with both solutions on the exact same time.

4) Nope. Think about it: you use SME/SMSQL to create consistent snapshots of your databases. You can't (storage)snapshot a single vmdk. You'll need RDM's for that.

5) Not sure here, but there really is hardly any difference with a physical environment.

Hope it helps.

Bjorn

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