EMC Networker + VMware VM image backups: LVM snapshots needed??

Question

Linux + VMware question + EMC Networker question: The way I understand EMC Networker + VMware is, that when EMC Networker takes a VM image backup, it takes a VM snapshot so everything is consistent, it then copies away the snapshot it created to the backup storage ... and then deletes the VM snapshot again. Now a customer of mine is very very unhappy with this, they claim that there's 'no way' that a backup done this way is 'in any way consistent'. Huh? They insist I configure pre-backup and a post-backup jobs that create LVM snapshots so that EMC Networker would take copies of those; and then remove the unneeded LVM snapshots again.... But isn't that reinventing the wheel and the fire again!? Because that's exactly what EMC Networker and VMware are already doing by default and out of the box .... The way I understood LVM and/or ZFS snapshots was that you need them on *physical* systems if you want to have a consistent backup... Yes. But with a VM on VMware ... isn't this kind of redundant??

ble1 · Answer

Perhaps you may wish to get more details from customer as to how they see the difference is... as for what happens, check Introduction to VMware vSphere Virtual Machines.  It is for v5 - not sure is snapshot changed in basics in v5.5.

DJ_ · Answer

Apparently it's a MongoDB server on Linux ... So I might indeed need those snapshots then to guarantee the DB-level consistency.

ble1 · Answer

Mongo is one of NOSQL DBs.  If running DB on any Linux VM, I would suggest to use either module for that or if module does not exist that method recommended by vendor.  In this case you should check Backup and Recovery — MongoDB Manual 2.6.6. I assume your customer is referring to Backup and Restore with Filesystem Snapshots.

NetWorker

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