2016-10-17, 14:14:02
Goedemorgen Wil,
Thank you for your responses to my questions. Here are my actual use cases:
VIMALIN NOT REALLY NEEDED, BUT MIGHT BE HELPFUL:
1. Home: I have many virtual machines scattered on three Macs.
1a. iMac on desktop. This is where I do most of my work. I have 16 active virtual machines on the iMac, and many more on external drives which I almost never use, but they are available if needed. Backups are easy - I shut them down, compress them, and move the compressed file to a "virtual machines backups" folder. The virtual machines folder is excluded from Time Machine, but the virtual machines backup folder is not, so the backups get copied to Time Machine. I also make copies to external drives from time to time.
1b. Mac mini. It runs one virtual machine, which is a business firewall appliance. It serves as the firewall for the entire home. Before I update the firewall, I shutdown the virtual machine (which stops internet access) and make a copy of it, which takes ~15 minutes. I restart the virtual machine, compress the copy, and back it up to Time Machine and external drives.
1c. MacBook Pro. I have some Windows, Linux, and Mac virtual machines on it for when I travel or go to customer sites. They allow me to run platform-specific software, test compatibility, etc. I don't need to back them up.
NOTE: None of the above are an essential use case for your Vimalin backup program. I don't need it for them. My system works, and it does not interfere with my work or other needs.
HERE IS THE USE CASE WHERE I COULD USE HELP. VIMALIN MIGHT WORK, IF IT WERE IMPROVED TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS:
2. Customer. I have a customer who insists on running Windows Server from a Mac mini. I set it up with VMware Fusion, which they purchased. (I once posted a procedure on VMware's forums for auto-starting this system.) This customer runs specialized software for their business. The software is integrated with an active Microsoft SQL Server database. It is complex, to say the least. Once a week (usually very early Sunday mornings), I connect to Windows Server and shut it down properly, which shuts down the virtual machine.
Weekly backup: Copy the virtual machine to a backup folder. If VMware shows that I can recover more than 500 Mbytes of space in disk cleanup, then I do it. Restart the virtual machine and notify customer personnel that it is available for use. After that: Compress the backup to a ZIP file. Compute an MD5 hash of the ZIP file and save it to a text file. Copy the ZIP file and MD5 text file to an external drive that is attached to the Mac mini. Verify the MD5 hash for the ZIP file on the external drive. Copy the ZIP file and MD5 text file over an SFTP connection across the internet to secure offsite storage. Verify the MD5 hash for the offsite copy. Done.
Monthly backup: Same as above, but mix in: Run a diff between the backup copy and the original shutdown virtual machine. Perform basic file and disk cleanup on the Mac and Windows Server. Update Mac mini with Apple updates. Update Mac applications that I use on that Mac. Update Windows Server with the monthly "Patch Tuesday" updates. Update the specialized software on the Windows Server. Run more extensive operational validation tests with the specialized software that runs on the Windows Server.
Additional Notes:
* The diff has never failed. The copies seem to be 100% reliable.
* I trust Apple's Compress to ZIP feature in Finder. I ran tests with diff, and found that the results of uncompressing the ZIP are identical to the original.
-> This implies that the Vimalin MD5 file should still be valid after a Compress and uncompress cycle.
What Vimalin could potentially do for me:
* Save me from having to wake up every Sunday morning and:
* Shutdown the server at a known time every Sunday.
* Make the full copy.
* Restart the server.
* Delete old copies to prevent disk overflow.
... and add as feature requests:
* Compress the copy to a ZIP file.
* Compute and store an MD5 hash with the ZIP file.
* Copy the ZIP file and its corresponding MD5 hash to an external drive.
* Verify the MD5 hash of the ZIP file on the external drive.
* Use SFTP to push a copy of the ZIP file and its corresponding MD5 hash to secure offsite storage.
* Verify the MD5 hash of the ZIP file on the offsite storage.
I realize that most of the above would best be done with a user-written shell script that could be launched when the Vimalin backup completes.
ONE BIG ISSUE:
I have never had confirmation that using using VMware's "Virtual Machine -> Shut Down" from the menu or "vmrun stop" is the exact equivalent of shutting down a Windows or Linux virtual machine from within the running virtual machine itself. I do not want to risk corrupting a running, active database.
Summary:
* Vimalin is a nice product, but I don't really need it for home use.
* Vimalin would be a helpful product for my customer's site if could be sure that it could create a reliably restorable backup. It must maintain database integrity and avoid data corruption, mostly likely by performing a reliable shutdown and restart of the customer's virtual machine. The extra features I listed above (such as launching a user-defined shell script after completion) would turn it from "helpful" to "nearly perfect" !!
-> May I suggest that you look at the Carbon Copy Cloner application to see an example of how Vimalin could work? Carbon Copy Cloner is a mature Mac application with many helpful features. It would serve as a good model for Vimalin.
Thank you for your responses to my questions. Here are my actual use cases:
VIMALIN NOT REALLY NEEDED, BUT MIGHT BE HELPFUL:
1. Home: I have many virtual machines scattered on three Macs.
1a. iMac on desktop. This is where I do most of my work. I have 16 active virtual machines on the iMac, and many more on external drives which I almost never use, but they are available if needed. Backups are easy - I shut them down, compress them, and move the compressed file to a "virtual machines backups" folder. The virtual machines folder is excluded from Time Machine, but the virtual machines backup folder is not, so the backups get copied to Time Machine. I also make copies to external drives from time to time.
1b. Mac mini. It runs one virtual machine, which is a business firewall appliance. It serves as the firewall for the entire home. Before I update the firewall, I shutdown the virtual machine (which stops internet access) and make a copy of it, which takes ~15 minutes. I restart the virtual machine, compress the copy, and back it up to Time Machine and external drives.
1c. MacBook Pro. I have some Windows, Linux, and Mac virtual machines on it for when I travel or go to customer sites. They allow me to run platform-specific software, test compatibility, etc. I don't need to back them up.
NOTE: None of the above are an essential use case for your Vimalin backup program. I don't need it for them. My system works, and it does not interfere with my work or other needs.
HERE IS THE USE CASE WHERE I COULD USE HELP. VIMALIN MIGHT WORK, IF IT WERE IMPROVED TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS:
2. Customer. I have a customer who insists on running Windows Server from a Mac mini. I set it up with VMware Fusion, which they purchased. (I once posted a procedure on VMware's forums for auto-starting this system.) This customer runs specialized software for their business. The software is integrated with an active Microsoft SQL Server database. It is complex, to say the least. Once a week (usually very early Sunday mornings), I connect to Windows Server and shut it down properly, which shuts down the virtual machine.
Weekly backup: Copy the virtual machine to a backup folder. If VMware shows that I can recover more than 500 Mbytes of space in disk cleanup, then I do it. Restart the virtual machine and notify customer personnel that it is available for use. After that: Compress the backup to a ZIP file. Compute an MD5 hash of the ZIP file and save it to a text file. Copy the ZIP file and MD5 text file to an external drive that is attached to the Mac mini. Verify the MD5 hash for the ZIP file on the external drive. Copy the ZIP file and MD5 text file over an SFTP connection across the internet to secure offsite storage. Verify the MD5 hash for the offsite copy. Done.
Monthly backup: Same as above, but mix in: Run a diff between the backup copy and the original shutdown virtual machine. Perform basic file and disk cleanup on the Mac and Windows Server. Update Mac mini with Apple updates. Update Mac applications that I use on that Mac. Update Windows Server with the monthly "Patch Tuesday" updates. Update the specialized software on the Windows Server. Run more extensive operational validation tests with the specialized software that runs on the Windows Server.
Additional Notes:
* The diff has never failed. The copies seem to be 100% reliable.
* I trust Apple's Compress to ZIP feature in Finder. I ran tests with diff, and found that the results of uncompressing the ZIP are identical to the original.
-> This implies that the Vimalin MD5 file should still be valid after a Compress and uncompress cycle.
What Vimalin could potentially do for me:
* Save me from having to wake up every Sunday morning and:
* Shutdown the server at a known time every Sunday.
* Make the full copy.
* Restart the server.
* Delete old copies to prevent disk overflow.
... and add as feature requests:
* Compress the copy to a ZIP file.
* Compute and store an MD5 hash with the ZIP file.
* Copy the ZIP file and its corresponding MD5 hash to an external drive.
* Verify the MD5 hash of the ZIP file on the external drive.
* Use SFTP to push a copy of the ZIP file and its corresponding MD5 hash to secure offsite storage.
* Verify the MD5 hash of the ZIP file on the offsite storage.
I realize that most of the above would best be done with a user-written shell script that could be launched when the Vimalin backup completes.
ONE BIG ISSUE:
I have never had confirmation that using using VMware's "Virtual Machine -> Shut Down" from the menu or "vmrun stop" is the exact equivalent of shutting down a Windows or Linux virtual machine from within the running virtual machine itself. I do not want to risk corrupting a running, active database.
Summary:
* Vimalin is a nice product, but I don't really need it for home use.
* Vimalin would be a helpful product for my customer's site if could be sure that it could create a reliably restorable backup. It must maintain database integrity and avoid data corruption, mostly likely by performing a reliable shutdown and restart of the customer's virtual machine. The extra features I listed above (such as launching a user-defined shell script after completion) would turn it from "helpful" to "nearly perfect" !!
-> May I suggest that you look at the Carbon Copy Cloner application to see an example of how Vimalin could work? Carbon Copy Cloner is a mature Mac application with many helpful features. It would serve as a good model for Vimalin.