More and more companies start to use virtual environments because it helps better utilize and allocate hardware resources. After upgrading to virtual environment, it is time to maintain the virtual environment. One of the important jobs is preventing data loss on a VM and there are some tips you should know for that.
1. Virtual environment is different from physical environment
The significant difference between virtual environment and physical environment is that in physical environment, physical server occupies all the hardware resources and server failure has no direct influence on the other servers but in virtual environment, there are multiple virtual machines on the server, which share the hardware resources, and server fault might fail all the virtual machines, and on the other hand, the single problematic virtual machine might not influence the other virtual machines.
Since virtual environment increases the flexibility of IT environment, you should also have a more flexible protection solution for it. You might not wish to fix single virtual machine by repairing the whole physical server so think of a virtual-machine-level protection.
2. RAID is not enough
RAID, redundant array of independent disks, is often used as a safe way to store data because it helps protect data from a drive failure by storing data on multiple disks. If you have RAID, is it necessary to have another backup solution?
You should be aware of the RAID can only protect data at hardware level. Let's say it can only help you recover data when certain disk is broken. The "backup data" is also the "source data". If the data is damaged by ransomware or other software, you can't find the useful data from RAID to fix it, so additional backup solution is indispensable.
3. Snapshot is not backup
Snapshot is a good way to recover VM data, but only in a short term. It is often used to recover data after unsatisfying system patching or updating. When you take a snapshot, there will be a delta file to store the changed data. When you delete the snapshot, it will be merged to the vmdk file or its father snapshot.
Snapshot is quick and effective but there is a disadvantage that snapshot should not be saved for more than 24 hours because the snapshot file will keep growing and might influence the performance of VM. In addition, failure might appear in the merging process.
4. Advanced backup solution is important
In data center, backup is still the popular method of protecting data because the backup data is independently stored.
You might backup data on PC by copying the file to another drive but for enterprise-level data protection, simply copying and pasting data is not enough. Data should be protected well-roundedly.
You might know the method to export and import virtual machine, but it will be time-consuming to manage massive VMs. Manually repeating the progress might cause failure and it is difficult to store the files and find the files when needed.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery is the professional VM backup solution which supports multiple platforms like VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, XenServer, XCP-ng, Red Hat Virtualization, oVirt, Oracle Linux KVM, OpenStack, etc.
There will be a user-friendly web console to let you backup VM agentlessly with multiple useful backup strategies like schedule, incremental backup, data compression, etc.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery has been selected by thousands of companies and you can also try this powerful system with a 60-day full-featured free trial. Just click the button to get the installation package.
5. Monitoring bakckup will keep everything in order
Except for monitoring the production system, the backup system should also be monitored to let you know how the backup system is running. Is there any issue stopping the backup jobs? How fast is the backup speed now? How much backup data is there and how much backup storage is there?
With Vinchin Visualization technology makes backup monitoring easy. Just click the Visualization option is Vinchin Backup & Recovery to monitor everything via a single screen.
6. Fast recovery method can save key business from emergency
Good backup solution not only makes you find the right backup quickly, but also recovers VM quickly with advanced technology.
Vinchin Instant Recovery technology can help recover a failed VM from its backup in 15 seconds, greatly reducing downtime and protecting business continuity.
7. VM migration is a plus
There might be different virtualization platforms used in IT environment. All the hardware resources of the hosts should be shared to increase flexibility.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery can help recover VM from its backup on another host, so you can better allocate the hardware resources in IT environment.
Sum Up
Virtual machine is widely used by companies to increase the flexibility of IT environment. Like physical machine, virtual machine should also be protected to avoid data loss.
You should know RAID and snapshot can not provide enough protection to virtual machine. Backup will be better for disaster recovery.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery can provide enterprise-level protection to virtual environment and has been selected by thousands of companies, so don't miss the free trial.
