It seems IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for VMware vStorage API Data Protection or as usually called VADP is having a lot of attraction lately. Though on the other hand, many TSM & vSphere admins are confused about which version of TSM are supporting VADP and which version still force them to use the old VMWare Consolidated backup or VCB. Before I share with you the versions of IBM Tivoli Storage Manager that support VADP and the versions that support VCB and which particular versions of vSphere they work with. There is a huge note that many people mess about IBM Tivoli Storage Manager and that can be a relief for most admins. Keep reading for that surprising piece of info if you are vSphere admin that your TSM admin is opposing to upgrade their Tivoli Storage Manager backup server to allow you to benefit from VADP.…

While many of you wonder why I am explaining manual Disaster Recovery failback when using VMware Site Recovery Manager where its an automated feature that is included in VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5. Two main scenarios where this apply, the first one if you still using any vCenter Site Recovery Manager prior to VMware SRM 5. The other one if you need to break the replication then recover back without syncing back the changes that happened at the Disaster Recovery Site. In this scenario you won’t be able to use the automated failback feature of VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5 as that sync the changes back to production in the process which you might not desire. For both of these scenarios the below steps become handy.…

Many Many Many time I have been called to diagnose a VMware ThinApp problem specially VMware ThinApp package slowness and all it end up to be nothing more than a problem being caused by an antivirus or anti-malware software that has not been configured according to VMware ThinApp Antivirus best practices. Ah I can see already few of you are shocked there is such a thing out there! OK, now I have told you there is best practices for Antivirus configuration in a VMware ThinApp environment I will go ahead and explain them and where they apply.

Before going into VMware ThinApp Antivirus Best Practices, it is worth mentioning this post is a part of a VMware ThinApp posts series I am creating.…

As more companies are virtualizing their infrastructure based on VMware ESX, more need are araising for a disaster recovery solutions supporting these enviornments. VizionCore vReplicator & Veeam backup & Replicaiton are two host based replication solutions supporting VMware.  If you are planning to build a DR for your VMware Infrastructure & Storage replication is not an option you might want to look at the following comparison: VizionCore vReplicator (esxReplicator) vs Veeam Backup & Replication. It will help you pick up the one matching your DR requirment for your VMware Infrastructure.

I hope that help you out, and leave a comment of your thoughts on the comparison as ITComparison team will be following this post as well the comments on their blog at: VizionCore vReplicator vs Veeam Backup & Replication Blog Post…

VMware VMs image level backup using TSM was not straight forward process till TSM 5.5. Up to version 5.4, you needed to run into all kind of pre & post backup scripts to backup your virtual machines using VCB & TSM. Integrating TSM & VCB was a hassle, & most companies were running after third party solutions to intermediate the integration (ex: vRanger, ESXpress, & so on). In TSM 5.5, the situation got a lot better as IBM introduced the backup vm command which canceled the need for the nasty post & pre-script commands. Though till TSM 6.0 there was no GUI for backing up virtual machines using VCB in TSM. The good news in TSM 6.0 the integration of TSM & VCB has got to be quite easy and effective.…

Backing up virutal machines running on VMware ESX as images is a rising trend. As ESXRanger is one of the leading software in backing up ESX VMs as images, I have decided to cover the best practices for ESXRanger Quiescing & VSS setting when backing up virtual machines. There is many cautions that you need to follow specially when backing up database virtual machines as images to get consistent images.

Before reinventing the wheel I searched around to see how good is the coverage of this topic over the internet, I found the below guide written by the VirtualizationTeam.com with a great coverage of the topic. I thought it will be very useful to share it with my readers, as plenty of TSM users have purchased vRanger & integrated it with their TSM Solution, to get an easier way to backup VMs.…