Skip to main content

ESXi Virtual Host Configuration

Thread needs solution

Our environment has three ESXi hosts (VMWare 6.0) with vCenter loaded on one of the ESXi host.

We purchased three 12.5 Standard Virtual Host licences.  I successfully deployed an AcronisESX Appliance on the same host that is running vCenter and performed backups of the VMs hosted on that hypervisor.

Will I need to install an AcronisESX Appliance on the other two ESXi hosts and is this the preferred method?  I an unclear on whether a single appliance can backup other hypervisors without an appliance on the other hosts.

Any clarification and guidance is appreciated. 

0 Users found this helpful

You can choose to deploy 1,2 or 3 appliances. If one is enough and can handle backups of your all vm's from 3 hosts than you don't need to install additional appliances.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi,

In practice you can use a single appliance to back up VMs on any of the ESXi hosts under the vCenter (assuming that appliance is connected to vCenter), however if the backed up VMs are placed on local datastores of these ESXi hosts, then the data from these VMs will be read over network instead of using HotAdd method, where appliance can attach the backed up VMs disks to itself in order to read the data LAN-free (which is possible only if the appliance is running on the same ESXi host or if there is shared datastore). Therefore for such environments it's recommended (but not obligatory) to have appliances on each of the ESXi hosts for more effective backup performance via HotAdd method.

Thank you.

Thank you, that was helpful. I pointed the original appliance to the vCenter rather than one of the ESXi hosts and all three hypervisor's VM's showed up.  

If I choose to backup all VMs in a single task, will I need to limit the agent's throughput or will the task backup the VMs sequentially rather than concurrently?

I don't want to burden the network (backups are being stored to network shares), yet I want to minimize administration as much as possible.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi,

By default appliance processes 2 VMs in parallel - this setting is defined in Backup Options->Scheduling->Simultaneous VM backup (max=10), so if your backup plan includes all VMs, then they will be processed sequentially with 2 VMs backed up in parallel at all time while backup plan is running. You can also limit the network bandwidth consumed by this backup plan from Backup Options->Performance settings.

Thank you.