I have been tasked with developing a backup/recovery plan for our 4 host ESXi 4.1 cluster, planning to upgrade it 5.5 shortly. This plan can include software and hardware from VMware, veeam, IBM, Dell, NetApp, EMC, Buffalo, HP and other third party vendors. We like to backup at the guest level (SQL database, Exchange mailboxes) as well as ESXi host level (VMs). There are 10 SQL servers, one Exchange server and other servers on VMs. All the VMDK files are stored in an iSCSI SAN using Dell's MD3220i. Assume we are looking 20 TB of data. We are currently using VDR and backing up the VMs to a NAS device.
Basically we have four buildings separated by parking lots. One of the buildings serves as the data center where the entire Vmware cluster is hosted. Fiber interconnects all the buildings. Initially we are planning to place a storage device ( SAN, NAS, DAS, etc?) in the data center and another in one of the three buildings. A software will backup the VMs to the datacenter and outside storage devices. In the event of a disaster at the datacenter, we need to be able to activate the stored VMs in the other building into production. I just gave you the overview of what we trying to accomplish.
I would really appreciate your input and how you you are doing the backup/recovery in your Vmware environment. Our budget range for this project is $10K-20K. I am looking at NAS for the storage device as SAN will be a overkill. Symantec backup Exec for guest level backup. Veeam for VM backup/recovery. ESXi host backup? Ideally, I would like the NAS device/software do the de-duplication and replication of data to the other building(s) at the storage device level. Again, your input is greatly appreciated.