As Posted on VMwareInfo.com:
Joel Ramirez attended the Data Domain Best Practices for VMware session at EMC World and got a little inspired.  So let’s talk backup: (Below are Joel’s thoughts).

DynamicOps, Symantec Backup Exec with OST, and Data Domain together provide the most flexible and efficient backup solution for VMware I’ve seen so far.

DynamicOps provides the ability to retire VMs to archive, or nearline, storage.  It is a right-click operation and when you point the nearline target to a Data Domain NFS share, it invokes an automated PowerShell operation that will Storage vMotion the VM to the appliance.  Now your VM, which could be a reference architecture or a model of a customer environment, but isn’t important or used frequently enough to keep on expensive FC disk, isn’t sapping your tier 1 storage.  And it is still available should you need it in the future.  Not only is it available on lower cost storage, but with a replicating set of Data Domain appliances, you can call back any retired VM at a secondary site for test/dev purposes.  You can even Storage vMotion it back to primary storage in production!

With OST, you maximize the investment in your Data Domain appliances.  Say you have a limited budget but absolutely have a need to make the move to backup to disk and deduplication technology.  You buy a smaller Data Domain appliance and enjoy the magic in a box that simplifies backup and makes it more reliable, in addition to the backup data footprint reduction.  Eventually, you’ll execute the disaster recovery phase and need another Data Domain appliance for the secondary site, and by then, you will be using it as a backup target for your backup infrastructure, an NFS share for your SQL dumps, and as the aforementioned nearline storage for retired VMs.  You want to place a bigger Data Domain for longer retentions and archiving at the secondary site. Because the OST API was jointly developed by Data Domain and Symantec, the backup infrastructure is aware of the secondary Data Domain appliance.  You can account for the remote Data Domain within Backup Exec and apply retention policies to keep data longer on the bigger box.

Use the smaller, local Data Domain appliance for 30-45 days retention and leverage the remote Data Domain for 6-12 month or longer retentions.  Paired with OST and DynamicOps, this is a comprehensive backup solution for any VMware environment that maximizes protection, availability, and cost-effectiveness.  With FC disk at ~$5/GB, Data Domain helps extend the value of that tier 1 storage at 1/10th of the cost.  Even SATA is $2-3/GB, so it has an impact on tier 2 storage savings as well!  This is a reference architecture with many benefits and an incredible ROI, check it out.

-Joel
@JoelJet

As posted on VMwareInfo.com:

Here is a quick little comparison of the options available to implement Vizioncore’s vRanger product for backing up Virtual Machines to a Data Domain device.   I am sure there might be other ways to accomplish this but these are all the one’s I thought of! This assumes you are running Fiber to your SAN based datastores.

NFS Export

Using Data Domain’s ability to create an NFS mount, you  can configure the ESX hosts to use the Data Domain as a DataStore. This will allow the VizionCore vRanger machine to direct the individual ESX hosts to backup the VMs over a vKernel port group to the Data Domain server.

Pros:

1. The NFS export will be available to ALL ESX hosts so multiple ESX hosts could transmit backup traffic simultaneously increasing throughput and shortening the backup window.
2. Full backups would be taken each night which would make restores a little easier.
3. Vizioncore server could be virtualized since it would only manage and NOT PASS traffic.

Cons:

1. Virtual Machine backup traffic from the vKernel to the Data Domain will be transmitted over TCP connections.
2. NFS does not support incremental backups which mean that every night full backups would have to be transmitted over TCP to the Data Domain possibly increasing backup window times.

CIFS Share

Using Data Domain’s ability to create an CIFS mount, you can configure the Vizioncore vRanger Server to use the Data Domain as a Windows Share. This will allow the Vizioncore vRanger Server to directly backup the Virtual Machines over TCP to the Data Domain Server.

Pros:

1. Windows CIFS mounts are the only destination supported by vRanger for incremental backups. This will allow for much smaller backup windows.
2. Vizioncore vRanger server could be virtualized.

Cons:

1. vRanger server could prove to be a bottleneck in throughput and lengthen backup windows.
2. Backup traffic would be transmitted from the ESX server and to the Data Domain server over TCP connections.

VCB proxy with NFS Mount

A physical VCB proxy server with vRanger installed could be fiber connected into the SAN fabric allowing VCB/vRanger to perform LAN free backups from the SAN to a local NFS mount provided by the Data Domain device.

Pros:

1. The physical VCB server could perform incremental backups over the Fiber directly shortening backup times.
2. The NFS export could be mounted through the VCB Windows server supporting incremental backups.
3. The Backup Proxy would shoulder the processing load of the backups allowing the backup window to possibly extend into work hours.

Cons:

1. vRanger / VCB proxy would need to be a physical server connected via fiber into the fabric.

If you are running fiber in your environment, I think this last option would be the best.  What do you think?