I utilize vcb to do my backups. We use Syncsort's Backup Express as our backup solution of choice. The nice thing about this software is that I host the master server on a linux server which enables me to write backup scripts. The majore problem with vcb is that you can't just backup all your servers at one time unless you have an increadibly large amount of storage that the vcb copies can go to. I read that lots of people would schedule backups throughout the day, but that would not work for me, I need to get all my backups in at the same time due to the amount of space being backed up. What I did was create a bunch of backup jobs that would backup vm's but only to the size of my holding tank. I then took those backup jobs and threw them into a text file. I then put in my script in a for loop that would read the first line of text and run that backup job, as soon as the backup job is complete, the script moves to the next line in the text file causing the next backup job to kick off immediatly. This also ment that before my next backup job began, vcb would clean up the holding tank, and remove the vcb snap shot before the next backup started.
Here is a sample of my script, note that the variable for jobs is my text file that holds the name of the backup jobs to run.
#
Runs backups in sequential order for vmware
#
for job in `cat $jobs`
do
cd /opt/backupexpress/bin
if $today == 1
then
$bkup -i$ini -c "backup run -n$job -tbackup_base -p365"
else
$bkup -i$ini -c "backup run -n$job -tbackup_base -p30"
fi
done
exit
I have also added a little logic, I have a variable that looks at the day of the month, and if the day of the month is the 1st, I keep the backup for 1 year "365 day's". If today is not the 1st then the backup is good for 30 day's. I hope this helps someone.
