[Discuss] Revisiting VMWare ESX backup options

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Scott Ehrlich
> 
> We have some new Dell rack servers running new installs of ESX 5.5 U1,
> and looking to buy a redundant server to use as a backup for the
> primary.

It sounds like you are using storage actually inside the server?  I am surprised.  Here is how I like to do it:  I'm using openindiana for ZFS storage server serving out iscsi, but really *anything* that exports iscsi and can do snapshots & replication would work fine.  Nexenta and so forth would be good solutions.  Then you get N+1 diskless boxes to be the ESX servers.  If any head fails, you just start the failed VM's on a different head.  If the storage server fails, you just make the backup server the primary, and restart all the heads.