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Re: [Xen-users] Backing up "live" Xen systems?

To: Steve Kemp <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Backing up "live" Xen systems?
From: Ram <tekayr@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 09:39:52 -0800
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On 1/4/06, Steve Kemp <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 09:15:37AM -0800, Ram wrote:
> If I understood your post, you actually want to have recoverable
> "system images" of the virtual systems as opposed to backing up
> the data on the virtual systems. Did I get that right?

  That is correct.

  Although now I realise that my "solution" will not work, the
migration doesn't actually copy the image, just the memory.  I
guess I wasn't remembering correctly.

> The way I see it, to  do "live" back ups, you will have to
> do it from within the virtual system.  You could potential pause,
> the virtual instance to avoid data integrity issues and migrate.
> This pause is like to interrupt production, but better than doing
> off-line I suppose.

  I think that will be the thing to try working with next.  I
assume that pausing the image then doing a local rsync will
be reasonably quick.  But I will need to test it.


Thinking a bit more, you might be better off doing the following:
- Pause the virtual system
- backup from the physical system
- restart the virtual system

This will give you the ability to back up "virtual system images" [I think].
Also, this will mean that you can replicate things easily for multiple
virtual machines running on the same physical host [you said you had 4 running
on one physical host]. Also, if you are already backing up your physical, extending it to
do this above might be less work.

Thanks
Ram

Steve
--


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