For whatever reason on two different synology boxes when I go to the Backup Destination screen, no shared folders are listed. I see the ActiveBackupforBusiness shared folder is listed for you. For the life of me I cannot get any shared folder to show up.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t have this NAS unit any more so can’t be of much help, unfortunately. Hopefully someone else who sees this may be able to provide some suggestions.
Hi Michael, yes it should. Synology's Active Backup for Business is one of the few tools that will actually work with the free version of ESXi. Normally, API calls are done for the behind the scenes work, but AB can copy data off of your host using SCP (SSH file transfer). The only con is that you have to keep SSH enabled persistently for this to work properly.
Thanks for your comment. It’s been a while since I looked at it, but I don’t think it has any vsphere replication-like functionality. Synology does have other packages for replicating data on the backend between NAS units though.
@@vswitchzero thanks for reply! So, if I have 2 ESXi hosts in different areas, like Datacenter 1 and Datacenter 2, I think we can have a NAS 1 in DC1 and another NAS 2 in DC2 with replication between each other, and if I have a disaster in DC1, I can just access the NAS 2 and restore the VMs to ESXi hosts in DC 2, run the VMs and will have the services running again. We will need to do just some steps more, in comparison to VEEAM.
Thanks very much! No, unfortunately you can't backup the host configuration. This is still a bit of a gap with vSphere, unfortunately. Using a distributed virtual switch helps reduce the amount of configuration needed if you replace a failed host, but unless you are licensed for the host profiles feature, it would need to be configured again from scratch.
@@vswitchzero Ah ok, it would have been cool 🙂. I backup my home esxi host using the cli method from VMware KB 2042141 with a crontab entry on the host, but it would have been more convenient to do it also from active backup ! I’ll look for the host profiles feature. Thanks a lot for your reply 🙏
Great instructional video and while I have been using this for a bit now I learned something new, so thanks again, love my RS1221!!
For whatever reason on two different synology boxes when I go to the Backup Destination screen, no shared folders are listed. I see the ActiveBackupforBusiness shared folder is listed for you. For the life of me I cannot get any shared folder to show up.
Thanks for your comment. I don’t have this NAS unit any more so can’t be of much help, unfortunately. Hopefully someone else who sees this may be able to provide some suggestions.
Hi, thank you for the overview, do you know if this works with the free VMWARE ESXI 7 licence? Thank you!
Hi Michael, yes it should. Synology's Active Backup for Business is one of the few tools that will actually work with the free version of ESXi. Normally, API calls are done for the behind the scenes work, but AB can copy data off of your host using SCP (SSH file transfer). The only con is that you have to keep SSH enabled persistently for this to work properly.
Hello! In comparison to VEEAM, can Active Backup for Business do backup and replication from one VMware ESXi host to another?
Thanks for your comment. It’s been a while since I looked at it, but I don’t think it has any vsphere replication-like functionality. Synology does have other packages for replicating data on the backend between NAS units though.
@@vswitchzero thanks for reply! So, if I have 2 ESXi hosts in different areas, like Datacenter 1 and Datacenter 2, I think we can have a NAS 1 in DC1 and another NAS 2 in DC2 with replication between each other, and if I have a disaster in DC1, I can just access the NAS 2 and restore the VMs to ESXi hosts in DC 2, run the VMs and will have the services running again. We will need to do just some steps more, in comparison to VEEAM.
Good video.. I wonder if we need to pay a subscription for Active backup for business or Active Portal. Would you confirm this, please?
Thanks! No subscription is necessary. Active Backup for Business is included for free with certain (higher end) NAS models.
Nice video, thanks ! Is it also possible to backup the esxi host configuration using this tool (not its virtual machines but the esxi host itself) ?
Thanks very much! No, unfortunately you can't backup the host configuration. This is still a bit of a gap with vSphere, unfortunately. Using a distributed virtual switch helps reduce the amount of configuration needed if you replace a failed host, but unless you are licensed for the host profiles feature, it would need to be configured again from scratch.
@@vswitchzero
Ah ok, it would have been cool 🙂. I backup my home esxi host using the cli method from VMware KB 2042141 with a crontab entry on the host, but it would have been more convenient to do it also from active backup ! I’ll look for the host profiles feature. Thanks a lot for your reply 🙏
Can you bo backup and restore without vsphere ?
Yep, it will use SCP to transfer backups when VC isn’t used. You’ll need to ensure SSH is enabled on the hosts for this to work though.
Great Video, When Active Backup creates a snapshot does it delete the snapshot when the backup is complete.
Thanks! Yes, it should delete any snapshots related to backup purposes once the data has been copied over.