Backup entire ESA VM with Veeam?

[tech@boughtonlaw.com]

Hi, I read from another blog that backing up the entire VM (using quiesce) with backup product like Veeam is not supported due to open files, pending email queues, etc?  However, as a test, I have done this and then restored the ESA VM and it still worked normally.  Maybe I was lucky because the mail queue was empty, etc?

Basically, I want to back it up and replicate it to our DR location.  In case of a disaster, all I have to do is fail it over at the DR site.  With this, it's automatic and quicker as I don't have to manually deploy the ESA VM and load the configuration file.  Remember, this is part of disaster recovery plan and "automation" / "speed" are what we strive for.

Or a better option would be to spin up another ESA VM at the DR Site and then add it to the cluster?  This just add more resource and management.  Quarantine database would be fragmented with two ESA's as we do not want to buy the SMA.

I also read from another post that this can be done?

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12421641/how-can-i-install-vmware-tools-cisco-c100v

"I can see a reason for a backup of the whole vm for disaster recovery...If I wanted a snap, I'd want to suspend delivery, let the queues empty, and quiesce the disk.  So a way to run a script to suspend, check queues and when clear exit with a 0 error code.  Backup software usually can push a pre and post script and handle the quiesce."

Any insight?

Thank you.

[Valter Da Costa]

Easier and supported way would be to clone the VM and added both to a cluster. Before cloning, it would be preferable to never start the VM. After you clone, you install the keys and run the config. Once the initial config is done, cluster them.

If the primary ESAv is already in production, the easier way would be to spin up a new ESAv at the DR, install the keys, run the initial config and cluster it.

Using scripts for a single operation like this I wouldn't advice. IT is not that you will repeat this many times. And, since you have a DR, you will probably spin multiples VMs. In case something is not working you can simply make a new ESAv ready by adding to a load balancer pool or changing firewall rules.

BTW, ESAv supports snapshot and vMotion but this is not directly related to what you asked. Consider a side note.

Automation and DR can be tricky. It is possible to add an ESAv to a cluster using CLI and remote commands. It can be a little more difficult to make sure everything is working just with scripts. There is a clustercheck command which can be issued to check the cluster consistency.

Regards,

[tech@boughtonlaw.com]

Thank you Valter for your reply.

Let me rephrase my questions or keep it simple.

So, if ESAv supports snapshot in ESXi/vSphere environment then would a restore from Veeam backup be supported?  All Veeam does is takes a regular snapshot of the ESAv and uses them as restore points.

For example, let's say I have a backup of the ESAv from Veeam which uses snapshot technology to backup the VM.  Then, something bad happens to the ESAv, I would restore it from the Veeam backup.  Would this be supported?

[tech@boughtonlaw.com]

Is the snapshot and vMotion supported in production environment?

I am getting conflicting support info from Cisco.  I opened a support case and asked about this, but the tech said snapshot is NOT supported in production.

Please advise.

[mortenauthen]

Hi. We have virtual ESA appliances and we need to back them up. How do you suggest we do that?

We use Veeam and it fails due to "Creating VM snapshot - Error: An error occurred while saving the snapshot: Failed to quiesce the virtual machine."

Regards,

Morten