Windows Virtual Server Backup Two Methods

If you plan to add a virtual server to your organization, you must first determine how to back up the virtual server. This article introduces two different approaches to backing up virtual servers and compares their strengths and weaknesses.

Method 1: Run the backup software directly on the virtual machine

The first method to back up the virtual server is to install the backup software or backup agent on the virtual machine, and then use the method of backing up the physical server. Back up the virtual server.

The main benefit of this method is its consistency. You can continue to use the backup software that your organization has deployed. It won't be special because it is a virtual server. Another benefit is that backups can also be performed while the virtual server is running.

The downside of running backup software directly on a virtual machine is that it depends on the virtual server product you use. For this article, my discussion is limited to Microsoft's virtual server. Another disadvantage of running backup software directly on a virtual machine is performance. Although the performance of the virtual server has improved over the past two years, the virtual server never reaches the performance of the physical server because the emulation process requires additional overhead. In this case, you will find that backing up a virtual machine takes longer than backing up a physical server.

If multiple virtual machines are backed up at the same time, performance will be worse. If multiple virtual machines share a common disk or network adapter, the performance of the backup will be seriously affected.

Fortunately, you can avoid certain performance issues by planning ahead. For example, you should consider putting all virtual hard disks into a high-performance disk array. This can reduce multiple virtual shared disks. The performance bottleneck of resources. In addition, consider installing multiple network adapters, each with a separate network adapter, which can reduce network performance bottlenecks.

Another disadvantage of installing backup software directly on a virtual machine is that the virtual server has limited hardware support. Remember, the host operating system includes the real physical hardware driver, and the guest operating system runs in an emulator. Up, and the emulator only includes simulation of some hardware. For example, Microsoft's virtual server products currently do not support USB devices, even the latest Hyper-V virtual server products included in Windows Server 2008 are not supported.

Method 2: Directly copying .VHD and .VSV files

Another way to back up a virtual server is to directly copy the virtual hard disk file (.VHD) and the state save file (.VSV). The biggest benefit of the method is simplicity. Another benefit is that you can back up the current state of the virtual machine. Traditional backup methods are usually not available.

But this method also has a huge drawback, that is, this backup can only be performed when the virtual server is down. If you try to use the Volume Shadow Copy Service to back up a running virtual machine, data loss may occur. Or more serious problems.

So what method should you use to back up? It depends on the properties of the virtual machine you want to back up. For example, I have several virtual machines installed on my laptop, then I can use the copy file method to back up, because I just experiment with these virtual machines, so There is no problem with this. I can shut down the virtual machine during backup. I also deployed several virtual machines in the production network, and I used the traditional backup method, because it is unrealistic to turn off the virtual machine during backup.

In fact, the most important thing to choose which backup method is to consider how to use the virtual machine, and which method is most suitable for you, the most practical value.