Converting to a virtual environment
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
ÆtherStore can work great for that. As a backup target pool it is really ideal. That's a perfect use case.
This is one of the primary use cases for ÆtherStore that many of the testers used it for, myself included.
Absolutely, when I spent time with @Rob on this, the focus was very heavily to get backups working before anything else. It's the top use case for the product.
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@BRRABill said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said
No, does not need to be the same. Although Veeam Free will leave you without some of the things that you want. Unitrends or XenOrchestra will likely do a better job for you here when trying to do this for free.
Though no file level.
Always better to have an agent if you need that.
Unitrends does file level. But not for free.
Veeam can also do file level restores (no agent required) but again not in the free product.
Oh, the free version doesn't have that feature? I did not realize that.
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Summing up this thread, the biggest thing the OP needs to understand is that he is not a special snowflake (I leave it to @scottalanmiller to link to his post on that). He keeps saying he needs all these various things that he almost certainly does not need.
I am willing to bet real money that no one in his company even took the time to analyze anything related to this.
He currently has a non-virtualized environment FFS. He most certainly does not need < 1 hour restores and HA and pretty much everything else that has been talked about.
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
Summing up this thread, the biggest thing the OP needs to understand is that he is not a special snowflake (I leave it to @scottalanmiller to link to his post on that).
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I am willing to bet real money that no one in his company even took the time to analyze anything related to this.
This is huge, when you need HA, someone will pretty much tell you numbers for you to work with, things like "We lose $3,500 per hour." Or better, they give graphs that show how much they lose for each hour because it's not flat... it might be $20 the first hour and $10,000 the second hour.
There should also be outage mitigation strategies in a policies and procedures documentation place. People need to understand how to deal with an outage, not just act like the world has ended.
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
He currently has a non-virtualized environment FFS. He most certainly does not need < 1 hour restores and HA and pretty much everything else that has been talked about.
Agreed, it is a huge leap. It's not an organic growth from where they are to an improvement, it's "not treating it like a business" jumping straight to "things normal SMBs do not need." Good things to consider, but likely a single server with solid design is all that is warranted.
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@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@BRRABill said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said
No, does not need to be the same. Although Veeam Free will leave you without some of the things that you want. Unitrends or XenOrchestra will likely do a better job for you here when trying to do this for free.
Though no file level.
Always better to have an agent if you need that.
Unitrends does file level. But not for free.
Veeam can also do file level restores (no agent required) but again not in the free product.
Oh, the free version doesn't have that feature? I did not realize that.
Unless it changed in the last year, free Veeam only does full backups as "VeeamZIP" file to my knowledge.
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@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@JaredBusch said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@BRRABill said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said
No, does not need to be the same. Although Veeam Free will leave you without some of the things that you want. Unitrends or XenOrchestra will likely do a better job for you here when trying to do this for free.
Though no file level.
Always better to have an agent if you need that.
Unitrends does file level. But not for free.
Veeam can also do file level restores (no agent required) but again not in the free product.
Oh, the free version doesn't have that feature? I did not realize that.
Unless it changed in the last year, free Veeam only does full backups as "VeeamZIP" file to my knowledge.
Makes sense that they would do that.
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Their Endoint Recovery Free would work for backups in this scenario as well. And with that one, you do get file-level restores.
Unfortunately, it'd have to be loaded per VM, and is Windows only at the moment (Linux version just hit beta).
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@dafyre said in Converting to a virtual environment:
Their Endoint Recovery Free would work for backups in this scenario as well. And with that one, you do get file-level restores.
Unfortunately, it'd have to be loaded per VM, and is Windows only at the moment (Linux version just hit beta).
The beta has been very flaky in my testing.
I've used rsnapshot before and it's worked pretty well. Stores everything in directories so no fancy interface, but it was rock solid.
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I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
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Don't get me wrong though, I don't mind using a tui at all, just was surprised coming from using the Windows version.
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@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
Well a GUI would be a problem, where would you see it?
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@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
Well a GUI would be a problem, where would you see it?
Well if you actually have it running on workstations, that might be helpful. Kind of like Backintime.
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@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
Well a GUI would be a problem, where would you see it?
Well if you actually have it running on workstations, that might be helpful. Kind of like Backintime.
Yeah... but we know not to back up workstations
I think Linux users most of all are good about almost never having to do that. -
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
Well a GUI would be a problem, where would you see it?
Well if you actually have it running on workstations, that might be helpful. Kind of like Backintime.
Yeah... but we know not to back up workstations
I think Linux users most of all are good about almost never having to do that.Ha ya good point. There is nothing on ours at all. Apps, home directories, projects, etc, are all automounted.
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@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@stacksofplates said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I need to get that downloaded so that I can start testing on Linux, too. (Veeam Endpoint Protection, that is.)
It's ok. Nothing like the Windows version. It's just a tui with a few options (file level, volume level, and whole system I think). I haven't tried a restore through it so no idea how painful that is.
Well a GUI would be a problem, where would you see it?
Well if you actually have it running on workstations, that might be helpful. Kind of like Backintime.
Yeah... but we know not to back up workstations
I think Linux users most of all are good about almost never having to do that.Ha ya good point. There is nothing on ours at all. Apps, home directories, projects, etc, are all automounted.
Yup. Linux tends to be very good about that stuff.
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@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@PRPL said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@PRPL said in Converting to a virtual environment:
I did look @ the free Starwind Virtual SAN, but from what I read, I understand that the free version will allow only storage and not compute, on the same host... That's allowed, only in the paid version... ??
I've never heard of that limitation. that would be a new and surprising one. I'm quite confident that you can put your storage on your compute nodes.
Checking with @KOOLER @StarWind_Software
I'm making this statement, based on my understanding of the Free vs Paid document, found on https://www.starwindsoftware.com/whitepapers/free-vs-paid.pdf
Please look @ the comparison on the second-last page of this PDF... It says, next to Deployment Scenarios , that Hyperconvergence, is available only for Certain User Statuses (Check Status)
that does appear to say that, but goes against hundreds of posts from the company so I think that this might be outdated.
You're absolutely correct! Making long story short: somebody should try real hard NOT to get anything from us! Even if people don't fall down into listed categories and aren't eligible we still give away everything on a personal request. Just because
Referenced from the document link brings here:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-nfr-license-users
StarWind Virtual SAN Free is a convenient and self-sufficient software, but in comparison with the commercial version, it has restricted functionality and features. It easily turns a pair of commodity servers into fault-tolerant SAN and NAS, but supports only Converged architecture, does not and provides only cloud-based asynchronous replication, etc. The full comparison of StarWind VSAN and VSAN Free can be found here. In case some of the features of the commercial version are needed for test and development, home lab or POC (Proof of Concept), there is still a way to obtain them.
StarWind highly values virtualization specialists and tries to assist them in every possible way, that is why professionals and students of the sphere can get a free license of StarWind Virtual SAN without restrictions and with all features enabled. Here is the list of users who can apply for this license:
Microsoft MVPs
MCTs (Microsoft Certified Trainers)
MCPs (Microsoft Certified Professionals)
SpiceHeads of at least “Jalapeno” level
Consultants
Students
VMware vExperts
VCPs (VMware Certified Professionals)
TrainersMangolassi members of reputation 200+
Bloggers
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@dafyre said in Converting to a virtual environment:
Their Endoint Recovery Free would work for backups in this scenario as well. And with that one, you do get file-level restores.
Unfortunately, it'd have to be loaded per VM, and is Windows only at the moment (Linux version just hit beta).
They are improving greatly and we'll get releases and fully commercially supported versions soon. VERY soon
