Dell PowerVault DL2100 - Manual (Page 14)

ESG LAB VALIDATION
Dell PowerVault DL2000 Powered by Symantec Backup Exec
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Copyright  2008, The Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Protecting Virtual Servers
By its definition, server virtualization centralizes processing power within a data center. As a result, it is
imperative that these assets are properly protected, especially as this technology is becoming part of the
mainstream production environment. This presents a unique challenge for IT because the virtual servers
—
inclusive of their operating systems and the data that they access —must be backed up and protected.
The problem is that most data protection applications have often treated virtualized server environments as
physical environments. By doing so, backup applications require backup agents to be loaded onto each virtual
server. This traditional practice of placing backup agents on the virtual machine can put extra load on the server,
which impacts performance. Additionally, the cost of agents for each virtual machine can quickly add up.
The Backup Exec agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure can be used to protect an unlimited number of VMware
virtual guest systems. The agent can also restore individual files and folders from a single image-level backup
using Backup Exec
‘s Granular Recovery Technology (GRT).
As shown in Figure 12, the traditional method of placing agents on each virtual machine, depicted on the left, is
compared to the Backup Exec approach on the right. The backup agent running on the PowerVault DL2000
works in concert with the VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) proxy server and VMware Converter to provide
backup and recovery services for virtual machines while it eliminates the complexity and overhead of managing
agents running in virtual machines.
FIGURE 12. TRADITIONAL VS. AGENTLESS VIRTUAL SERVER PROTECTION