Backup-Software for ESXi 6.0 free

[Edelrat]

Hello everyone,

 

I have two ESXi 6.0 hosts, and recently built myself a backup-server for those two (see signature).

Now I am looking for backup-software to use on the new server.

 

I have already tried Veeam (Free Edition), but there are two major issues:

1. It doesn't support scheduled backups in the free version

2. It doesn't support ESXi 6.0 Free Edition

 

I have already looked for some other solutions too, but didn't really find something that suits my needs.

Here are my requirements:

1. Software is free (or pretty cheap, 50$ per year for example)

2. It supports scheduled Backups

3. It supports ESX Free Edition

4. It support Thick Provisioned Drives

 

File compression would also be nice, but not necessary.

 

If any of you have a suggestion, please let me know.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Erkel]

Have spent the last couple of years looking for something as an alternative to ghettovcb with mksbackup and gave up and just using Veeam NFR licence with esxi essentials. 

 

https://github.com/lamw/ghettoVCB

http://www.magikmon.com/mksbackup/

 

The problem with ghetto vcb is that the backups are full disk images, so very space inefficient.

[Edelrat]

15 hours ago, Erkel said:

Have spent the last couple of years looking for something as an alternative to ghettovcb with mksbackup and gave up and just using Veeam NFR licence with esxi essentials. 

 

https://github.com/lamw/ghettoVCB

http://www.magikmon.com/mksbackup/

 

The problem with ghetto vcb is that the backups are full disk images, so very space inefficient.

I would really like to use Veeam too, but it's just way too expensive for me.

ESXi Essentials would be over 500€, plus I think another 500€ for Veeam. This is just not worth it for me.

I am currently trying Vsquare, but so far I dont really like it..

[Erkel]

You can get a free veeam NFR licence for 1 year, supports 2 CPU's

 

We brought vmware essentials, but you could simply try continuously rolling through the trials, as I imagine that this is not a business setup and only a lab / home setup, so vmware will be fine with that,  Its only commercial use that they really worry about licensing wise.

 

We currently run a 2 node primary production cluster and I simply have one node with everything that needs to be backed up on it and everything that does not need to be backed up on the other one, and simply run the veeam NFR licence against the one that has the stuff that needs to be backed up on.
They are Dell R730 with dual oct cores and 384GB of RAM, so can throw plenty at them, so that works for us, we used to run a 3 node cluster with older DDR3 gen CPU's and 96GB of RAM, so veeam was not an option for us then.

 

The sad reality is that in the backup software market, if you are sources your equipment well, the cost of the software to backup the server costs more than the server.  So its cheaper to buy new servers and consolidate the critical load into one box than buy licences to backup the three original boxes.

 

So maybe consider consolidating everything into one newer box, have one of the old servers as a secondary esxi node for redundency and convert the other into an NFS storage NAS for the esxi cluster.

 

Having said that, in this "cloudy" new world, the idea of backing up "the server" is old school,  Backing up the OS and worrying about hardware is so 1990's lol.

Just document everything and backup your data extensively and have multiple redundant servers for anything critical.  Really comes down to how light you server config is.   i.e Data integrity and available are everything,  Lifes too short to care about OS's and hardware failing, just throw them out and get on with life if any of that stuff gives you grief.   

 

 

[Mikensan]

www.vmug.com - I think I saw a post from  @leadeater about this a while back. Myself and now 4 friends have purchased this.

Assuming this is your home lab, then you're within rights to use this.. $200 for a single purchase, and you get damn near the entire vsphere suite at just below the enterprise licensing. $170 if you can convince another friend to pitch in... worth every $ imo.

 

Alternatively if you off-loaded your datastores to something central and shared it via iscsi / NFS, you could use whatever snapshot/backup tech is built into said SAN/NAS. (rsync for FreeNAS)

 

Also worth mentioning, ESXi/vCenter do not do any online authentication what-so-ever... so I'll let that sink in and let your imagination run wild. 

 

 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

Also worth mentioning, ESXi/vCenter do not do any online authentication what-so-ever... so I'll let that sink in and let your imagination run wild. 

Arrrr there be pirates in them there seas .

[GW2]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Arrrr there be pirates in them there seas .

Most of the big players don't really care about stomping out a home lab, they get paid by other large companies who wouldn't want to get in trouble for breaking their licensing agreement, and even when they do (happens way more often than you would thing) they usually just do an audit, and need to bring their current licensing in line with what they are using. it's really a win/win because they want you to use their product in your home lab. It breeds familiarity, and it's more likely that their product is the one you will recommend to clients etc. The way I always looked at is simply that they are tools, like a mechanics or a carpenters, if you are making your living from them, you should pay for them, but if you're just a hobbyist or it's for personal use, the bargain basement or even "fell off the back of the truck" sort of deals are the way to go. That being said, I haven;t pirated anything in years, as now that I work in IT I have access to legit software most of the time, but not everyone has that luxury.

 

TL;DR - If you make money from it buy it, if not they aren't concerned with frying microscopic fish like us.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, GW2 said:

TL;DR - If you make money from it buy it, if not they aren't concerned with frying microscopic fish like us.

Oh I know that, which is why I made that oh so subtle joke. We'll just leave it at that, you know to not self incriminate etc lol.

[Mikensan]

Yaaaaaar! Honestly all the vendors I deal with - all who have government contracts btw - require activation. You might not realize it until you have an offline network, I surely did not. One company uses a challenge/response code that's 1,024 characters in both directions. No flash drives allowed... all has to be transposed.... total nightmare... Vmware is honestly the first vendor I've dealt with that does -NOTHING- to verify (other than a product key).

 

If vendors don't use a challenge/response code, they're using license files. Either way vmware doesn't do squat. That is what surprises me. Even with M$ KMS, you still need to technically do a phonecall (or online) activation.

 

Anywho, before vmug the cost is just too much. Just the ESXi essentials is what, $500 for 2 physical CPUs? And I'd agree, they don't really care about home labs and promote it. I believe they're (non-vmware) more concerned about small businesses abusing it. There are a LOT of small businesses, and with new-gen IT folk and tighter budgets... there's that sneaking desire to see what you can get away with.

 

[Mikensan]

Also +1 to @Erkel - I did not know about the NFR license, just signed up for it. Will be playing with it tonight. Thanks!

 

Now I patiently wait for Palo Alto to do something like this :-D They have virtual appliances!

[Edelrat]

On 17.4.2017 at 6:34 PM, Mikensan said:

-snip-

I will look into vmug, sounds interesting so far.

I have also thought about moving to one central storage, but I am on a pretty tight budget.. Sure I could get something cheap from eBay, but for now I will stay with my two ESXi hosts.

On 17.4.2017 at 7:43 PM, leadeater said:

-snip-

 

On 17.4.2017 at 7:56 PM, GW2 said:

-snip-

Sure playing pirate would be a easy way around this, but I have this home lab, to learn how to "properly" set up backup-servers and all sorts of other stuff. Thats what I built my "lab" for. 

 

On 17.4.2017 at 1:19 PM, Erkel said:

-snip-

Does the NFR licence cover two total CPUs (which would be kind of stupid), or two CPUs per host? If so, it might be worth trying out. Only problem remaining would be the ESXi free version. I may "ship" around this tho

 

Thank you all for your suggestions, I appreciate it!

[GW2]

 Seeing as you are using it for learning and not for production, being a pirated version does not make the software work any differently, so I don't get your point.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW said:

Sure playing pirate would be a easy way around this, but I have this home lab, to learn how to "properly" set up backup-servers and all sorts of other stuff. Thats what I built my "lab" for. 

 

Does the NFR licence cover two total CPUs (which would be kind of stupid), or two CPUs per host? If so, it might be worth trying out. Only problem remaining would be the ESXi free version. I may "ship" around this tho

Problem is there is no backup software that supports ESXi free as the APIs are read-only so nothing can trigger the required steps on the ESXi hosts to do the backups i.e. creating and removing VM snapshots.

 

So even if you got a Veeam NFR license, or similar from anyone else, you need a fully featured and licensed ESXi host. That means you either need a VMUG Advantage subscription or actually buy the software, buying it isn't really an option due to the cost.

 

Doing something properly and doing something legally are different , from a configuration standpoint. Not that I'm saying go out and pirate VMware's products, VMUG really isn't that expensive too.

[Mikensan]

You don't download, hack, tweak, or modify the ESXi image.... think my point of "not activating" was entirely missed. You just need a valid CD key.

How I'd still go the vmug route, just too awesome. For 50 Horizon CCU licenses I think we just paid $40,000 (Advanced suite + CCUs + support), so for $200 I can mimic this setup. 

[tricolore]

Not Free but checkout 

https://www.nakivo.com/vmware-backup.html

 

Cheers

[Edelrat]

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

-snip-

 

14 hours ago, Mikensan said:

-snip-

VMUG along with a Veeam NFR licence really looks like the best choice.

 

But I don't really get VMUG yet.

You can buy their advantage subscription (which is for one year, if I am not mistaken) and it gives you access (or keys) to many VMware products, like vCenter and vSphere, right?

If so, is there a limited amount of vSphere licences, for example?

And if the one-year subscription expires, you renew it and get new licences, which you have to re-enter, correct?

 

Thanks!

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW said:

 

VMUG along with a Veeam NFR licence really looks like the best choice.

 

But I don't really get VMUG yet.

You can buy their advantage subscription (which is for one year, if I am not mistaken) and it gives you access (or keys) to many VMware products, like vCenter and vSphere, right?

If so, is there a limited amount of vSphere licences, for example?

And if the one-year subscription expires, you renew it and get new licences, which you have to re-enter, correct?

 

Thanks!

Yes your understanding is correct, the license you get for VMUGAdvantage is for a single vCenter server and for 6 CPU sockets from memory. That means you can have 3 dual socket ESXi servers or 6 single socket servers.

 

After the year is up you'll need to pay again and enter your new licenses, they do actually expire. 

[Mikensan]

You also get keys to their Horizon Advanced pack as well as other (vRealize etc..) offerings. Rather huge offering. Also it's ESXi Enterprise, and vCenter Standard licenses. You receive your keys and downloads through vmug, so if you want a newer version and are impatient - just create an account on vmware and download the latest.

 

vCenter / ESXI are straightforward. The licenses work just fine for 6.5 (I believe my download was for 6.0 only)

[Edelrat]

On 20.4.2017 at 9:33 PM, Mikensan said:

-snip-

 

On 20.4.2017 at 5:50 PM, leadeater said:

-snip

Hey all,

 

sorry for the late answer, but I didn't really have time to play around with my lab, but now I have finally gotten around to do it.

I purchased my VMUG advantage membership, and now my ESXi hosts are propperly licenced.

After that I finally started to do install/configure Veeam. Which works like a charm. I only have one problem:

 

The (or at least my) NFR-Licence is for max. 2 CPU sockets for ESX-hosts and 2 for Hyper-V hosts. But since I have two dual-cpu hosts, I can only perform backups on one of them. This is fine for now (my Evaluation-licence is running for two more weeks), but after that I may run into problems. I don't exactly know which features I am using now, which are not avaliable in the free version. I am also not sure if the free version has a limit on sokets.

Is there any way to get a NFR-licence for four (or even more) sokets on ESX-hosts?

[Mikensan]

21 hours ago, MEOOOOOOOOOOOOW said:

 

Hey all,

 

sorry for the late answer, but I didn't really have time to play around with my lab, but now I have finally gotten around to do it.

I purchased my VMUG advantage membership, and now my ESXi hosts are propperly licenced.

After that I finally started to do install/configure Veeam. Which works like a charm. I only have one problem:

 

The (or at least my) NFR-Licence is for max. 2 CPU sockets for ESX-hosts and 2 for Hyper-V hosts. But since I have two dual-cpu hosts, I can only perform backups on one of them. This is fine for now (my Evaluation-licence is running for two more weeks), but after that I may run into problems. I don't exactly know which features I am using now, which are not avaliable in the free version. I am also not sure if the free version has a limit on sokets.

Is there any way to get a NFR-licence for four (or even more) sokets on ESX-hosts?

Hmmm, what if you used an alternate email and setup a second Veeam server?  Gotta work it a little when you're dealing with "free". The licenses are for learning anyway, don't think they're meant to be relied upon for backups thus the limitations. Meaning if you're learning why would you need to backup more than one.

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Hmmm, what if you used an alternate email and setup a second Veeam server?  Gotta work it a little when you're dealing with "free". The licenses are for learning anyway, don't think they're meant to be relied upon for backups thus the limitations. Meaning if you're learning why would you need to backup more than one.

Could also create a powercli script that moves all VMs to a single host as part of the pre backup phase then moves them back afterwards.

[Edelrat]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

Hmmm, what if you used an alternate email and setup a second Veeam server?  Gotta work it a little when you're dealing with "free". The licenses are for learning anyway, don't think they're meant to be relied upon for backups thus the limitations. Meaning if you're learning why would you need to backup more than one.

This is probably what I am about to do if the free version doesn't offer all the things I need.

 

49 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Could also create a powercli script that moves all VMs to a single host as part of the pre backup phase then moves them back afterwards.

I dont have the capacity (HDD and RAM) to move all my VMs to one host. I am working on getting one NAS/storage for both, but at the moment I only have the HDDs in the servers.