Re: How can I back up SBS 2008 VM inside Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

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RobWW wrote:
I read that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 allowed hot add/remove pass-through
disks provided they were on the SCSI controller and not the IDE
controller. Have you tried first-hand swapping pass-through disks set
up in my senario with SBS backup? I am not doubting what you say, but
considering this is a test setup I don't mind spending another $118
for a matching second drive to find out for sure.

Thanks,

I have not, and in review this does indeed look "do-able" using R2 and given
that its realease is imminent looks quite viable.

Please report back on your findings.



On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 21:31:08 -0700, "kj [SBS MVP]"
<KevinJ.SBS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

RobWW wrote:
This seems to be coming together bit-by-bit. I used DiskPart to
offline the the USB drive E: attached to the Hypervisor. I added a
SCSI controller in SBS 2008 and attached it to the USB drive. In
SBS 2008, the drive shows up as a local drive E:.

I ran the backup wizard in SBS 2008 and it took ownership of E: and
set it up for scheduled backups. This is exactly what I want and I
hope it works when USB drives are swapped. Lately I have been
ordering servers with Dell's RD1000 backup and cartridges which are
just packaged SATA drives. Technically it should work here if
Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 does not choke when the RD1000 cartridges
are swapped out.

I hate to be a bubble burster, but this is where things unravel a
bit. The passthrough disks aren't swappable like you were able to do
with 2003 and physical implementations. SBS backup will see them as
different disks and with the new backup technology won't give you
the result you are looking for. You might want to consider an image
copy method for the passthrough backup disk instead of swapping out
different disks or media.

I believe the RD1000's don't play well with this solution - for a
variety of reasons. Perhaps others that have evaluated these both in
physical and in virtual will jump in or you can search past
discussions about the same thing.



I am not to concerned about backing up BES other than a snapshot
because it does not house any irreplaceable data like Exchange
server.

I have had other opinions expressed about the high overhead of BE
and its impact on a VM environment because of all the Windows
services. If I were to install WS08 and enable they Hyper-V role
and then install BE into this, BE being a resource hog could impact
the WS08 parent partition which could have a could effect on any of
the VMs.

Yes, it is a consideration, but often a backup running in the middle
of the night presents a low impact to the VM's. There are also so
some resource tunning that can assist as well.


It was suggested that with the Hyper-V role enabled in WS08, it is
not recommended to install any application on the parent partition
in a production environment. As long as I can get the results with
Hyper-V Server 2008, and my pass-through disk works, I am a happy
camper.


Generally good advice, but for the purpose of management of the VM's
that should be put into perspective. I wouldn't want a demanding
host application running at the same time as peak guest VM
performance was desired.


Thank you for bringing pass-through to my attention.

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 14:22:08 -0700, "kj [SBS MVP]"
<KevinJ.SBS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

RobWW wrote:
Thanks kj. Since you post I received clarification on the
licensing issue but I still do not want to make WS08 the parent.

OK, but why? Server standard as the 'parent' should support BE
install and 'backup' should be considered as part of VM 'management
and operations' if you decided to go that way. Don't know if
current BE would support the host VSS writer and backup of live
VHD's or not.




I researched pass-through a little more, added a SCSI controller
and tried to add my USB drive but received the 'offline' warning
you mentioned. Now I will read up on diskpart commands.

Thanks

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:16:52 -0700, "kj [SBS MVP]"
<KevinJ.SBS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

RobWW wrote:
On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 09:35:45 -0700, "kj [SBS MVP]"
<KevinJ.SBS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

RobWW wrote:
I am wondering if anyone has been here before? How can I back
up SBS 2008 VM inside Hyper-V Server 2008 R2? Backup Exec
12.5 was looking attractive but it has to be installed on the
host O/S and I am limited with what I can do with Hyper-V
Server 2008 R2.

Limited by what?

Limited by the fact Backup Exec requirements so not include
Hyper-V Server 2008

OK, but seems like a BE limitation more so than a HV one.




I am looking for the least expensive way to provided an SBS
2008 customer with their own Blackberry server (under 30
users) and I was hoping virtualization was the answer but the
more I dice this up, the more a second server for the BES
seems like the direction to take.

Second physical server vs. a second virtual server? Why does a
second physical server be your direction for this?

Because I have not found a solution to back up the SBS server
yet.

SBS included backup can work with some limitations and with third
party (USB over Net) products. R2 (RTM) gives you hot swap VHD's
and with a little work (Powershell) should make for a
semiautomated method for 'offsite' storage. Agreed the solutions
aren't what I'd call 'mature'.




I can install SBS 2008 and Server 2003 (for BES) on one
Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 box with the least amount of
licensing, but now I am restricted to how I can back it up.

Again why. You can do pass through disks for both servers or
use third party products. R2, although still an RC (cautions
about deploying in prodcution) still gives you the ability to
do VHD copies and backups. Is it just a matter of a third
party VSS enabled backup software package for R2?

I guess I don't fully understand passthrough disks. I
connected a USB drive to my Hyper Server 2008 R2 and it shows
up as drive E:. In SBS 2008 I tried to add a hard drive
thinking I could access drive E: physically through SBS but all
it did was create a VHD on E:. Where did I go wrong? It would
be Ideal to access E: directly because then I could use the
backup in SBS.

Passthrough disks need to be offline to the host to be available
to the VM guest. With Hyper-V server you'd need to use diskpart
commands.




I can use Windows Server 2008 Standard with the Hyper-V role
but I am limited to one VM and I need two. An Enterprise
version of Windows Server 2008 is too costly. Am I doomed?

Your licensing is the same. You will need two server licenses
for this. One SBS 2008 and one Server 2003 standard (BES). If
you buy SBS premium you can use the Premium Standard second
server license for management (which includes backing up the
virtual servers) and running the SBS VM's and BES

I count more. First I have to buy WS08 to be my Hypervisor.
The I have to buy SBS 2008 and another server license for the
BES. I am up to three so far,

SBS premium includes a second server with full (1+1)
virutalization licensing. This second server can be both the
virtualizations (& management only) and a second full
installation instance. Then SBS is a second VM instance. If BES
would run on 2008 standard you'd be done. But I think you need
2003 and I don't think you can just downgrade the 2008 virtual
machine to 2003 and keep the 2008 Virtualization parent. So, you
need a second product purchase of 2003 standard server for BES.

but Windows Server 2008 Standard (my Hypervisor) only
supports one VM.

No, it is not limited in the number of Virtual Machines (guests).
Windows Server 2008 standard includes 1 license for the
virtualization host (& management) and 1 license for up to a full
implementation in virtual. Additional virtual machines are
allowed but you must bring your own OS license for these virtual
machines.

It does get confusing. It's MS licensing after all.


For this reason, I am trying to make Hyper-V Server
2008 R2 work. I am hoping my the time I have all the kinks
worked out and have this tested on my network, R2 will be
released.

R2 doesn't change really any of this besides adding some new
features and roles to the server core and hyper-v support.


Thanks for your help.

VMs.

--
/kj


.

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