According to best practices -
http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdp_510_releasenotes.html
If you back up a virtual machine that uses independent or RDM disks, vSphere Data Protection will not issue an error. vSphere Data Protection will skip backing up the unsupported disks, but the virtual machine backup may appear successful.
Similarly, if you attempt to restore a virtual machine with independent or RDM disks that was backed up with vSphere Data Protection, the restore operation will not succeed."
I have tested this and indeed you can backup, but NOT restore. We have lots of VMs with RDMs so this is proving to be a major issue. We are having to stick with VDR (VMware data recovery) for these VMs.
BUT
according to this
"Q: Is VDP replacing VDR (VMware Data Recovery)?
Yes. VDR is not supported with vSphere 5.1 and higher. VDR is being deprecated, but will be supported as detailed in the VMware Life Cycle Policies."
So what am I do do?
The above issue(s) need clear guidance from VMware.
Any ideas/help from VMware people please...?
I submitted a support request to VMware and here are the responses -
"
In the current release of vDP there is no way to backup individual disks, you need to backup all VMs.
There are references in the communities regarding the workaround you discussed. This method is not referenced in any documentation and the official statement regarding vDP is that individual disk backup is not possible, all disks are included. Ill see if I can get some clarity on this but there is no reference to the workaround in any vmware documentation. This issue is a major criticism we are getting regarding vDP, it is going to be addressed in a future release. The next release is out in June, Ill see if this is resolved in this release."
.....
"The current release of vDP has the same limitations regarding excluding disks from a VM backup. Version 5.1.1 is now released but this only addresses bug fixes.
https://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdp_5110_releasenotes.html
I have submitted a feature request on your behalf and emailed the global technical lead for vDP on this issue. We are working towards including this in a future release but for now a backup of VMs with RDMs or independent disks is not possible."
...
"vDR is being depreciated as such vDR is not supported on eSXi 5.1 and any future release. It is supported on ESX/ESXi 4.x and 5.0 and will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future."
HTH
Thanks for an info.
I've just found I can't restore VM with indenpendent swap disk 😞 Successfull backups with no error messages are strange behaviour of VDP. Recovery in vSphere Replication luckily works.
Hi,
Thanks for that. I am also looking at vSphere replication to do the job instead of VDP for some VMs.
Regards