VMware Communities : Unanswered Threads - Backup & Recovery

VCB 1.5 not deleting

fafa24 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:32:55 GMT

Hi,

I use VCB 1.5 with Backupexec 12.5 for Full-VM. It works great, the only problem I have it does not delete the mounted files on the proxy after the backup is done. The snapshot gets deleted. I support another side with almost identical setup and there it works.

Thanks
Edy

vcbmounter.exe speed

LarsOeschey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:32:09 GMT

Hi,

I have written a script with the Perl CLI SDK to backup some VMs from our ESX servers. From within the script I'm using vcbmounter.exe with this commandline:

{quote} "c:\path\vcbmounter.exe -h vspherehost -u user -p password -a name:vmname -r w:\path\to\backup -t fullvm -F 0 -M 1 -m nbd"{/quote}

Now a 28Gb VM takes 80mins to backup, which seems a bit long for me. Converter only needs 28mins for it.

Can I somehow speed vcbmounter up? Do I use wrong/bad parameters?

Lars

(and what are the correct tags for code/quotes? There's no buttons in this editor...)

VMDKs not getting saved by VCBackup for V7 VMs

PACEDE — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:46:28 GMT

Hi there,

we did an upgrade from VI3 to vSphere4 a couple of weeks ago.
This week I created some new vms which now are version 7 vms.
Those vms are running great and haven't got any problems.

One drawback is, that we're no longer able to creat VCBackups from those V7 machines, because the VMDKs won't get saved.
The only files getting backed up are .log, .vmx, .vram and .da.

Here is what VCbackup logs:

~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'App' 684 info~~ Current working directory: D:\Jobs\VCBBackup
~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 4 numThreadsPerCore 1.
~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ HOSTINFO: This machine has 1 physical CPUS, 4 total cores, and 4 logical CPUs.
~~2009-11-19 11:12:34.447 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ Using system libcrypto, version 90709F
Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16/BERVM09A16.vmx":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16/BERVM09A16.nvram":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-7.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-2.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-3.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-4.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-5.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-6.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

We are using this command to initiate the backup:

vcbmounter.exe -h vcenter.ourcompany.local -u backup -p ultrasecurepassword -a name:%1 -r "E:\VCBBACKUP\TODAY\%DATE%_%1" -t fullvm -L 2 > D:\Jobs\VCBBackup\VCBLog\%date%\%1.txt

Older VMs are getting backed up without any problems.
Have you got any suggestions?

Regards,
John

vDR not seeing new cluster

fgl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:14:45 GMT

I created a new cluster (2 hosts) under the same datacenter as my other cluster (6 hosts) but for some reason the vDR does not see the new cluster as it doesn't even show up on the list to choose from. I've already tried rebooting the vDR appliance and the vCenter VM. Anyone else experienced this?

VCB error

mach03 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:32:59 GMT

hello we are using a script in the crontab that is backing up the virt. machine to a nfs volume
for a long time a works very fine since last weekend different esx hosts (3.5 update 4) shows
an error that the vmx-file contains unknow virtualhw.version = "4"

17:45:08: (BACKUP) FEHLER - unbekannte vHW(=) bei /vmfs/volumes/4aa7bfbd-4298d3e2-accc-001cc4467212/WNPQT001/WNPQT001.vmx

example of vmx file that is not working

#!/usr/bin/vmware
config.version = "8"
displayName = "WNPQT001"
sched.cpu.shares = "normal"
memSize = "3600"
sched.mem.shares = "normal"
guestOS = "winnetstandard"
scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.name = "WNPQT001.vmdk"
ethernet0.present = "true"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet"
ethernet0.connectionType = "monitor_dev"
ide0:0.present = "true"
ide0:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
ide0:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide0:0.startConnected = "FALSE"
powertype.reset = "default"
powertype.poweroff = "default"
powertype.poweron = "default"
draw = "gdi"
ethernet0.generatedaddress = "00:50:56:8e:28:f7"
uuid.bios = "50 21 00 2d 1e 35 a4 5e-0a d5 91 f9 32 cf 0b 78"
checkpoint.cptconfigname = "WNPQT001.vmss"
floppy0.startconnected = "false"
priority.ungrabbed = "normal"
uuid.location = "56 4d e8 5c f6 62 ac a3-4e b2 56 c5 ea 25 e7 d2"
suspend.directory = "."
ethernet0.addresstype = "vpx"
ethernet0.networkname = "VLAN_736"
priority.grabbed = "normal"
usb.present = "false"
floppy0.filename = "/dev/fd0"
virtualhw.version = "4"
powertype.suspend = "default"
isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "true"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

scsi0:1.present = "true"
scsi0:1.name = "WNPQT001_1.vmdk"
scsi0:1.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

numvcpus = "2"

scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
ide0:0.autodetect = "true"
extendedConfigFile = "WNPQT001.vmxf"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"

scsi0:0.redo = ""
scsi0:1.redo = ""
scsi0:0.mode = "persistent"
scsi0:1.mode = "persistent"
nvram = "WNPQT001.nvram"
sched.cpu.units = "mhz"
scsi0:0.fileName = "WNPQT001.vmdk"
scsi0:1.fileName = "WNPQT001_1.vmdk"

guestOSAltName = "Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-Bit)"
sched.cpu.affinity = "all"
toolScripts.afterPowerOn = "true"
toolScripts.afterResume = "true"
toolScripts.beforeSuspend = "true"
toolScripts.beforePowerOff = "true"

annotation = "Logon Portal Evaluierung"
migrate.hostlog = "./WNPQT001.vmss.hlog"
sched.cpu.min = "0"
sched.mem.minsize = "0"
sched.mem.max = "3600"
sched.swap.derivedName = "/vmfs/volumes/4aa7bfbd-4298d3e2-accc-001cc4467212/WNPQ T001/WNPQT001.vmss.vswp"
hostCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
guestCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
userCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
hostCPUID.1 = "00020f120002080000000001178bfbff"
guestCPUID.1 = "00020f120000080000000001078bbbff"
userCPUID.1 = "00020f120002080000000001078bbbff"
hostCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000002e3d3fbff"
guestCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000000e3d3fbff"
userCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000000e3d3fbff"
evcCompatibilityMode = "FALSE"

file level restore for linux systems for VMWare Data Recovery

seniornwb — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:03:10 GMT

Hi,

I was trying to dig up some information about the file level restore feature for VMware data recovery, specially for linux systems.

For example, is it limited to specific linux systems, specific linux filesystems being used within the guest.

For example, can it backup Novell NSS filesystems on linux.

I checked the documentation, but I can't seem to find any info in there about it.

Kind regards,

Hen

restoring an vm to a different host

CMCC — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:35:55 GMT

I'm having this error when I try to restore a VM

~~2009-11-12 16:19:36.075 'App' 3076449088 info~~ Current working directory: /
/usr/sbin/vcbRestore: line 1: 6315 Aborted LD_LIBRARY_PATH=:/usr/lib/vmware/hostd VCB_PASSWORD="$PASSWORD" /usr/lib/vmware/vcb/vcbRestore -h "$VCHOST" -u "$USERNAME" -s "$legacy_dir" --

Please help me! I don't know what else to try.

Thanks

VDR will not complete a backup of a VM stuck at xx%

abbasi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:28:59 GMT

VDR was in the process of backing up 5 machines and has been stuck at various % for 7 days. The problem is that it is still writing to the snapshots. So now my snapshots are getting large. I have had issues in the past with trying to remove large snapshots on running machines where it corrupted the entirfe machine so I am getting nervous.

After this I think I am discontinuing the use of VDR until the next major upgrade and then wait till 6 months after that.

usage of QueryChangedDiskAreas

dayra01 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:33:01 GMT

Hi All,

I need some info regarding QueryChangedDiskAreas API introduced with vSphere. Can this API be used to get used blocks related to a disk.

say, i have a VM with one disk. for this VM, i enabled changeTracking. now that i created a snapshot for it. this created a changeId. Now, i call QueryChangedDiskAreas API with changeId set to '*'. It is returning me DiskChangeInfo structure with only one entry, pointing to my entire VM length.

another scenario, i have a VM enabled with changeTracking. this VM has got few snapshots. Now that am trying to retrieve only used blocks for this VM. How can this be done??

Please let me know your comments.

Thanks,
-Raghu.

Backup of data store and VMs on Netapp

mark_a_k — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:14:52 GMT

I am having some difficulty backing up our VMs that are stored on a Netapp filer. I was wondering if anyone using a netapp filer with VMs on a FC lun could tell me how they are performing backups? I am intesrested in some commments on my following 3 issues from anyone with some experience with these products.

I have the following products purchased:
Snap Manager for VI
FlexClone
Netbackup NDMP license

ISSUE 1
The difficulty that i see is that the NDMP backup produces a backup which consistes of 2 large files. These two large files are my 2 ESX datastores. The 2 datastores are located on 1 FlexVol containing 2 FC Luns. I cannot recover any individual files or VMs. I think that this pretty much makes the NDMP backup of 2 FC Luns containing ESX data stores useless (unless i want to recover the whole datastore). Therefore I think that i will have to use VCB backups to backup the individual VMs and keep them for long term backup (we purchased NDMP license and no VCB).

ISSUE 2
We have Snap Manager for VI configured and working successfuly to take snapshots of the VMs located on the 2 data stores. If i want to backup a snapshot I would usually enter the name of the snapshot in the file list sucah as /vol/vol2/.snapshot/hourly.1 Snap Manager for VI uses its own naming convention for snapshots which is a long and unique name. Therefore if i want to backup a snapshot created by SMVI I have to enter the name of the snapshot which changes daily into the backup software file list. This is not practical on a daily basis for automated backups. Backups of these SMVI snapshots are required for consistent backups.

ISSUE 3
FlexClone has been recommended to aid with backups so that a Volume can be mounted and then used for backup. Simple in theory for non-FC luns but in this case the FC luns contain VMFS datastores so the backup cannot take place until the FlexClone is presented and mounted to the ESX server. A flat file backup of the Datastore using Linux client may be possible at this stage. To perfrom VCB backups at this stage the VMs would have to be added to the ESX inventory and brough online. A lot of manual work here and not ideal on a daily basis.

VDR and High I/O SQL Server

jjahns — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:36:24 GMT

This probably goes beyond support, so I am just testing this.

Here is a description of my environment.
We have a SQL 2000 server running on a Windows 2003 x64 VM. MDFs are located on a separate VMDK. LDFs are located on a separate VMDK. Both of these have been made independent persistent VMDKs, so they do not get snapshot.

Using the freeze scripts, I was able to use osql to call a stored procedure I created for backing up the databases on the VM, and then pause the MSSQLSERVER service so the snapshot can occur. Once the snapshot gets done, the MSSQLSERVER service is set to continue. This seems to be working very well without killing the applications on the VM that use the database instance.

I have not tested this in VDR yet. But I worry that deduplication may not matter here, since I am overwriting the same bak file for the backup of each database. WIll VDR be that smart and know what to do? Or will the block arrangement for that bit of data be completely different and it backs it up again?

Am I alone in this method? Can someone shed some insight?

VDR Snapshots fail with VMware tools VSS support installed

ydnA — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:07:38 GMT

Hi Guys

I'm getting:

Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot
operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen
virtual machine. (under VDR Configuration, log, it says "error -1 ( unknown)")

...when I try to VDR a vm with the VMWare tools VSS support installed. If I remove vss support, it will work but from what i've read that would mean that the backup does not truncate logs etc. I've created a new VDR machine, created freshly installed servers to test on, even added the vm hostnames and ip's to VDR's host file, i've tried a LOT of stuff. Any still that error.

Has anybody successfully resolved this issue?

Thanks

Andrew

Backing up a single ESXi v4 Server

GregBradley — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:42:22 GMT

My customers mostly started out with several boxes with one of them having a tape drive, Seagate Backup Exec, and installing agents for the other servers, Exchange, SQL, etc. As most of the functions were virtualized onto one server (HP ML370G5, now going to G6) I was continuing to put the agents on the MS servers and continue as before. I was keeping one old server and using it for the tape backup unit.

I'm thinking there is a better way. The versions of Backup Exec are getting old and should be updated.

I'm demoing v12.5 which says it backs up VMWare. No info on doing this if you just have a single server running ESXi. It wants to "connect" tot he ESX host with a user name and password. Is this possible with a single ESXi machine?

Most customers would be happy keeping one old server for the tape and backup software since I frequently have something that doesn't virtualize very well - like the customer that has a bunch of parallel dot matrix printers or some such old technology.

I was thinking of one upgrade to v12.5 and an agent for ESX that backs up the entire ESXi machine.

Tape drives are getting too-small for many. I can go to bigger SAS DAT drives and put it in the ESXi machine if that works better.

I don't have a problem buying something additional from VMWare but would prefer to minimze the number of boxes so don't want to go to seperate management servers, etc.

Am I approaching this correctly?

VDR evaluation - backups fail due to licensing issue

riaanb — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:46:34 GMT

I have been asked to evaluate VMware Data Recovery. I have downloaded and installed vSphere Server (4.0.0 Build 162856), configured my hosts (running evaluation ESxi (4.0.0, 171294) instances) and installed the VDR plugin (1.0.2.0)

However, when a backup runs it fails with "The host 192.168.250.51 for VMware Data Recovery appliance is not licensed, backups cannot not be performed."

Both the vSphere Server and the host is running in evaluation mode (as per the licensing report in vSphere Server. The software was installed using downlaods from the same link after registering for a vSpere evaluation.

Should I be able to evaluate VDR? Any suggestions on how to get it working?

Thanks

--

Riaan

GhettoVCB.sh on ESX4 for backup VM: sintax error

mardux — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:47:42 GMT

hi to all.

after upgrade from esx3.5 to esx4, my old backup script (vmbk.pl) is unsupported.

now i want test and use a new script, ghettoVCB.sh, for backup of my VM.

with a old version of ghetto (Date: 11/01/2008), the script is working fine, but with last version (with new feature COMPRESSION) the script return a sintax error:

~~root@esx03 ~~~# ./ghettoVCB-completo.sh vmbcklist
: command not foundo.sh: line 5:
: command not foundo.sh: line 8:
: command not foundo.sh: line 15:
: command not foundo.sh: line 18:
: command not foundo.sh: line 20:
: command not foundo.sh: line 21:
: command not foundo.sh: line 26:
: command not foundo.sh: line 29:
: command not foundo.sh: line 34:
: command not foundo.sh: line 37:
: command not foundo.sh: line 42:
: command not foundo.sh: line 44:
: command not foundo.sh: line 47:
: command not foundo.sh: line 50:
: command not foundo.sh: line 53:
: command not foundo.sh: line 56:
: command not foundo.sh: line 59:
: command not foundo.sh: line 61:
: command not foundo.sh: line 63:
: command not foundo.sh: line 65:
'/ghettoVCB-completo.sh: line 66: syntax error near unexpected token `{
'/ghettoVCB-completo.sh: line 66: `printUsage() {
~~root@esx03 ~~~#

at line 66 the code is this:

66 printUsage() {
67 SCRIPT_PATH=$(basename $0)
68 echo -e "\nUsage: ${SCRIPT_PATH} VM_FILE_INPUT\n"
69 exit
70 }

can you help me??

very thanks

VDR - Multiple VMDKs with the Same Name

ben13 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:34:27 GMT

So according to the release notes for VDR 1.0.2 here (http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdr_102_releasenotes.html) you will see the following note:

Multiple VMDKs with the Same Name not Handled Properly \\\\ A
virtual machine can have multiple VMDK files with the same name that
are stored on different LUNs. In such a case, Data Recovery would only
restore one of the disks. Data Recovery now restores all disks.

However I've just installed the newer version of the VDR appliance and it appears that the backups are not seing additional disks that have the same name but are on different LUNs. Can anyone else confirm if 1.0.2 fixed this for you?

As some examples/background info:

Situation 1 we have a server called vc-sus-01 with 2 disks,disk 1 is vc-sus-01.vmdk (16Gb) and is on LUN1, disk 2 is called vc-sus-01.vmdk(40Gb) and is on LUN2. When I setup the backup job it does see both vmdk files correctly but after the successful back job runs and I look in the log I see this:

10/28/2009 5:00:08 PM: Normal backup using Test Job
10/28/2009 5:00:29 PM: Copying vc-sus-01
10/28/2009 5:00:44 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfs_lun01\vc-sus-01/vc-sus-01-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 5:20:06 PM: Task completed successfully

Which to me indicates it never tried to backup the 2nd 40Gb disk? When I go into restore rehersal I only see one disk will be created and if I select it it says total amount to restore 16Gb which indicates it doesn't have that 2nd disk.

Situation 2 is similar to above except the disks are named differently and on different SANs tech though I don't know that would matter? In this case I have a server called "server2" which also has 2 disk except in this case I've either moved both disks to the same LUN at some point or renamed one disk. Either way it has disk 1 is server2.vmdk (16Gb) on a different SAN, Disk 2 is server2_1.vmdk (80Gb).

10/28/2009 6:00:08 PM: Normal backup using Test Job
10/28/2009 6:02:08 PM: Copying Server2
10/28/2009 6:02:25 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfs_D1\server2_1/server2-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 6:49:46 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfms_lun09\ server2/server2_1-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 7:29:40 PM: Task completed successfully

So in the 2nd scenario it seems to work fine. When I go into restore rehersal for it I see 2 disks will be created and if I select it it says total amount to restore 96Gb which indicates it doesn't have that 2nd disk.

I know I can go and rename the disks but I have quite a few boxes and some with 3-4 disks on different LUNS all with the same name. As far as I know this was supposed to be fixed in 1.0.2 but I'm not seeing it. Everything else has been working fine for weeks just this little issue and I know I can fix it by doing a bunch of manual work but wondered if I was missing something. FYI I also did try to create a new job just in case it was something in the config of the imported jobs when I installed the new appliance but it didn't make a difference.

vcenter vcb role and search virtual machine

dsumsky — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:46:50 GMT

Hi folks,

I'm trying to solve the following issue with VCB. I have defined a VCB role with the following priviledges:

Virtual machine->Provisioning->Allow read-only disk access

Virtual machine->Provisioning->Allow virtual machine download

Virtual machine->State->Create snapshot

Virtual machine->State->Remove snapshot

Then, I have a user vcbadmin with this role and I try to perform a testing file level vcbmount from vcenter server vc-server , e.g.:

vcbmounter.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -a moref:vm-692 -r f:\vcb\test -t file -m nbd

That works perfectly. But when I want to enumerate all VMs managed by vc-server, it fails:

vcbvmname.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -s any:

The produced warning is "No matching VMs found." When I specify the particular machine,it works again:

vcbvmname.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -s moref:vm-692

If I try it with user with Administrator role, it works smoothly. Does somebody know if I just need to extend the VCB role with some additional priviledge to success or if I need to be a user with Administrator role after all? How can I enumerate VMs managed by vcenter server with unpriviledged user who has assigned VCB role?

Thank you very much, Dave

File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore <unspecified datastore>

glemmestad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:37:55 GMT

Hi,

Getting the following error message on running backups through vStorage API (or VCB):

File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>

Now, I know what you're thinking. VMDK size is probably maximum of allowable on VMFS data store, for example 256GB VMDK on a VMFS with 1MB block size.

All EMC Clariion FC storage configured in the following way: two 1TB LUNs with 1MB block size (LUN1 and LUN2), rest (usually around 1.5TB) configured with 8MB block size (LUN 3). Max VMDK on 1MB LUN is 256GB, max VMDK on 8MB LUN is 2TB.

The 1TB LUNs are used for OS disks of various VMs (that's why we used a small blocksize). The large LUNs are used for large data disks, like D: drive on a large databaseserver where the disk needs to be bigger than 256GB.

The VM in question is configured as follows: HD1 is 24GB and located on LUN1. This is also where the config file is located. HD2 is 600GB and located on LUN 3 (the one with 8MB block size).

The error message above appears as soon as you try to take a snapshot of the VM. Now, this presumably happends because the snapshot process places the snapshot-files on LUN1 (with 1MB block size). This also includes the delta file for the 600GB disk. This is probably why it fails. But.... why? Sure, the snapshot file of the 600GB could THEORETICALLY grow to 600GB (and therefor not fit on LUN1), but the chances of this growing to 256GB is virtually impossible.

Might as well mention that these error messages happen on all VMs where they have the OS disks on a "small LUN" and large data disks on different LUNs. They also never failed when on VI 3.5 update 2; but appeared as soon as the servers were upgraded to vSphere 4. The way to "fix" the problem is to move the 24GB OS disk and config file to a LUN that has 8MB block size; then snapshots work. But that is not a solution I can live with.

I thought I would air this issue on the community before engaging VMWare support.

Changing the VMDK even after unmounting the disk from the Guest OS does not work.

amudhan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:10:28 GMT

Hi,

I have a windows VM which has two drives. I have unmounted the virtual disk containing only data using a script and there could be no I/O happening to that virtual disk. In the background, I have changed the VMDK file (and corresponding flat files) using another script/application. When I mount the disk again using another script in the VM, the VM get inconsistent when I try to access the data disk. Why is this?Is there any way by which I can change the underlying vmdk file for a virtual disk without detaching/attaching the disk? If I detach the virtual disk and change the vmdk file and then attach the disk, everything is working fine. But without detaching/attaching, I tried to unmount/mount the drive by guest os, it does not wok.

Can someone please explain why this is so?

Thanks in advance,

Amudhan.

Netapp SnapMirror, mirrored datastore only visible on one ESX in a Cluster?

groupis — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:02:20 GMT

Hi,

we are currently evaluating NETAPP SnapMirror for a DRS scenario. We want to mirror our FC VMFS datastores (on a NETAPP FAS3020) between two locations. The snapmirror works fine so far, between the two sites we have a S-DSL 12Mbps line. The only problem we have now ist that once we quiesce and break the snapmirrored volume both of our ESX servers can see the lun, but not the datastore. If I click add new datastore on one of the ESX, I select the mirrored lun and then I get prompted for resigning or keeping the signature. What ever that means. If I do keep the datastore becomes visible and I have to add all it's VM's to the inventory. This needs to be automated somehow later on as well. Looking at the second ESX i can not see the datastore. Even rescaning the bus or rebooting doesn't help. I can still see the LUN, however doing the same steps as on the other ESX quits with an error. How can i make the datastore visible on the other ESX? Do I have to use resigning in this case? And if so, will the VM's still be working then?

Regards,

Oliver

Desperately need someone's help! black frozen screen!!!

navdo88 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:57:06 GMT

Hi, I have a mac book pro and am not much good at computers, i'm on exchange overseas and when my assignments are due tomorrow this happens to me!!!
so, i'm running vmware fusion with vista installed, a blue screen appeared saying it needed to reboot, when it came to doing so the screen is black, with the green dial frozen as well - I can't restart it coz I don't know how!

If anyone knows how I can get back into it! That would be absolutely great!!
Please help me !!

Restore not creating new virtual machine

joejackson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:47:38 GMT

So, here's the history, I hope someone can help me with this..

We recently purchased a new san (hp eva series) and are looking towards migrating our vm infratstructure to it. Currently it resides on a msa1000. Before doing this I wanted to look at backup/restore options in which I could utililize the space freed up on the msa. I was excited to see VDR.

Basically, I let it run for a few weeks, pulling backups, everything worked great. I did a couple of test restores and restore rehearsals and it was working as well.

I wanted to have a real world example of a failure to test this solution, so I migrated a couple of test boxes over to the EVA. VDR sits on the MSA as well as the dedup store for it.

I shutdown the EVA (with the test vm's still powered on and eva luns still presented to the esx hosts.) in order to simulate a real world failure of the EVA. What I expected to be able to do was restore one of those test vms to the MSA and have it run there, however

When the eva is shutdown vcenter seems to be very slow and sometimees not responding. I started the restore and the 'create virtual machine' step idled for an hour...

I'm not sure if this is a problem with VDR or if it is common for vcenter to do this. I would lean towards the latter as even when I wasn't performing and vdr functions, everything was very slow (sometimes even losing connection to my guests running on the msa). Does anyone know of anything that would cause this or if there is anything I can do in order to stop it from happening. If I can't restore to my backup san when the production san is not present, then this solution is no good to me at all....I hope this makes sense...let me know if you need more clarification..

Thanks,

Finishing the job

Useless1 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:15:45 GMT

Hi,

I am currently testing esXpress, and I now have it set to FTP backups, and I have tested restores which also work. Therefore I now have VMDK backup/restorability.

However I was wondering for DR, how to quickly recreate my entire structure, so for example my network config, the virtual machines themselves etc...

How do others do this?

VCB restore using Convertor Standlone fails for larg(ish) VCBs.

MattMarcos — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:13:42 GMT

Hi there. We use VCB to backup our VM's. We just use the standing vcb mounter scripts and they work a treat.

The restores are giving us grief. Trying to restore a largish VM (100GB+) will result in a failure in convertor.

We are tyring to restore our VCBs to another ESX4i server in a DR/DEV environment test.

We use a VCB proxy server connected via 2Gb FC to our SAN. Running Convertor on this vcb box to try and import the VM into another host on the LAN.

I see it pinned to one point in the logs.

Found this in vmware-converter-agent-1.log

32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 58, xfer rate (Bps): 4315920
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 59, xfer rate (Bps): 4315920
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.378 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 59, xfer rate (Bps): 276284705
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.378 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.425 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 68, xfer rate (Bps): 276284705
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.425 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 68, xfer rate (Bps): 7108809
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 69, xfer rate (Bps): 7108809
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5

32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 verbose 'App'~~ ,0 NfcNetTcpWrite: timed out waiting for socket to be ready (101)
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR NfcNet_Send: requested 272, sent only 9 bytes
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR NfcFileSendMessage: hdr send failed:
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR Network error -- Failed to send header message
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.814 02532 error 'App'~~ blockLevelCloningTaskImpl,1005 File transfer failed.
32 task-5 Dst error: Network error -- Failed to send header message
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 error 'task-5'~~ TaskImpl has failed with MethodFault::Exception: converter.agent.internal.fault.NfcConnectionFault
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ADD: event27, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ diskBasedCloneTask,331 Skipping post-cloning since the disk-based cloning operation did not complete successfully.
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ cloneTask,278 Skipping post-cloning since the clone task did not complete successfully.
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ vmiImportTask,1408 Removing destination VM
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 verbose 'App'~~ Destroying managed VM

Can't find anything wrong with the network though.

Any ideas?

cheers,

Matt.

Clone (Ghost) Physical ESX Hard Drive

brad.ault — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:48:47 GMT

All

I currently have a 4 ESX host lab and I am looking to find a way to clone the physical hards (i.e. ghost for Windows Machines). I have several individuals that have access to the lab and make changes constantly to the lab. I would like to be able to build my lab and then clone physical esx disks, so that at any time I can simply pull the physical disks out and re-image them, therefore getting my lab back to the base in minutes.

My servers are white box so therefore I can not create the disks in a mirrored raid and remove one the of disks. The raid controller that I have is not completely supported by VMware.

Also not going to be able to use host profiles because my virtual center machine is virtual too and I will need to revert the entire environment at once.

I hope this made sense and hoping someone can help me out here.

Thanks

Unusual VCB problem - Slow mounts/SAN seems to proceed white space

AWharmby — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:19:06 GMT

Hi All,

We have a new and unusual problem with our VCB solution which has been working just fine.

Using a custom vcbmounter script, we mounts all VM to the proxy with the SAN option and this works great with our IBM DS4700 and DS3400 SANs. A new SAN has been introduced and it is extremely slow to mount the VM's running on it. The new SAN is an IBM N3300 Netapp Filer.

The problem appears to be as follows in these two examples:

VM1 running on the DS4700 has a Virtual Disk of 100GB of which 40GB is used. VCB will mount all 40GB worths of data to the proxy and then skip the unused portions of the disk and move to the next VM. This can take 5 minutes.

VM2 running on the Netapp has a Virtual Disk of 200GB and only 20GB is used. VCB mounts the 20GB to the proxy at a good pace and then waits and waits and waits and will release the disk lease about an hour later and then moves on to the next VM. It is like no matter how much data is on the Virtual Disks stored on the Netapp Filer, the VCB mount will take longer depending on the size of the Virtual Disk, not the data.

Has anyone come across this before?

Restore VM using VDR(VMware Data Recovery) to cluster HA

Domelski — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:32:36 GMT

HI,

I have problem with restore VM using Data Recovery appliance on cluster HA. I have three ESX 4.0 hosts, two of them in cluster HA and one with VC i VDR.

All hosts have access to iscsi shared storage. Backup job VMs placed on cluster HA is creating without errors to local disk on third host, but when I try to restore VM on cluster HA, the VDR appliance can't see iscsi storage (only local datastore of both hosts).

The only solution I've found is when I migrate VM to third host, I can restore VM witout error and VDR can see iscsi shared storage. I think that restoring VM to hosts in cluster HA seems to work.

Thx for all sugestions.

Backing up vCenter with VDR

marcelgr — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:34:09 GMT

Hi,

I am running vCenter in a VM. VDR seems to back it up successfully, but I cannot find any way to restore it. The vCenter server is not listed as a source for restores, and when I right-click on the server and select Restore, it tells me that the virtual machine has no restore points available.

Could someone please confirm whether this is a known problem/limitation, or if it is something that is specifically wrong on my side?

Thanks

Snapshot remove failed: The managed object of type "vim.VirtualMachine" identified by the MoRef "vm-95" could not be found.

AndyShinn — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:30:56 GMT

I am getting this error reported by VCB:

Backup- VMVCB::\\vc-01.mydomain.com\VCGuestVm\(DC)FMT1(DC)\vm\SAM-248 V-79-57344-38220 - Backup of the virtual machine 'SAM-248' failed. VMware VCB framework reported the following error
Error: Other error encountered: Snapshot remove failed: The managed object of type "vim.VirtualMachine" identified by the MoRef "vm-95" could not be found.

My question is, how can I update the MoRef in VirtualCenter?

I believe this VM was copied to a new host and started up outside of VirtualCenter and now VC has no idea of the correct MoRef.

The command being run on VCB is:

vcbmounter.exe -h vc-01.mydomain.com -u Administrator -p "myvcpass" -a uuid:564d668e-27cd-c5f5-627a-01fede7badd8 -r "C:\TEMP\SAM-248-16-24-474" -t fullvm -m nbd -M 0 -F 0 -L 6

The UUID for the VM is the same that is in the vmx file.

VCB 1.5 integrating with HP DP 6.1 via vCenter

marklemon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:36:15 GMT

I've followed the docs in setting up VCB 1.5 and Data Protector 6.1. In DP I can browse all my Virtual Machines that are registered in vCenter (2.5)

There is a lot of written on the internet about old versions of VCB and old versions of DP, but no so much on the new integration with DP 6.1.

I believe (and hope) that by backing up via VCB and vCenter I won't need to install the DP6.1 agent on my ESX hosts. But why am I getting this error when I try a backup?

Major From: OB2BAR_VMWARE_BAR@vCenter "/HP" Time: 13/10/2009 17:51:45
The OS reported error while accessing esxhost:
IPC Cannot Connect

esxhost is the host where the VM that I'm trying to backup lives.

vCenter is the Windows host running vCenter and configured with VCB. I can confirm that the lun containing the VM I'm trying to backup is on the SAN and viewable with the same LUN number on my VCB server. I disabled the firewall on my esx hosts, as the error is about making a connection between VCB/vCenter & the esxhost running the VM, but am still getting the error above.

Lots of docs say to install DP Disk agent on the ESX hosts, but this DP6.0 doc says otherwise:

"Advantages of a dedicated physical media host VCB proxy
• Frees ESX server for other purposes: The data backup is performed by a VCB proxy, so the ESX server is free to perform other tasks.
• Data Protector is not required on the ESX server: The backups are run on the VCB proxy, and restores are run on the VCB proxy or virtual machine, so Data Protector is not required on the ESX server."
this

Can you help me confirm that I don't need DP Agent installed on my esx hosts to do VCB backup with DP?

Any ideas on why else I'd be getting this error?

cheers, kudos and appreciation in advance for any help you offer,

Kevin

Data Recover problems

collinsit — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:02:40 GMT

Hi there, I currently have a single ESX 4 server running 7 VMs. The server is a dual processor Quad Core Xeon server with 32GB of memory. I just loaded VMWare Data Recovery a few days ago and configured the plugin in my VSphere Client. I then configured it to backup all my VMs to a NAS. I set the backups to only occur in the evenings and on weekends. The backups of most the virtual machines work fine, 5 out of 7 of them. One of the virtual machines is running Exchange 2007 and it seems to stop when creating the snapshot. The strange part is that when this happens I can't run any other VMWare commands on the server. It says that another task is in progress even though the backup job has failed. The only way I can get VMWare commands to start working on the server is by restarting the VMWare tools in the guest or reboot the server from the guest which I have to login to do since I can't force it from the VSphere Client. I have tried re-installing the VMWare tools but that didn't help.

The other server I can't backup is a Windows 2008 R2 server running VCenter. I get a message saying that it can't quiesc the operating system and won't back it up. I moved VCenter to another server (this one) and it is still doing it. Can you backup a VCenter server if the data recovery appliance is running on it?

Any help with this would be really appreciated. It looks like a great backup system but I am not sure why these two VMs won't backup.

Thanks

Neal

Symantec 11d: Backup size (counted bytes) bigger used disk space

illuminate — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:01:40 GMT

Hi guys,

I backup a Windows 2003 server every night with vcb & Symantec BackupExec. My two disks have a size of 13GB (4,15GB free) and 15GB (11GB free)! when I look into Backup Exec, I see, that the backup of this virtual machine needs 28.238.634.759 Bytes (26930MB) ... so there is a used spaced of 12,85GB, but the backup is as big as the complete disk size!

the pre-script looks like this: "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbMounter.exe" -h vcbproxy -u root -p pw -a name:... -r e:\mnt\.... -t fullvm -m san -L 6 -M 1

btw. on the virtual machine runs the newest version of VMware Tools (4.0.0. build 164009)

why is the backup size not as big as the used disk space like on the other machines?

thanks in advance for help.

greets, Andi

Freeze/Thaw Scripts do not run when VMware Tools are Out of Date

baptista — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:52:36 GMT

Anyone else have the experience that when your vmware tools are out of date that the pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts will not run when a VCB backup is kicked off?

We've seen this issue a long time ago but was hoping it was solved by now, but we're seeing it again trying to ugrade a cluster from 3.5 to 4. The cluster has all 3.5 hosts except for one 4.0 host. When the vm is on the ESXi 4 host the scripts will not run, but if the vm is moved back to a 3.5 host the scripts run as expected.

I was hoping to find out whether this is expected behaviour or if someone had a workaround. We cannot upgrade the tools for these vm's yet for availability reasons, but would still like to upgrade the hosts for other compliance reasons.

Robert

Restore VM to differant site with VDR?

kcain — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:48:06 GMT

I want to backup VMs at 'Site A' using VDR and replicate the backup files to 'Site B'. In case 'Site A' goes down, can I restore VMs to hosts located at 'Site B' using the replicated backup files?

save the destination store to tape

vmb01 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:54:54 GMT

I' m trying to save the VDR destination store to tape with a windows physical backup server.

Please tell me if my uderstand of the 3 following environments is right:

First I power off the VDR appliance, so I'm sure that the VDR destination store is inactive

1) VDR destination store on CIFS sfare: my backup server can "see" the files inside the CIFS share and it is able to copy/move them to tape

2) VDR destination store on VMDK virtual disk: I need the VCB installed on my backup server to mount the VMDK on my backup server and it is able to copy/move the files to tape

3) VDR destination store on RDM : I can use the VCB installed on my backup server to mount the VMDK and it is able to copy/move the files to tape or I can backup directly the FC LUN seen from my backup server if I do not use automount

Any help will be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance and best regards

Disaster Recovery on the Cheap - Portable Hard Drives ?

HMorris — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:08:06 GMT

I am looking for some feedback on a low cost way to transport VM's using a portable drive. I am looking to occasionally backup/ or transport 900 gig of Guest VM's to our DR site. Maybe 15 vm's in all. We have 2 bonded T1's but it just is not going to cut it moving that large data around. I didn't want to do this with tape but maybe I'll have to.

I have been fooling with a Maxtor Central Axis 1TB and even though it has 1gig network card, it's still too slow with only one spindle or just too slow. I am open to other solutions but buying another SAN to do it right is just too expensive right now, and maybe not practical with our 2-T1 speeds.

I am open to ideas, and I'm sure there are better ones out there.

Thanks,

Hmorris

ESX 4 host backups to tape

Bootrix2 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:40:16 GMT

I'm looking for a solution for vSphere that allows me to backup VMs and/or files from VMs directly to tape.

1 vSphere host with 2 VMs

Goal: Backup the vms directly to tape attached through SAS to the vSphere host.

Before I was doing this with BackupExec installed and the SCSI device added to the VM.

With the changes to vSphere I can no longer do this and hardware doesn't support VMDirectPath.

I understand running 3.5 but I need to move forward and find a new solution. Preferably not Acronis either as it's a bit on the pricey side.

VDR manual reclaiming

RES Software — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:34:33 GMT

We use VDR 1.0.2.562 and from time to time restore points get damaged. These restore points need to be marked for deletion and during the automatic reclaim task. they are removed. It may take a while before the reclaim task runs.

Is it possible to manually start the reclaim task? and if yes, how?

Cannot open disk file: scsiLib status=6

Avellino — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:35:22 GMT

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_vm_backup.pdf

PG 44 *
NOTE Consolidated Backup supports a maximum of 60 concurrently mounted

*

virtual machines. For example, you can concurrently mount 60 virtual machines

that have a C: drive, or 30 virtual machines that have a C: and a D: each.

===========================================================================>

Why is this the case? What was the reason behind this limitation? Is there a workaround?

Basically, if backups are executed with multiple vm's..for instance vcb file backup with over 10 to 12 hosts (4 mount drives C,D,E,F per host), the mounter randomly reports Cannot open disk file: scsiLib status=6 ** with less then 10 vm hosts, no issue **

Failed to create snapshot for XXXX, error -3902 ( file access error)

tomtux — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:52:23 GMT

Hi all,

We're using VDR 1.0.2. Often I get the the following error until I reboot the vdr-appliance:

Failed to create snapshot for XXXX, error -3902 ( file access error)

When I get this error-message, I although can create a snapshot manually. We' re using a CIFS-Share for our vdr-backup-destination.

Any hints?

Thanks a lot.

Tom

Unable to mount VMDK from ESX to a folder

SBSCOM — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:08:12 GMT

Dear all,

does anybody know how to is it possible to mount an ESX3.5 or ESX4 VMDK to a folder under WINDOWS operating system ( *-flat.vmdk)?

1) MOUNTVM from VCB is able to do this, but crashes with error : "Disk library failed (The specified feature isn't supported by this version)"

2) VMWARE-MOUNT from VDDK is only able to mount the VMDK to a drive letter, not to a folder. (I know, that the same tool can do this under Linux, but we must use Windows).

Any ideas?

Any help is appreciated! THANK YOU!

Andreas

P.S. We already WinMount and UFS-Explorer, they are not batch-able / script-able

VDR Using 100% CPU and a large amount of memory

helloitsrainn — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:27:02 GMT

My lab infrastructure has 6 VMs across two hosts plus a host running VDR in a VM (so 3 hosts and 7 VMs total).

I created a basic backup set and chose to back up all the VMs to a machine running Win 2k3 with a basic share. This machine is not virtualized.

While VDR is running and backing up the VMs, the cpu spikes and utilizes ALL of the cpu on the host machine that the VDR VM is running on and I start to get email warnings. Why is this? Can I tame this thing somehow? In addition the basic VDR VM that came from the download via your website includes 2 vCPUs and 2048MB of RAM. Is all of this neccessary? The host machine the VDR VM is running on is a basic Dual Core with 4GB of memory. I didn't think it would need that much. Did I underestimate? Should I just turn the warnings off and dedicate this entire machine to just running the VDR VM?

Thanks

Networker Integration Module

adrianromano — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:46:45 GMT

Hi guys,
I am trying to install the networker integration module, and after running the install.bat script it starts. It asks me whether the paths are correct (and they are), and then it gives me the following error!

Path to VMware VCB Integration Framework:
-->y
Legato Networker install path on this server:
-->y
Confguration ok
~~y/N~~? y
Creating alternate save command save_vcb.bat...
Error: Path not found
Error Code: 76

Do you guys know what it could be?
Thanks
Ad

Replicate physical server to vm

jackBN — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:36:07 GMT

We use a product called platespin that does not work for us well. Is there a way to script phyical conversions to virtual machines on a daily basis? Thank you.

VDR Issue Error 1020

winshenting — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:53:31 GMT

Whenever I make backup, issue error "Trouble writing to desination volume, error 1020 (Sharing violation)"

VDR 1.0.2 and Internet-Proxy-Settings?

tomtux — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:46:08 GMT

Hi all,

I've installed VDR 1.0.2. One installation-task is to define an internet-proxy server. For what kind of purpose does the vdr-appliance need an internet-connection? What problems will I have, when I deny the internet-access for the vdr-appliance?

Will the appliance update itself to the next higher minor release (example 1.0.3) with the defined internet-proxy-settings?

Thanks a lot.

Tom

DR Planning

kghammond2009 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:40:11 GMT

Hello,

We are in the process of planning our vSphere 4 infrastructure and our DR strategy.

We have a DR site that is across the city connected via 10G Fiber. All our VLAN's are trunked to the DR site.

We have LeftHand SAN's setup with one half of each cluster located at the DR site. We are working on putting a witness site online to keep quorum and to keep our LeftHand cluster's online during a disaster at our primary site. If everything works correctly, our LUNs will stay online during a disaster at our primary site. We plan to keep a minimal amount of spare ESX servers availed at the DR site to run our production VM's in the event of a disaster.

We are also looking to run vCenter as a VM.

So assume a disaster occurs and our LUNs stay online. HA will fail since vMotion will be unavailable and all production VM's will go offline. vCenter as a VM will go offline as well along with the primary site ESX servers. At this point we will have all our LUN's, some spare ESX servers and no running VM's at our DR site. I expect that we could go to the DR site, use a laptop to ssh to the local console of one of the ESX server, browse to the LUN that hosts vCenter, register its VMX to one of the DR ESX servers, bring vCenter back online and let HA/DRS kick in and start bringing VM's online.

Question 1) Will we need AD/DNS/WINS to do any of this? Our plan is to have a physical AD/DNS/WINS server at the DR site, but this might be overkill for us.
Question 2) Resignaturing is not an issue for us since the LUNs replicate in realtime via the LeftHand cluster technology. Will we be able to register and start the vCenter VM on a DR ESX server without the licensing component of vCenter running?
Question 3) I know we can use the virtual heartbeat to solve some of these challenges, could we also use FT to keep the vCenter server online at the DR site during a disaster? Or are these both overkill because it is relatively trivial to bring the vCenter VM back online as long as we do not lose our LUNs

We are not overly concerned about the scenario where the LUNs are not available at the DR site. If all our LUNs are not available, vCenter isn't going to help us and we are going to have significantly more challenging issues to worry about.

Any other thoughts or concerns with this plan?

Thank You,
Kevin

VDR and network share issue

apohlgeers — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:52:04 GMT

I'm running VMware Data Recovery 1.0.1.362 and I'm having an issue backup up to a nas device we have. The first issue we have is that I cannot add a share using a share name (I.e. \\nasserver\"). DNS works fine for all my other VM's but not on the VDR vm. If I use the IP address instead of the share name, I am able to mount the share.

The second and most import issue is that I can't seem to mount a folder two layers deep (i.e. \\192.168.3.11\vmbackup\vmserver01\" mounts as \\192.168.3.11\vmbackup\" ). The reason I'm doing this is because I would like to try running multiple VDR on each server because the VDR doesn't appear fast enough to backup all our ten servers with multiple VM's running local on each server.

Is this possible to run multiple VDR's? If so what's best practices?

VMware Data Recovery

texasjohn — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:42:00 GMT

I have just installed vCenter but have not install 4.0 on my hosts yet. I am not clear on what can be used a data store. Right now I am using vRanger Pro but it looks like Data Recovery can take the place of that

VDR Tweaks

RParker — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:36:25 GMT

For those of you like me, who love VDR (rolling eyes - insert stark sarcasm) I have a couple of tweaks.

Follow the admin guide and DON'T make the target datastores more than 2 TOTAL and EACH datastore should not be larger than 1TB (1024MB).

Add MORE RAM (at least 3G) and thanks to Azmir you can modify the datarecovery.ini file to look like this:

/var/vmware/datarecovery/ (if it doesn't exist simply create it).

IntegrityCheckInterval = 7
RetentionPolicyInterval=7
DedupeCheckOnRecatalog=0

These parameters mean

Integrity check is done ONCE per 7 days (valid range 0 thru 7)

Retention Policy is checked ONCE per 7 days (valid range 0 thru 7)

dedupe check after a recatalog disabled (valid 1 or 0)

BTW the file is actually ON the VDR appliance itself.

Now after performing these, and rebooting the appliance things are better (stilll not great) but improved!

How VDR uses internet proxy server?

Igor_Nemilostivy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:00:18 GMT

Hi!

In the documentation of VDR can be found as follows:

Click the Network tab and click Proxy to configure proxy settings. You can configure the backup appliance
to use a proxy server and provide the proxy server's name or IP address and port.

How VDR uses internet proxy server?

--
Igor Nemilostivy

Rediculous (VDR) Recatalog / Reclaming times

RParker — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:00:24 GMT

I started this process last week, on Thursday. First I noticed that VDR was 'reclaiming' not sure what it's 'reclaiming, but I assume space.

So I waited, and waited.. 36 hours later, STILL reclaiming. so I cancelled it. Next it was reindexing, that took another 24 hours, and I tried to stop it.. gracefully. That took 4 hours, never did stop, so I rebooted the appliance.

NOW it's re-cataloging, and that has been going since last night (which almost 24 hours).

I can see disk activity, but this is rediculous to the point of absurd, 5-8 MBS IOPs for over 100hours? What the h-E- doble hockey sticks is TAKING so long?!?!

I ask you, what could it POSSIBLY be doing?

I am ready to delete it and start all over AGAIN (don't care if I lose my backups, I can't run my backups until this thing quits, which at this pace (37%) could be next week...

explanation of some legend

dingding — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:18:40 GMT

in inventory menu of data recovery(see attached),

1) below Prod_financeApp, there's only one line. but below Prod_Oracle9i, besides the vmdk, also a Prod_oracle9i displayed. what's the difference

2) there's a warning sign on VM Prod_AppServer, but when i switch to hosts & cluster view, there's no warning. why? where can i see the details.

thanks in advance.

Open source data deduplication - alternatives to VDR

Stevester — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:08:51 GMT

Good Day Everyone,

Would anyone know of any open source VM backup solutions? I am hearing that VDR has issues? Currently i am using ghettoVCB, but of course this is something i don't want to use on a large VM say 120GB. The reasoning is that ghettoVCB would do a full backup each night. Something with data deduplication on a script basis or a full blown application would be nice!!!!!!

Thanks
Stevester

vDR 1.0.1.362 and slow recatalog/integrity job

olof.christensson — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:39:44 GMT

Hi!

I am having a hard time with very slow recatalog jobs and integrity checks - i thought that the issue was gone when i upgraded to vDR 1.0.1 but after some backups the problems was reacurring. I have now a recatalog job that has reached 52% on 22 hours! Should it be like this and how can i troubleshoot the cause?

I have a 1 tb mounted network share. The vDR store is 218 gb large and is stored on a Windows 2008 x64 server - i have noticed that this server uses 97% of the 4 gb ram that this server has when the vDR recatalog and integrity job is running - is this norma behaviour or am I one to something here?

Any help is appreciated!

vDR and vmdk files

Pongraz — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:11:45 GMT

Hi,

i just installed vDR and want to backup my Vm´s to a Cifs share.

I have both vmdk files in th Backup job selected see Attached file VMAuswahl.jpg.

In the Backup protocol you can see both VMDK files are backuped. See File Protokoll.jpg

But when i want to restore this VM i have only one VMDK there. See file VMWiederherstellen.jpg

Thanks in advance.

help me ..

bazlina — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:12:49 GMT

1. i have decided to use NTFS encryption to enhance security on your network of six servers. Five of the six servers have compressed drives, and a new administrator says that it would not be a good idea to implement an encryption policy at this time. Why is or isn't the administrator correct?

2. If i implement an account lockout and reset counter policy, how can i monitor the failed attempts?

3 What types of data can be encrypt and decrypt using PGP?

space comsumption in a backup

dingding — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:10:06 GMT

how to find out the actual space used during a backup, this info is useful for us to calc dedup ratio. don't tell me i can record the dedup destination free space before/after the backup and minus them.

can't start backup job manually

dingding — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:06:56 GMT

when i right click the backup job, i can't find a item like "backup it now", it's not convenient, i must go to the inventory menu, select the VM and right click to start on demand backup.

Data Recovery - could not quiesce ...

ascheale — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:03:56 GMT

One of my VM´s can not be backup up because the VDR initiated Snapshot returns an error: could not quiesce file system ....

I know how to handle this with VCB (just set the -Q 0 flag). But what about Data Recovery?

The VM has nothing to do at the time DR starts ...

Alex

"Invalid configuration for device" when restoring a VM with Data Recovery

lionelf67 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:24:34 GMT

Hi,

I would like to use Data Recovery in order to backup up VMs. Some of them have RDM disks and even if RDM is not supported I would like to backup at least the system disk of my VMs. Actually the backup process is working successfully but when I try to restore such a VM I have this error :

Invalid configuration for device '4'*

Does anybody know if this is a known issue?

Thank you,

Lionel

error while trying to copy vmdk file from external hard drive

studentsports — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:36:21 GMT

hi,

I m a beginner. I m trying to copy a vmdk file (202 GB) from an external hard drive onto my other external hard drive, but every time i try to do this, i get the error: " There is not enough disk space available...." . I have tried changing the location of the temporary files for the operating system to the external drive where i have plenty of empty space.

I have tried using Microsoft Rich Copy 4.0, but to no avail. I m using winXP SP3.

Please help me.

VDR / Access to LUN's - Will not Traverse Datacenters

RParker — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:04:02 GMT

I found ANOTHER problem with VDR. It CAN'T go across Data Centers.

I have 3 Data Centers, and for 4 days I have struggling with this problem, it does Network backups. I found out why. VDR MUST be in the same Datacenter as the LUNS, even though the LUN's aren't part of the same Datacenter, they are across the entire vCenter, but that's not what is happening.

I have been trying to figure out where the the problem is, and I finally figured out that if you put VDR in one Datacenter VM's in another datacenter will get a Network backup, NOT a SAN backup like it's supposed to.

This is a Bug!

Network vs SAN backup on VDR

RParker — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:24:44 GMT

This was working pre-1.01 release, now it no longer works.

I have ESX host with the VDR appliance, it has exposure to ALL my VMFS volumes where my VM's are. I start the backup, it does the backup . . . over the network, I want to perform a SAN backup, hence the question, is there a setting or something?

I have tried restarting the VDR several times, I redeployed a new one, still no luck. So what does this need to make this work?

This wasn't a problem BEFORE the new version....

What causes corrupt VDR resore points?

ian4563 — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:43:56 GMT

My backup jobs have been running great with the new version of VDR untill yesterday. After browsing through the log files I discovered that the dedupe store was locked because the integrity checks had flagged three corrupt restore points. What is the cause of these corrupt restore points? It's a bin unnerving for several VM backups to suddenly become corrupt and the only fix is to delete the restore points.

I Thought Version 1.0.1 VDR was suppost to fix the intergrity check issue.

spence — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:15:03 GMT

Hi,

Last week I upgraded the VDR to 1.0.1 as i was having issues with the integrity check not completing, I have the same issue still I'm using a Cifs share that was 2TB but reading the blogs I have changed that down to 1TB as there seemed to be some info saying 1TB was the largest I could use. I also have a RAW disk of 2TB attached to the VDR that seems to work OK but as that is on a Fibre SAN LUN I have now way of getting this to Tape.

Can anyone direct me to an detailed documentation for the VDR (Command line stuff) as the catolog got corrupt and I could not mount the store without blowing the backups away and stating again. I'm sure there must be a way to fix this but there are no Doc's to help anywhere.

Regards Spence..

Full VM mount folder was always dated as created on 01/01/2001

dionteun — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:23:50 GMT

I am encountering this problem whenever my FULL VM mount folder was created during a full vm backup. The folder creation of the folder was always dated 01/01/2001. I have tried restarting my VCB server. May i know what might be the cause of it? The date & time of my server is correct.

SCSI card to be used for tape drive

tech123456 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:43:15 GMT

I am trying to set-up a SCSI card to pass through devices such as tape drives for backing up folders in a w2k3 VM. I have installed the SCSI card and can see it in Storage adapters. Shown below: -

AHA-3960D U160/m

VMHBA3

What do i now need to do to get this to add as a scsi card that i can use for tape drives?

ESX version is 3.5 and i am using vSphere 4.0.0

VCB proxy ! strange issues

Zearik — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:39:27 GMT

Hi Guys,

I need your quick and helpful response for following problem. I have a
customer and I am in process to deploying the VCB proxy services on a physical
for backing up the Virtual Machine.

The VCB proxy services installed on Physical server which have around
90 GB of free space on C: Drive (Local storage) and have installed two Emulex
HBA of single port. The VMFS volume that I have mapped to ESX
server and VCB proxy machine has only one Virtual machine running on it.

I am able to see the SAN LUN (VMFS
Volume) in disk management as unallocated space. The power path
Software installed as MPIO in the machine and I am able to see the LUN in disk
management using only one PATH.

After all of the configuration I am able to get the result of
VCBVMNAME.exe command and also able to create the snapshot for a VM from the
command prompt of the VCB machine.

The problem comes when I try to run the VCBMOUNTER command for a VM, it runs
normally but when it try to export the .vmdk file, it gives following error
warning, I am not worry regarding the warning of SSL but it fails the
vcbmounter result.

-----e:443]: GetName
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.024 'vcbMounter' 2524 info~~ Exporting VM config files
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.024 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Sending soap request to ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
retrieveInternalContent
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.209 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Received soap response from ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
retrieveInternalContent
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.209 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Sending soap request to ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
getVmFiles
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.440 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Received soap response from ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
getVmFiles
~~2009-07-15 13:39:58.440 'App' 2524 info~~ Establishing NFC connection to host
dclesx11.dm.ae on port 902, service vpxa-nfc
Copying "test_vmfs test/test.vmx":

0%=====================50%=====================100%

**************************************************

Copying "test_vmfs test/test.nvram":

0%=====================50%=====================100%

**************************************************

Copying "test_vmfs test//vmware.log":

0%=====================50%=====================100%
*************************************************

~~2009-07-15 13:39:59.194 'vcbMounter' 2524 info~~ Exporting disks
~~2009-07-15 13:39:59.194 'vcbMounter' 2524 info~~ Filenames:
blklst://snapshot-2482test_vmfs
test/test.vmdk@dclsma01.dm.ae?vcbuser/passw0rd -->
c:\mnt\test_fullvm\scsi0-0-0-test.vmdk
[2009-07-15 13:39:

The host name used for the connection does not match the subject name on the

host certificate

A certificate in the host's chain is based on an untrusted root.

~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.811 'BaseLibs' 2524 warning~~ SSLVerifyIsEnabled: failed to
read registry value. Assuming verification is disabled. LastError = 0
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.811 'BaseLibs' 2524 warning~~
SSLVerifyCertAgainstSystemStore: Certificate verification is disabled, so
connection will proceed despite the error
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.980 'App' 2524 verbose~~ Blockmap fetch completed.
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.980 'App' 2524 trivia~~ Attempting to open LVID:4a5c2a28-b3e382cc-b786-001f290b054e/4a5c2a28-85cdfb92-5589-001f290b054e/1.
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.980 'App' 2524 error~~ No path to device LVID:4a5c2a28-b3e382cc-b786-001f290b054e/4a5c2a28-85cdfb92-5589-001f290b054e/1
found.
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.980 'BlockList' 2524 error~~
~~2009-07-15 13:40:01.980 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Sending soap request to ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
release
~~2009-07-15 13:40:02.319 'BlockList' 2524 info~~ Closing connection
dclsma01.dm.ae:vcbuser
~~2009-07-15 13:40:02.319 'SOAP' 2524 trivia~~
Sending soap request to ~~TCP:dclsma01.dm.ae:443~~:
logout
~~2009-07-15 13:40:02.473 'vcbMounter' 2524 error~~ Error: Failed to open the
disk: Cannot access a SAN/iSCSI LUN backing
this virtual disk. (Hint: If you are using vcbMounter you can use the option
"-m ndb" to switch to network based disk access if this is what you
want.) If you were attempting file-level access, stop the vmount Service by
typing "net stop vmount2" on a command prompt to force vmount to
re-scan for SAN LUNs and re-try the command.
~~2009-07-15 13:40:02.473 'vcbMounter' 2524 error~~ An error occurred, cleaning
up...

I have also run vcbsandiagnostic command and the result you can find in
the attached text file.

The Another strange problem that I have face during this exercise I
try to move the VM from one VMFS volume to another VMFS and the VMOTION result
was fail, and all of the VM folder and configuration files was removed
from source VMFS and also not copied on destination volume and the VM was not
able to power up again.

This behavior is so strange can any one help me to find out the
causes of this issue.

For Setup information I am using ESX server
3.5u2, Virtual Center
server is 2.5 and VCB is 1.5.

I would appreciate if you ignore the language mistakes.....Many Thanks in
advance

Regards,

Xzearik

VDR backup job limit

RParker — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:10:41 GMT

I have a server, and I add it to the backup job. I then select ALL the VM's on that server to backup.

I start the backup job. The VDR seems to want to backup ALL these VM's at once, is there a setting I am missing to set this threshold? It's very slow running a bunch of tasks at once, it would be faster if I could run 3 at a time.

Has anyone figured this out?

VDR Crash

steveharder — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:18:00 GMT

Hi,

After installing the new 1.0.1 and the new plug-in I'm still having the same problem.

Everytime I start a backup the VDR appliance crashe and terminate the job after 58% of the job with the error below:

"Task terminated unexpectedly, possible due to a power failure or system crash"

After this the VDR get disconnected and I have to login again.

Thanks

vcbExport doesn't support NBD/Hotadd

Mike_Laverick — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:44:48 GMT

Am I right in saying that unlike vcbmounter - vcbexport does NOT support the -m switch to enable hotadd or NBD support.

Until its update you can't do a vcbExport with VCB running inside a VM?

Regards

Mike Laverick
RTFM Education
http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk
Author of the SRM Book: http://www.lulu.com/content/4343147

Backup of ESX host

here4now — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:34:26 GMT

I am looking for information on how and/or if possible to backup a ESX host.

Presently our enviroment is.

11 ESX host running 3i, 153875

1 VC 2.5.0 147633

Our backup software is Backupexec 12.5.

I am not looking to backup the Vm's as they are handled by BackupExec. This is required because of RAW volume attached to the VM's.

I am more concerned about the host configuration and re-creating that is a DR if needed..

anything anyone could add would be great.

New VDR Appliance, old dedupe store: config and backups not restored

raicio — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:53:37 GMT

Hello everyone,

I've set up a new appliance, and connected it to an already existing dedupe store. The dedupe store has many gigs of backups and was created by the same version of the VDR appliance. The newly provisioned VDR appliance connects correctly to the dedupe store, i can run integrity check and pass it, but the existing config isn't retrieved and no backups are visible from the client.
I'd be glad if you had any tips, this is getting me quite an headache

cheers

backup rdm with netapp snapshots

steveharder — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:42:41 GMT

hi,

Can I create netapp snapshot on RDM lun that is in virtual mode or does it have to be in physical mode?

The scenario is like this -

VM (file server) have rdm lun for the data in virtual mode.

I want to backup the vm via Netapp vibe.

What happens to the rdm luns when I create a vibe snapshot?

Thanks

Upgrade vmware tools on Vm data Recovery

fdcpinto — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:06:28 GMT

How can I upgrade vmware tools on Vm data Recovery?

Can I update hardware 4 to 7?

Thanks,

Filipe D. C. Pinto

vdr backup problem

steveharder — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:23:20 GMT

Hi,

When I start to backup an online vm the job terminate after some time (30-50% of backup) with error in the report that say "task terminated unexpectedly, possibly due to power failure or system crash"

This is not the case wh an shutdown vm.

Every crash I have to reconnect to the vdr center as well.

In addition although the time is correct on the vdr server and the time zone as well, reports are 4hr ahead, in addition to the very slow shutdown proccess of the vdr server.

Thanks

Vmware Data Recovery + Esxi4

ccesario — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:19:13 GMT

Hello,

Please, I would like if VDR support Vsphere/Esxi4 hosts or only Vsphere/Esx4 hosts?

I did several searches and I don't found any documentation about this :/.

My idea is acquire Essential Plus License and usage with my actula esxi hosts..

Thanks

Carlos

DR and linked clones / VDI?

HenrikElm — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:13:00 GMT

I know that VDI and vSphere does not yet work together. But when it does, we would like to be able to back up VDI clients. How would DR work with linked clones regarding backup and restore?

Another one.. Are there any issues with DR and thin provisioning?

/Henrik

my scheduled tasks disappear in Virtual Center

itguybob — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:21:03 GMT

Here's the situation:

2 production ESX 4 servers

2 backup ESX4 servers

We have the standard edition of Vcenter. I have the production servers scheduled to clone all VM's to the first backup box every morning.

I setup another set of scheduled tasks to clone the "clones" from the first backup box to the other backup box.

I have a powershell script to delete the old clones from the backup boxes just before the new cloning takes place.

The problem is, when the clones are deleted from the two backup servers, my scheduled tasks for the second backup box are all automatically deleted. In other words, when you have a scheduled task to clone, and the source of that clone job is deleted, the scheduled task goes with it.

Does anyone know how to either prevent the tasks from being deleted, or another way around this problem?

I realize that I could just setup the tasks to clone form the broduction box instead of the backup box, but do to performance worries I would prefer not to.

TSM 6.1 experience ?

LarsLiljeroth — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:32:43 GMT

Hi

We have got an offer from IBM to upgrade our TSM to version 6.1. They want to replace our
vRanger snapshot backup with the one build into TSM. The release notes says that it can do
incremental snapshot backup and file level restore from the snapshot.

Has anyone any experience with these features ?

// Lars Liljeroth

Mirroring the Backup Database

pcmanning — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:50:51 GMT

So have played about with VDR and so far uncovered enough to probably let it replace vRanger. lack of file restore is a minor pain, but you can redirect the restores to another VM anyways.

So question is: Is it safe to mirror the backup database (we could us Continuous Access on our HP EVA's) or back it up from a CIFS volume (with say, MS Data Protection Manager). Clearly there could be issues if the VDR applianace is running at the time, but I guess if the backup/mirror occurs when no backups are running all should be safe?

basically how robust is the dedupe store?

Paul

Email reporting for VDR

billz0r — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:47:05 GMT

After much hassle I eventually got DR working but how do you setup email reporting so you know if a job was successful ot not?

According to the DR FAQ PDF on page 3 (http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware_Data_Recovery_FAQ_4.21.09.pdf) you can.

After all what's the point of backing up if it never tells any1 if it was successful.

import backups to VDR

kot99 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:18:17 GMT

Hello!

How can i import smb directory with backuped VMs to a newly installed VDR appliance ???

Thanks.

VDR: Unable to view/edit backup job during integrity check

Mirko Huth — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:29:54 GMT

The wizard displays the following error at the "Destination" screen:

"The destination is not available for a backup job. Please ensure that the destination has been formatted and has sufficient free space."

I thought i could use the never ending time during integrity check to add some machines to my backup...

DR: Question regarding the backup selection view

Mirko Huth — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:08:12 GMT

Hi !

In the backup selection windows of the data recovery backup job all vm's are listed. Below them there are the virtual harddisk.

Now my question. Below some of my VM's there are the vmdk's and an additional item that looks like the VM itself. What is it? Is it just a display bug?

I have attached a screenshot of two machines with this additional item.

Thanks!

Regards

Mirko

DR: How to limit concurrent backup tasks

Mirko Huth — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:47:46 GMT

Hi!

Is there a way to limit the concurrent tasks within data recovery? In my situation it always starts eight tasks concurrently.

I would like to reduce the amount of tasks to have a lower workload from the backup tasks. Is there a way to configure this?

Thanks!

Regards

Mirko

Backupexec and GRT performance

EBK — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:56:05 GMT

Does GRT with Backupexec 12.5 slow down the backup job? Has anyone noticed any difference when enabled and disabled?

Thanks

Confusing Performance

HaM1 — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:52:38 GMT

Hi,

i have done a backup job with VmwareDR and this is my log(i have translated it from my germany client):

22.05.2009 17:14:31: Task successfull finished
22.05.2009 17:14:31: Finished: 5 files, KB
22.05.2009 17:14:31: Transferrate: 7785 MB/minute
22.05.2009 17:14:31: Duration: 00:33:43

The backup'ed vmdk was about 25GB in size. If this is backup'ed with a transferrate of 7785MB/minute, it should be finished after

about 4 minutes. Why does is take about 33 minutes to finish? I have started the backup job again with the same results.

Is it a LAN based backup or a SAN based backup. But 7785MB/minute via 100MBit/s LAN is not possible.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sebastian

VMWare Data Recovery vs NetApp's SMVI

dcbundy — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:33:46 GMT

I'm in the planning stages for our new vSphere4/NetApp build-out that should be happening as soon as both the new media and ordered hardware arrives. I've been tasked with designing the backup solution/policy that will go along with this build. Here's some background...

-2 vSphere4 hosts (Dell blades) 1GB and 10GB ethernet connections

-NetApp storage on the backend -- NFS or iSCSI has yet to be determined, as it's all part of the storage/backup policy I'm coming up with.

Since I haven't had the luxury of any hands on experience, unlike many of the products beta testers, with vSphere4 yet (or SMVI as our current build-out is small, and uses agent-based backup to TSM)+ I'm curious as to what experience anyone has had, specifically with SMVI on vSphere4 and how that compares, to VMWare Data Recovery? +

*Is one hands-down better than the other? (if yes, why?) *

I learn (and make my best decisions) when I can put software through the paces, hands on, etc. and will most certainly be doing that with this build out, but until Christmas in May arrives, I'm limited to white papers.....

Any insight is greatly appreciated....

Chrys Bundy

Sr. Infrastructure Specialist

National Geographic Society, Washington, DC

cbundy .at. ngs .dot. org

Question on VMFS and VCB Proxy

trussell — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:18:36 GMT

Hello Everyone,

This is probably a dumb question (more of a curiousity), but I don't have a development system to play on.

I'm using ESX 3.5 and VC 2.5 (2 ESX servers sharing 3 VMFS volumes on the SAN) and I'm configuring VCB (SAN, Netbackup, Stand alone, physical proxy server). I believe I've done everything but make my 3 VMFS volumes visible to the VCB proxy server. What will windows do when it see's the 3 new disks? Will disk manager ask me to initialize them? Is there anything I don't want to do with them within windows?

Forgive me.

Thanks,

Timmr72