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		<title>Hyper-V ahead of VMware in the backup race</title>
		<description>Discuss Hyper-V ahead of VMware in the backup race</description>
		<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html</link>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:05:32 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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			<title>Jon Andersson says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1339</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Another issue that I am wondering about is how to create a non-VSS-aware application backup. As simple as. 1. Shutdown or pause the non-vss-aware application 2. Netbackup or any other application calls VSS 3. VSS creates the snapshot and leaves the disk in read only mode 4. Start or pause the non-vss-aware application 5. Take the backup. How do I do that?]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Jon Andersson</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:53:51 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1339</guid>
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			<title>Andrey Moruga says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1262</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Thanks Curtis, very good piece of information. Consistent backup plus transaction logs truncation is important indeed, however there is another part which I don't think is properly handled on either platform. According to Exchange VSS backup API, the Exchange database must be verified with eseutil or CHKSGFILES API. The goal of such verification is that once a corruption occurs, backup application notifies the administrator and fails the backups, not flushing the transaction logs. So either the database will be repaired manually, or restored to the latest available state by restoring from last good backup, plus rolling forward the transaction logs. Without such verification, the corruption will get undetected into the backup storage, and eventually all "good" database states will expire and will be purged from the backup. To be honest I'm now aware of any host-based backup application which properly handles this case]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Andrey Moruga</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1262</guid>
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			<title>Sebastian Kayser says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1140</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Thanks Curtis. The relevant bit is contained in the "What’s New in vSphere 4.1" document. http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_41_new_feat.html. "vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) Enhancements. VADP now offers VSS quiescing support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 servers. This enables application-consistent backup and restore operations for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 applications." There's some more technical information in http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1028881 "Enabling Windows 2008 application-consistent quiescing on ESX 4.1"]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Sebastian Kayser</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:50:16 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1140</guid>
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			<title>W. Curtis Preston says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1139</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I'm on the road at the moment and am not sure where I read it, but I read it in multiple places. Basically, you'll see support for application-consistent snapshots, which requires the functionality I'm describing.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>W. Curtis Preston</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:33:11 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1139</guid>
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			<title>Sebastian Kayser says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1138</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Curtis, just saw that you've updated the article WRT to VMware's W2K8 application quiescence support. Do you have a reference to public VMware information by any chance (release notes or such)?]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Sebastian Kayser</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:34:17 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1138</guid>
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			<title>shailesh says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1098</link>
			<description><![CDATA[When we use Hyper V to take a full or incremental backups, what is the type of backup that the applications in the guest VM get? Is it the same or is it always full?]]></description>
			<dc:creator>shailesh</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:39:29 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1098</guid>
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			<title>Anon1 says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1072</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Surely MS can support multiple apps with log truncation because they support only their own applications (i.e. the writer has to be aware of the specific application in order to perform all required functions). If so, as mentioned elswhere, it's really the backup vendor's responsibility to add a lightweight helper agent to perform that function (like NetApp does). What VMware could do is to make these backup helper agents pluggable components of the VMware Tools package. That is, a vCenter server-side plugin supplied by the backup vendor includes the backup vendor's backup helper agent, and a vCenter policy is set to install the backup vendors agent on all/some VMs as part of the tools). At least then the management of the backup helper agent can be done centrally. Otherwise VMware will forever be adding application specific VSS code the VMware tools. Or am I wrong this?]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Anon1</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:52:25 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-1072</guid>
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			<title>Sebastian Kayser says:</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-982</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Curtis, thanks for dissecting the whole VSS story. Lots to learn here. Since you posted this, there has been an update to the platform / consistency-level matrix with the VMware VDR 1.2 admin guide (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdr_12_admin.pdf). W2K8 now has application-level consistent snapshots on ESX 4.1, subject to a bunch of constraints (no IDE disks, enough available SCSI slots on the virtual bus, no dynamic disks). Doesn't read straight-forward nor could I find any further notes on application awareness during the backup process. Hard to believe that the VMware VSS integration has way to go when something essential like it should rather be working out of the box and/or at least be well documented. Sebastian]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Sebastian Kayser</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:44:20 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-982</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>This is exactly why I wrote this article</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-859</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Trust me. NBU 7 is NOT quiescing the apps. And if it's quiescing the filesystem without quiescing the apps, then yes, it's a crash-consistent backup. As the article said, VMware does not support doing that for anything but Windows 2003, so if the product didn't build a work-around, then it's not getting app-consistent backup. Backup Exec actually did build a workaround, but NBU did NOT. They're trusting the VMware will eventually do the right thing. As to telling the apps they're backed up, definitely not. VMware uses VSS_COPY and that does nothing when it's done. Until they change that, the apps will not know they've been backed up and will not truncate their logs -- even for 2003.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>W. Curtis Preston</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:19:31 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-859</guid>
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		<item>
			<title>NBU7 with VMware</title>
			<link>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-858</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I hope they're not pulling my leg, but I finished up watching a recorded webinar from Symantec for NBU7+VMware. The speaker said that the NBU7 backup is clientless (on the vm hosts) and that it pokes VSS to quiesce the filesystem. I'm not sure if it nudges any applications that are responsive to VSS (I'd expect it to, but I'm not holding my breath). It's also not a "crash consistent" backup. To your defense, the speaker didn't mention anything about telling Windows that it was backed up. A real-world example for me is if by some circumstance, I'd want to run Exchange and Enterprise Vault in VMs. The safety backup, email removal, and shortcut creation all require that the applications know they've been backed up (both Exchange and EV).]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Robin Small</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:25:40 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.backupcentral.com/mr-backup-blog-mainmenu-47/13-mr-backup-blog/287-hyper-v-ahead-of-vmware-in-the-backup-race.html#comment-858</guid>
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