Hi,
We have been in the same boat for some time.
Here are my recommendations
Create smaller vmfs data stores i.e max 300-400 GB for performance and 
manageability.
Need upto equal + more diskspace depending on change rate\backup method 
and snap scedules\snap mirror etc.If you do not backup vmdk them may be 
you can get away with 15-20 % more space per volume for other management 
tasks within vm environment.
May need to keep open mind regarding VCB backups and best practices 
regarding VMFS backups , i.e alternate products and methods, i,e obtaining 
ESX ranger ( can strip out white space\compress\full & differential 
backups) , Data Domain\Exagrid etc, not sure how good is Networker support 
for VCB backup, until proven may need Host based backup, without extensive 
integration with VCB VMDK backups are challenging and will take up lot of 
space and time\interuptions to accomplish. ( keep an open mind-including 
bringing in additional backup vendors to accomplish this tasks).
There are multitude of ways to accomplish backups of vm environment ,the 
one that fits you best and is within your budget is a best solution, do 
plenty of testing with recovery.
HTH



tkutil <networker-forum AT BACKUPCENTRAL DOT COM> 
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09/19/2008 10:03 AM
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Subject
Backing Up Netapp LUNS






I am in the process of using iSCSI LUNS as VMware datastores and am 
looking for advice in backing up & restoring. As of now I have one LUN 
that does not get backed up because there is not enought space for NDMP to 
create the snapshot. So here are my questions...

I created a Volume of 600GB and then created the LUN to use all of the 
space it could in that volume and then added 20% for snapshots which is 
150GB additional. 

Do I need to have 600GB free to match the 600GB I am using for Networker 
NDMP to create it's snapshot? 
or 
Do I need the what ever space is actually being used by the VMs that 
occupy that LUN?

Should I be making my LUNS smaller for ease of backup & recovery? I am 
assuming that to recover a single VM I need to recover the entire LUN.

Would it be easier  backup & recover single VMS in a NFS share if I used 
NFS shares for Datastores?


Thanks [Question]

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