Backup ESXi as normal file system backup

[shabab-os]

Hi all,

 I want to backup ESXi (ver 5.0.x) using DP 6.2 as a normal file system backup.

 Until DP ver 6.0, it was possible to deploy agents onto the ESXi servers and take a normal file system backup.

I tried the same with DP 6.2, but it throwing me an error saying this is not supported ?

Any thoughts ???

Thanks a lot in advance !!!!

[Sebastian.Koehler · Accepted solution]

This is nothing you need to do with ESXi, since it does not contain any critical information you need to backup. If you're paranoid (which is not the worst thing in the world) you could backup ESXi configuration using vicfg-cfgbackup command provided by VMware. Since ESXi is only a bare metal hypervisor a reinstallation including config restore would only take several minutes. To answer your question, don't use the DA in the ESXi console since it will not help you in any situation I can think of. Having a vicfg-cfgbackup from your host ready could help.

Regards,

Sebastian

[shabab-os]

Hi Sebastian,

 Thank you very much for yopur reply.

So, the general and best practise to backup the ESXi hots is using the vicfg-cfgbackup, not using DP... right ??

[Sebastian.Koehler]

Either you reconfigure ESXi manually in case of fault or have vicfg-cfgbackup ready. There is no need to involve Data Protector here except for VM backups using VEPA.

Regards,
Sebastian