How to backup Hyper-v cluster?

[guest]

What is the best way to backup the VMs in our 2 node, soon to be 3 node, 2008 R2 Hyper-v environment? We currently have 70+ VMs and are using SCVMM 2008 R2.

[guest]

You can perform Guest Based backup with any backup solution today. Conducting Host based backup requires backup applications do some work to be compatible with CSV.

DPM V3 i.e. 2010 version support CSV backup. It is in RTM and you can download it from microsoft.com and start using it

Windows Server Backup doesn’t support to backup VMs on CSV.

The primary methods used for Backup/Restore for CSV/Hyper-V are:

Guest or VM based backup
Guest based backup is when application data or volumes used by the Virtual Machine are backed up from within the guest VM. The Backup/Restore application is installed in the Virtual Machine as if it were a physical server and backup operations are managed from the VM. Some Enterprise-class Backup/Restore applications utilize a central “management server” and backup-agents are installed on each VM and/or server. Whether using a single-server or an Enterprise backup product, VM based backup is a commonly used method for backing up application data in a Hyper-V environment. In the Guest-based approach, the individual Virtual Machines are managed for backup/restore in the same manner as is done for a group of physical servers. This means the backup/restore software you are using for your servers today should work seamlessly in a Hyper-V/CSV environment. Perform a backup from within the guest operating system before you perform a full backup of the server running Hyper-V.

Backup from the Hyper-V Parent partition
Host based backup is when the Virtual Machine(s) configuration and state along with any associated VHD’s are backed up from the Host or parent partition. Your backup/restore application must use the VSS Hyper-V writer to insure that the resulting backup is consistent. The data included in such a backup includes the configuration of virtual machines, snapshots associated with the virtual machines, and virtual hard disks used by the virtual machines.

Source http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... da9d051a62

The following posts discussed the similar issue, you can refer to:

How to backup VMs held on CSV?

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... da9d051a62

CSV Backup

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 1edbf76ed3

For CSV backup, please refer to the following article:

Backup your CSV disks with DPM 2010 Beta!
http://blogs.msdn.com/clustering/archiv ... 41284.aspx

[chicagotech]

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