[Xen-users] xen domU backups

[James Pifer <jep@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm running several xen servers (sles10sp1 right now). Most of the
domU's are disk img files. They are either linux para-virt's or windows
full-virt's. I know of the performance arguments for not running them as
image files, but right now these work well for us. 

How is everyone doing backups in a xen world?

Are you running backup agents on individual domUs?

Can you back up individual domUs (img files) while they are running?

Do you need to pause, make backup, un-pause?

As we get more and more xen servers and domU's this is increasingly
concerning to me. Right now our disk images are stored on a SAN and
mirrored to another location. That's great, but if an image file gets
corrupted, then I'm probably hosed for that server. 

Yesterday I had an issue where my xen server stopped responding. I could
scan ports, and ping it, but otherwise I couldn't do anything. I had one
domU not responding in the same fashion, while another domU seemed to be
running ok, but I could not shut that working domU down.

In the end, I had to hard boot the server. Thankfully everything came up
ok, but it would have been a major headache if it hadn't.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. 

Thanks,
James


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