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1716: Backing Up a Virtual Machine with Acronis True Image Echo and VMware Consolidated Backup

Created - Feb 11, 2008; Updated - Apr 14, 2009; Access Level - Public
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This article describes how to back up a virtual machine using Acronis True Image Echo and VMware Consolidated Backup

Introduction

Using Acronis True Image Echo you can back up a snapshot of the virtual machine mounted by VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB).

Solution

To back up a virtual machine with the help of VCB, you will need the following hardware resources:

  • ESX host machine
  • VCB proxy machine

The procedure is the following:

  1. Install VCB, Virtual Infrastructure client (VI client) and Acronis True Image Echo on the VCB proxy machine.

    For complete instructions check page 31 of Chapter 2: Setting Up VMware Consolidated Backup (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_301_201_vm_backup.pdf)

  2. Start Acronis True Image Echo and create a new scheduled task: file backup (named as My Data in the Create Backup wizard).

  3. Select the empty folder that will be used by VCB to mount the virtual machine

  4. Enable pre/post commands and specify the options as described:

    Pre

    --------------------
    Command:
    vcbMounter.exe
    Work directory:
    C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework
    Parameters:
    -h ESXhostIP -u Login -p Password -a VMid -r MountFolder -t MountType
    --------------------

    Post

    --------------------
    Command:
    vcbMounter.exe
    Work directory:
    C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework
    Parameters:
    -h ESXhostIP -u Login -p Password -U MountFolder
    --------------------

    where:

    • ESXhostIP - is the IP address for ESX host
    • Login - is the login name for ESX host
    • Password - is the password to log in to ESX host
    • VMid - is the virtual machine id, which may be specified as either its IP address or computer name (ipaddr:XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX or name:VMname)
    • MountFolder - is the folder where the virtual machine will be mounted
    • MountType - is the mount type, which may be specified as 'file' (the virtual machine's file system will be mounted) or 'fullVM' (the virtual machine's configuration files will be mounted)

As a result, the virtual machine's file systems or configuration files will be mounted to the specified folder. Acronis True Image Echo will back up this folder and the post command will unmount the virtual machine. The resulting archive will be just a usual *.tib file. It can also be restored to a virtual machine in the similar way as described above (i.e. to a mounted folder).

More information

See also the same solution with screenshots.

You can also back up your virtual machine as a physical one:

You can also browse the documentation section of Acronis web site:

You can find more information about VCB from the links below:

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