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McCain c01.tex V3 - 09/17/2009 12:23pm Page 10
10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING VMWARE VSPHERE 4
VMware Consolidated Backup
One of the most critical aspects to any network, not just a virtualized infrastructure, is a solid
backup strategy as defined by a company’s disaster recovery and business continuity plan.
VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) is a set of tools and interfaces that provide both LAN-free
and LAN-based backup functionality to third-party backup solutions. VCB offloads the backup
processing to a dedicated physical or virtual server and provides ways of integrating third-party
backup solutions like Backup Exec, TSM, NetBackup, or others. VCB takes advantage of the
snapshot functionality in ESX/ESXi to mount the snapshots into the file system of the dedicated
VCB server. After the respective virtual machine files are mounted, entire virtual machines or
individual files can be backed up using third-party backup tools. VCB scripts integrate with
several major third-party backup solutions to provide a means of automating the backup process.
Figure 1.6 details a VCB implementation.
Figure 1.6
VCB is a LAN-free online
backup solution that
uses a Fibre Channel
or iSCSI connection to
expedite and simplify
the backup process.
SAN
Snapshots
Mounted
VCB
Server
External
Media
ESX/ESXi
In Chapter 11, you’ll learn how to use VCB to provide a solid backup and restore process for
your virtualized infrastructure.
VMware vShield Zones
VMware vSphere offers some compelling virtual networking functionality, and vShield Zones
builds upon vSphere’s virtual networking functionality to add virtual firewall functionality.
vShield Zones allows vSphere administrators to see and manage the network traffic flows occur-
ring on the virtual network switches. You can apply network security policies across entire groups
of machines, ensuring that these policies are maintained properly even though virtual machines
may move from host to host using VMware VMotion and VMware DRS.
You can find more information on VMware vShield Zones in Chapter 13, ‘‘Securing VMware
vSphere.’’
VMware vCenter Orchestrator
VMware vCenter Orchestrator is a workflow automation engine that is automatically installed
with every instance of vCenter Server. Using vCenter Orchestrator, vSphere administrators can
build automated workflows to automate a wide variety of tasks available within vCenter Server.
The automated workflows you build using vCenter Orchestrator range from simple to complex.
To get an idea of the kind of power available with vCenter Orchestrator, it might help to know that
VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager, a separate product in the vCenter virtualization management
family of products, is completely built on top of vCenter Orchestrator.