Since my last blog about Consolidated Backup I’ve had a lot of people ask me how it compares to esxRanger.

These 2 products are both competitive and complimentary. They are competitive because both attempt to provide a faster, more efficient solution for backing up your virtual machines. However, there is a key difference. Consolidated Backup provides a “file level” backup that enables you to backup a single file. esxRanger backs up vmdk files (virtual disks) as a single file.

esxRanger makes restoring an entire virtual machine extremely simple by allowing an administrator to restore only 1 file. To restore an entire virtual machine with Consolidated Backup you’d first need to install an operating system (preferably from template). Then you can restore your data from your backup agent.

Conversly, if you wanted to restore a single file using esxRanger, it can be a complicated process. You’d first need to restore the vmdk files associated with the virtual machine, and then restart it in a development environment, start the VM and then copy the needed file. This is far too complicated for just 1 file.

That’s why Vizioncore (developers of esxRanger) developed what they call their 1 - 2 punch. This approach uses both esxRanger and Consolidated Backup thereby providing both file level and “single image” backups, and therefore simplified VM and file restore. You get the best of both worlds.

http://www.vizioncore.com/downloads/1-2%20punch.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_consolidated_backup.pdf

VMware President Diane Greene has recently published a paper titled “Virtualization: Transforming the IT Landscape”. This is a very interesting discussion of how things have changed over the past decade as new technologies are becoming excepted.

My peers and I refer to this as the shifting paradigm. As new technologies emerge, the accepted strategy on how to design your datacenter and resolve problem change. It also changes how we work and communicate. Take for example email. In 1996, I was working for a small company in Northerrn California as the IT manager. I took it upon myself to setup an email server for internal use amonst the managers of the company. When I introduced it to the President of the company he looked at me like I had grown a 3rd eye. “What do we need that for?” and “No” are the only real words I remember him saying.

10 years later he now sees the value in it, and wonders how he ever managed with out it.

Virtualization is having that same effect on the industry right now. Diane’s paper discusses exactly this. It’s worth looking at.

You can download it here.

Also, if you’re looking for a good article regarding how the paradigm has and is changing, read this article.

VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3’s new “DRS” feature has recently won Computerworld’s Horizon award for being cutting edge.

DRS, or Dynamic Resource Scheduler, is a new feature that leverages VMotion technology to “load balance” a virtual infrastructure. DRS runs inside Virtual Center and monitors the load on each ESX server. As server utilization becomes high, DRS will automatically VMotion virtual machines to lesser utilized servers thereby freeing up needed resources.

It was only a matter of time. We all new it would come. We’ve joked about it for years. I’ve seen countless photoshop masterpieces depicting different versions of it, all designed to make one of lifes most common occurances that much more enjoyable. Hell, I’ve even listened to a close friend constantly tell me how he’d do it.

Ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages. Allow me to introduce to you.. the digital commode. Brondell has developed an electronic toilet seat designed to provide superior cleansing for “sensitive feminine and posterior areas”. It even has an anti-bacterial, heated seat.

You MUST go to their website and view their flash movie demonstrating this “amazing” new product.

http://www.brondell.com/

RJB - I fully expect to see one of these installed next time I’m at your house.

I think the Recovery Monkey is loosing it. Check out his latest post here:

http://www.recoverymonkey.org/2006/08/23/mad-monkey-on-the-loose.html

A lot of people have been assuming that VMware’s new Consolidated Backup feature is designed to reduce the number of backup agents required to backup and enterprise. This could be a major cost savings.

Whereas it is true that it would only require 1 agent to backup the environment, you will need more agents if you need to restore. Each virtual machine would require it’s own agent to conduct the restore.

So why use consolidated backup? Consolidated backup reduces the backup window from hours to minutes. Instead of waiting for Gig’s of data to be moved over the network, a snapshot of the virtual disks is taken. Once this is completed, the virtual machine can go on working. The backup is done form the VM’s perspective.

The actual backup can now be done by the backup proxy. The backup proxy has the capability to mount those snapshots and gain file level access. This allows one system to back up all your VM’s at a file level over a variety of backup mediums like fibre channel.

And remember, faster is better…

I found something interesting in the VMware Forums:

“The upgrade path in the ESX 3.0.1 release will significantly reduce the upgrade downtime in going from an ESX 2.x to ESX 3.x environment for customers using VirtualCenter. Using VMotion and Relocate, customers will be able to migrate their ESX 2 / VMFS 2 virtual machines to the new ESX 3 / VMFS 3 environment one at a time without any downtime.”

It appears that there is going to be a new upgrade path that will eliminate downtime for customers. This is very interesting! One of the biggest drawbacks to upgrading from 2.5.X to 3.0 is the scheduled downtime.

One has to wonder though, how does this compete with Vizioncore’s esxMigrator? I’m not sure how Vizioncore is going to spin this. When VMware released Consolidated Backup they claimed it was not a competitor to esxRanger. Instead they released a white paper talking about using both in kind of a “1 - 2″ punch. The whitepaper proposed using Consolidated Backup for file-level backup, and esxRanger to backup the .vmdk files as a single file.

Now, it almost seems like VMware is squeezing out Vizioncore….

You can read the thread at:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=51755

To learn more about esxMigrator:

http://www.vizioncore.com/esxMigrator.html

Even after sweeping the Mariners, the Angels are still 4 and a half games behind the A’s. Trouble is, the Rangers are only a game behind the Angels.

This could prove to be a close race in the AL West.

The slides from our roadshow are now available. We just finished up Boston and had a great time.

Next week 3 dates in southern California!

Here are the slides.

I’m here in New York City doing the 5th seminar of our 9 city series. So far it’s been extremely successful. Our approach to disaster recovery has resonated well with our attendees. Every company has data, every company is concerned with recoverying from a disaster, and almost every company has concerns over data that’s not sitting in their data center. Our seminar series discusses these exact issues and how best to take control of your data.

We’ve been recording each seminar, and will combine the best of each day into a single podcast. We will also make the presentation available as a PDF also. You can expect both of those to be available in September. If you can’t attend one of our final shows, you can still download and hopefully learn a little about how to better manage your data.