Skip to main content

Backing up hosts without backing up VMs?

Thread needs solution

Hello,

I wonder if there is a way to define a job to backup the host only (Hyper-V and ESXi) without backing up the virtual machines.

Backing up Hyper-V seems to ignore file exclusions like *.vhdx, also ESXi does not only backup the configuration of the host as intended but all VMs as well.

Since creating application aware backups is not possible for selected guests this way (in my understanding you have to use separate jobs for separate categories, i.e. only Domain controllers for AD or only SQL servers for SQL application backups, since you are asked for credentials for each system on the host otherwise, even if it is not a DC or SQL server), we currently run into the situation to have duplicate backups of those VMs if we backup entire hosts.

Best greetings from Germany
Olaf

1 Users found this helpful
frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 250
Comments: 7092

Hello Olaf,

thank you for your posting! Yes, you can select disks/volumes as backup source and exclude the volumes storing your VM configuration files.