Help Specifiying Acronis Software to backup an SBS 2011, Windows 2012 and Hyper-v environment
Hi
Just taken delivery of two Dell PowerEdges and I am now looking to sort out the most cost-effective backup solution.
The two physical servers are both Windows 2012 machines acting as Hyper-v hosts. Thus :-
The first physical server will then run two VMs:-
1.Physical server 1 (aka PS1), VM 1 - SBS 2011 standard roles (i.e. AD, Exchange, Sharepoint)
2.Physical server 1, VM 2 - Traditional File server (running Windows 2012 standard)
Similarly, physical server 2 will also run two VMs:-
1.Physical server 2 (aka PS2), VM 3 - SBS 2011 premium (i.e. SQL server) and backup AD
2.Physical server 2, VM 4 – Print and RDS server (running Windows 2012 standard)
Our backup requirements are as follows:-
1.The 'standard' SBS data on PS1, VM1 (i.e. Exchange, Sharepoint and AD)
2.The user files on PS1, VM2 (i.e. Word, Excel etc)
3.The SQL data on PS2, VM1
4.The four VM VHDs for DR purposes
Items 1-3 definitely need to be backed up on a daily basis, with RAID, UPSs and Shadow Copies hopefully meeting the needs during the day.
Ideally, we are looking to back up to a single LTO5 drive attached to physical server 1, possibly augmented by space on a NAS as well.
As always, there are more requirements than budget (!), so recommendations for the most cost-effective solution to achieve the above would be appreciated.
Kind regards
Horatio_too
Hi Fedor Larin
Many thanks for your feedback.
This is our first virtual environment and I confused, to say the least, about what is actually possible/necessary - especially given the fact that we also have two physical servers acting as Hyper-v hosts.
As with SBS itself, the Acronis Advanced Server SBS edition seems to offer great value for money.
However, as you are probably aware, SBS 2011 when used with the Premium add-on (which adds SQL server), MUST be installed on two separate servers (whether physical or virtual). Does the license for Advanced Server SBS edition (which says that it offers "Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory and SharePoint support") account for this ?
...and does "support" actually mean "with the purchase of an additional license" ?
Can it also, with the purchase of the right licenses, back up my Windows 2012 file server (VM2) ?
Clearly, "all" of our data is important, but the MOST business-critical is our SQL server data, Exchange is probably second (so granular recovery is obviously highly "desirable"), general office files (on VM2) third and the ability to backup the virtual machine instances from the Hyper-v hosts is a "nice to have".
I have only limited (but positive) experience of Acronis products up until now and really need both technical and licensing guidance.
Ideally, a single backup interface allowing me to backup all of the business data and virtual servers is the ideal scenario, but if I need to have one backup mechanism for my line-of-business data (i.e. VM's 1-3) and another for the Hyper-v servers, then so be it - we would not necessarily need to backup the Hyper-v servers regularly/frequently, it would just be 'nice' to have the ability to do so to protect us for DR purposes, rather than having to do a complete reinstall from the ground up.
If anybody is able to shed any light, then I would be very grateful.
Kind regards
Horatio_too
> Does the license for Advanced Server SBS edition (which says that it offers "Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory and SharePoint support") account for this ?
SBS Premium is two servers, one of them is SBS, and other is Windows 20xx Server Standard. Backup & Recovery SBS can be installed only on the first one, it won't recognize the second as SBS (installation package is the same, it's the license that won't allow install the SBS edition on the second). The word 'support' for SBS means 'at no additional cost' - from http://www.acronis.com/backup-recovery/smallbusiness.html#ABR11-5ASSBS - Support for Microsoft Exchange Server (with mailbox granular recovery), Microsoft SharePoint (with site content recovery), Microsoft SQL Server and Active Directory included at no additional cost. ABR SBS will not install on your VM2 as it doesn't run Windows SBS server.
'Backup interface' will be the same - all editions of Backup&Recovery use the same management console, in case of Advanced server (including SBS) you can use installed console to connect to all machines , or add them to the management server and manage them using centralized plans (but in your case machines seem to be too different to benefit from it). Full disk backup (with single-pass backup options for SQL to allow granular recovery of SQL data) executed on agent installed on the machine (VM or PS) will back up business data and allow DR. Separate granular backup only of SQL data is impossible. Granular backup and recovery of Exchange data is possible with Exchange addon (included with SBS); without it it's possible to mount a database from the backup in somewhat cumbersome way.
Hi Fedor
Many thanks.
Trying to pick through your reply - Please correct me if my understanding is wrong:-
- A copy of Advanced Server SBS edition will allow me to backup up VM1 (SBS standard, including AD, Exchange and Sharepoint) and VM3 (SQL Server running by means of the SBS Premium add-on) (A)
- The Management Console for this would need to be installed on VM1, so that it recognises it as SBS
- In order to back up VM 2 (the Windows 2012 file server), I will then also need a copy of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Server for Windows (B)
If this understanding is correct, then four questions:-
- Can the Management console on VM1 'control' the backup of VM2, if the license for (B) is installed as an agent ?
- Does Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Server for Windows with Microsoft SQL Server offer ANY advantages over using SBS to backup SQL ?
- In either case, what granularity can I restore for SQL server - an individual table/view, a whole database etc ?
- I presume/hope that VM1 can happily write to an LTO5 drive attached to PS1 ?
I assume that if I want full capacity to backup all of the VMs, then I need to buy Acronis Backup & Recovery® 11.5 Virtual Edition for Hyper-V for each physical server as well (or use Windows Server Backup supplied with Windows Server 2012 ?)
Or have I completely misunderstood ?
Regards
Haratio_too
> A copy of Advanced Server SBS edition will allow me to backup up VM1 (SBS standard, including AD, Exchange and Sharepoint) and VM3 (SQL Server running by means of the SBS Premium add-on) (A)
VM1 yes, VM3 - no. It won't work on SBS Premium. SBS Premium is recognized as a Windows Server Standard and requires a non-SBS license.
> The Management Console for this would need to be installed on VM1, so that it recognises it as SBS
It doesn't matter where Management Console is installed. You can think of it like of a browser, it doesn't require a license and may be installed on any of above machine or/and on some other machine including desktops, and control all machines with 'Advanced' type of license remotely. The only licensed component is Agent.
> In order to back up VM 2 (the Windows 2012 file server), I will then also need a copy of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Server for Windows (B)
Server for Windows (not advanced, hence standalone) doesn't allow to backup up to 4 hosted VMs with the one license installed on the host.
> Does Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 Server for Windows with Microsoft SQL Server offer ANY advantages over using SBS to backup SQL ?
No, but in your case Backup & Recovery SBS edition just won't work at all.
> In either case, what granularity can I restore for SQL server - an individual table/view, a whole database etc ?
Minimum granularity is database (or several databases)
> I presume/hope that VM1 can happily write to an LTO5 drive attached to PS1 ?
Not sure if it can write to tape drive attached to host. If you need multiple machines backed up to the same tape drive, you have to install Storage Node and create a managed vault using this tape drive ( http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR11.5/index.html#12402.h… )
> I assume that if I want full capacity to backup all of the VMs, then I need to buy Acronis Backup & Recovery® 11.5 Virtual Edition for Hyper-V for each physical server as well (or use Windows Server Backup supplied with Windows Server 2012 ?)
You can use two 'Virtual Edition' lcenses instead of two 'Advanced server' licenses. These will allow you to backup data of the host machine as well, and install agents inside VMs , utilizing the host's license. License for 'Virtual Edition' allows unlimited guest VMs instead of 4, and also allows agentless disk backup of guest VMs (but not single-pass backup for SQL and not backup of Exchange data), and recover of backed VMs directly to Hyper-V host (instead of creating empty VM, booting from media and recovering as it were a physical machine). In your case it doesn't seems to have significant advantages over Advanced Server.