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    BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer

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    • olivierO
      olivier
      last edited by

      IIRC, XenServer skip the 0's without compression (I'm not sure but I remember some stuff about the pipe needed to pass it to GZIP which need to handle the read differently than exporting directly). Anyway, continuous delta backup won't suffer of this because exporting the diff only.

      BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BRRABillB
        BRRABill @olivier
        last edited by

        @olivier said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

        IIRC, XenServer skip the 0's without compression (I'm not sure but I remember some stuff about the pipe needed to pass it to GZIP which need to handle the read differently than exporting directly). Anyway, continuous delta backup won't suffer of this because exporting the diff only.

        The reason I chose XC export instead of XO backup was because in my test VM (a Server 2012 core install) it took around 5 minutes to export, and 12 minutes to backup. I figured the backup would more than double the time I needed to accomplish my task.

        But in the other thread (on performance) you said that backup should be quicker.

        Any thought on why I saw opposite results? Was the sample too small? I'd be glad to do another test.

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        • olivierO
          olivier
          last edited by olivier

          Again, I can't guess which kind of backup did you used, on which kind of storage, on which kind of network etc...

          edit: it's like you told me, "my car is slow", without telling which car, on which road and in which situation 😄

          BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BRRABillB
            BRRABill @olivier
            last edited by

            @olivier said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

            Again, I can't guess which kind of backup did you used, on which kind of storage, on which kind of network etc...

            edit: it's like you told me, "my car is slow", without telling which car, on which road and in which situation 😄

            WHY DO I KEEP DOING THAT?

            I set up a one-time backup of the VM through XO.

            The backup went to a Windows share. The same share I used for the export location.

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            • olivierO
              olivier
              last edited by

              But what kind of backup? Normal backup or Continuous Delta backup? If normal backup, did you deactivate the compression or not?

              Also, exporting in your Windows share from XO as a backup could produce different result than using XS from your computer (not the same network path).

              That's a lof of unknown 🙂

              BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BRRABillB
                BRRABill @olivier
                last edited by

                @olivier said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                But what kind of backup? Normal backup or Continuous Delta backup? If normal backup, did you deactivate the compression or not?

                Also, exporting in your Windows share from XO as a backup could produce different result than using XS from your computer (not the same network path).

                That's a lof of unknown 🙂

                Normal backup, just a one-time backup. (Mainly for the purpose of importing to another XS.) I disabled compression.

                OK, I will continue to test things and report back.

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                • olivierO
                  olivier
                  last edited by olivier

                  In most of cases, a continuous delta backup will be few seconds, so if you need to backup often your VM, that's a good idea.

                  Also, you can monitor the network speed in the stats to see what's going on. You can also show that CPU should be calm on the host why backuping without compression. The SR can be monitored because of the load average chart too.

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                  • olivierO
                    olivier
                    last edited by

                    Also a major difference between a backup tool on the guest: XO won't restore inside the VM. It will create a new VM (with the full file) then apply diff (if necessary).

                    The downside is "restore" time is higher. On the other hand, you could have lost your whole XenServer and having a brand new server, XO restore will still work.

                    To be able to rollback quickly, there is a solution, called snapshots.

                    In general, in IT operations, we use both:

                    • snapshots are very handy when you want to make a modification and rollback if anything goes wrong. It's also cool to schedule them every night in case
                    • but snapshots ARE NOT BACKUP. That's why cont. delta is perfect here: fast to create and your are protected, even in a catastrophic situation. If you lost your VDI chain/XenServer/whatever, a snapshot won't help at all.

                    But combining them is great. Restoration time of a catastrophic failure is not often a concern.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • olivierO
                      olivier
                      last edited by

                      To finish, ideally we should be able to select which disk to backup with XO (e.g: you have a big data disk which is already saved with rsync or whatever). This is already possible in the XO backend, but we have to work on the UI.

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                      • BRRABillB
                        BRRABill @olivier
                        last edited by

                        @olivier said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                        In most of cases, a continuous delta backup will be few seconds, so if you need to backup often your VM, that's a good idea.

                        Also, you can monitor the network speed in the stats to see what's going on. You can also show that CPU should be calm on the host why backuping without compression. The SR can be monitored because of the load average chart too.

                        I was doing that, and why I was confused about compression with export. Sometimes it seems like it is on, sometimes it seems like it is not. I guess it depends on what the source material on the server is.

                        When I get everything set back up I'll do some testing.

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                        • olivierO
                          olivier
                          last edited by

                          Cont. delta backup won't use compression at all.

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                          • BRRABillB
                            BRRABill @Dashrender
                            last edited by

                            @Dashrender said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                            Nope.. some include some older ones.. but not all.

                            You can start with the newest and work backwards, refreshing the list of needed updates each time.

                            Just wanted to double-check to be sure this was the case, as this is what I have been doing.

                            I usually, actually, start with the 6.5 SP1, then move on to the latest patch, which will make some earlier ones disappear. I just keep moving backwards in time until no updates remain.

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                            • BRRABillB
                              BRRABill
                              last edited by

                              The reason I ask is because when I do this, XC still shows the "down yellow error" that patches are available, even though they aren't.

                              I saw online some ways to clear this, but wanted to make sure this was OK behavior before doing so.

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                              • BRRABillB
                                BRRABill
                                last edited by

                                So I figured out what the issue is.

                                There is a hotfix that is installed on one of my two servers and not the other.

                                On Server1, i went hotfix by hotfix, installing them all. On Server 2, I started with SP1, and then went to the oldest and worked backwards.

                                This leave htofixes installed on one that have been since depreciated.

                                At least that my hypothesis.

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                                • DashrenderD
                                  Dashrender
                                  last edited by

                                  you think having a depreciated patch installed was causing the issue? I didn't know you were suppose to remove old patches before installing new ones?

                                  BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • JaredBuschJ
                                    JaredBusch
                                    last edited by

                                    You are not supposed to in any normal deployment scenario. I would not expect XS to differ in that.

                                    BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • BRRABillB
                                      BRRABill @Dashrender
                                      last edited by

                                      @Dashrender said

                                      you think having a depreciated patch installed was causing the issue? I didn't know you were suppose to remove old patches before installing new ones?

                                      You can't. It's impossible with XS.

                                      I do have a depreciated patch installed. So it is OK, just not needed anymore, hence why starting with SP1 on my newer installation skipped that patch.

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                                      • BRRABillB
                                        BRRABill @JaredBusch
                                        last edited by

                                        @JaredBusch said

                                        You are not supposed to in any normal deployment scenario. I would not expect XS to differ in that.

                                        From what I have read, there is no way to uninstall, unlike a Windows update.

                                        JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • JaredBuschJ
                                          JaredBusch @BRRABill
                                          last edited by

                                          @BRRABill said in BRRABill's Field Report With XenServer:

                                          @JaredBusch said

                                          You are not supposed to in any normal deployment scenario. I would not expect XS to differ in that.

                                          From what I have read, there is no way to uninstall, unlike a Windows update.

                                          You are completely missing our point.

                                          You are not supposed to uninstall superseded windows updates either.

                                          That is not a normal thought process.

                                          BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • BRRABillB
                                            BRRABill @JaredBusch
                                            last edited by

                                            @JaredBusch said

                                            You are completely missing our point.

                                            You are not supposed to uninstall superseded windows updates either.

                                            That is not a normal thought process.

                                            Of course. I don't know why you think I thought that or missed "your point".

                                            This would be like if you had an existing Windows server that had a superceded patch on it. Then you buy a new server, and install the new patch that supercedes the previous one, and it keeps griping at you that your servers aren't updated.

                                            I think it's just a weird thing as when I Googled it a lot of people had the same problem with the same patch.

                                            Or it could be totally wrong. But since this is a rolling discussion of my experience with XS, I thought it would be good to post.

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