VSM file level restore FLR

Right, I understand the way the EQL's works now, and as you said, "if you mount the snapshot"....but why can't VSM do that?  That is the real question.  We love the Equallogics, VSM 3.5 with vCenter is almost there as a cool plugin.  Just needs a bit more cowbell.

What we need to push as end users is... more features (to make our lives easier) and make the computer do most of the work; again this is more of a discussion item, high level, can the programmers make a process that would mount the VDMK for us dedicated Equallogic users?  :emotion-5:

As VSM is an appliance, mount/hot add the VDMK to it, with magic programming, we the end user are presented with a "file explorer" like interface and we can pick the file(s)/folder to restore.

Maybe enough of us push for such a feature (and tell our Dell reps)?  Is there a need for such enhancement amongst us all?  Or do we like manually mounting VDMK's into another VM?

Someday I'd like to give our admins access to an FLR feature via vCenter, but not all the VSM areas (restore/clone).

To not have to use Vmware VDP (crap system by the way), Veeam, PHD Virtual or other backup solutions would be sweet.

Thanks.

VSM works at the volume level.   File level restore needs direct integration with the guest OS.  If you mount the snapshot you can add the VMDK to another VM and do a file level restore.  

I understand what you are saying, one thing to remember is that you can add a VMDK to a running VM, but you can't remove it while its running.   VMware doesn't allow it.  So, a bit of planning is required to get FLR.  So at most VSM could add the VMDK to the VM.  But there's another rub.  What if that VM already has a max number of disks on a single controller.  Now you have to add a new controller before you add in that VMDK.   Now you have to be concerned what does the OS do when while running it sees a new controller?  Some are going to want to do a reboot.

If they can do it (Veeam/HP)  www.veeam.com/san-snapshots-explorer.html

so can Dell/Equallogic.  Agree?

Got an email today, looks like Veeam has made this part of their overall solution.  Eitherway...Equallogic, catch up.

http://img.veeam.com/screenshots/big_screen/san_snapshots_scheme.png

"When I learned that Veeam, working in conjunction with HP, was releasing new restore capabilities for SAN snapshots, it was as if Veeam understood our situation and designed a solution especially for us.

Jason Kaduk, Information Systems Specialist, Vallejo Sanitation & Flood Control District"

You can perform SAN based backups with Veeam and EqualLogic. You need enterprise plus Veeam licensing though.

You will need, ideally 2x NIC connected to the iSCSI network. Make sure you have the latest HIT installed. Configure Veeam to use SAN snapshots.

I have got 196MB/s recently with a customer. That's backup 226GB, verify and file system index in 26 minutes and not a drop of traffic over the management of VM network :)

Austin

Hi Austin,

When you are talking about connecting to an iSCSI EQL volume directly from the guest OS, that works great.  However, that won't work for VMDFS Datastores. Which is where VSM currently is focused on. Creating consistent snapshots and replicas

Regards,