VDR 1.2 - Status: Good or Bad?

[Stevester]

Good Day Everyone,

Well I would like to open up a discussion on VDR 1.2 which was released yesterday? How are the enhancements? I know its quite early (too early to tell now) but i wanted see how everyone's experiences are going.

Thanks

Stevester

[habibalby]

Hello,

So far is really good in my environment, even the Integrity Check smooth with less time with old 140GB VMDK backup destination was used with older version of vDR.

As of now, I have backed up almost 20 VMs. I will add another VMDK desitnation and will test further.

Best Regards,

Hussain Al Sayed

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[wkloss]

For me too. Keep in mind to update everything VDR, ESX, Vcenter & VMwareTools should be matching. Looks faster, the backups and the integrity checks.

Deleting of log-entries now possible.

[Stevester]

Cool!!!!!!!!!!!! Good to hear, but of course the real test will be time. VDR 1.1 started off good but was exposed as more time accumulated. Hopefully everything will turn out great. Please everyone posted.

Thanks

Stevester

[geertn]

• Better logging and status of the active jobs, ability to clear the logs, easy create backup job starting from the overview of VM's.

• I did not upgrade v 1.1, but installed v 1.2 as a new appliance -> my recovery points in my destinations were again available in 1.2...

• Speed : I don't know if it is faster (integrity check on my existing destinations take a lot of time)

• file level recovery : works fine

-> 1 bizar fact : I created my destinations and my backupjobs on Friday and today my jobs were gone (not my credential and destination settings)

-> for the future : still missing are email alerts for the jobs

Regards,

Geert

[vontexx]

We had many Problems with 1.1.

1.2 works fine at the moment, we will see what the future brings.

But what i realy miss, is a full VSS Support (OS and Application). Email Alerts too.

[parkut]

1.2 is working as expected. The more important question is whether this new version resolves the various problems we experienced with 1.1

Since we could never run an appliance longer than 4 weeks before completely failing integrity checks, it will take about 5 weeks to know the answer.

[KiloMike]

After downloading the 1.2 version of VDR I decided to wipe out the 1.1 version and install/manage from scratch. Probably the best thing I could have done from some of the earlier posts.

Bottom line - I'm a fan. Since beginning this new version, I've had absolutely no problems in the backups or the application server. No hangs, no need to run scripts to ensure the service is still active, etc. This version was a long time coming.

KM

[Stevester]

Well that's good to hear KiloMike, but its going to take time before it can be confirmed that VDR 1.2 is truly a stable verison. I believe from the above discussion, at least 5 weeks need to pass to determine valid intergrity checks. The same pattern was seen for VDR 1.1 until time exposed it, but nevertheless, a promising start.

Stevester

[PaulLeclair]

For me, it seems better than 1.1, however I'm still gettinga lot of "Trouble writing to destination volume, error -102 ( I/O error)" and "Trouble writing to destination volume, error -101 ( improper request)" errors when I run more than 3 backups at the same time to a CIFS volume hosted on a 2008 R2 server. Will continue to test, but it's not looking too good for us using VDR still.

[KiloMike]

@Stevester - I should have been more specific with my involvement with VDR v 1.1. I had only been using it for about two weeks and already I was pulling my hair out. I was spending more time on Google researching other folks' problems than I was managing my own environment. I concur - five weeks is a good test of stability. But from what I have experienced - my last two weeks with v 1.2 are a Godsend.

@PaulLeclair - my VM data recovery appliance uses its vmdk from a CIFS share on an EMC storage array. Sounds like the only difference is that your setup is using space hosted by a physical Windows server. I'm assuming you formatted and mounted the space per the VDR Admin Guide. It almost sounds like a file lock issue, but I don't think so. If you have onsite storage, I'd consider a test. Best of luck.

[PaulLeclair]

Perhaps I'm looking at VDR wrong to do what I'm trying to do.

The goal is to try to back up the VMs in our vSphere 4 farm via VDR to disk under a machine that is then backed up to tape and sent off site. Maybe VCB is my better bet over VDR?

I have a 500gb NTFS volume shared out with the correct permissions for the VDR appliance. It seems to be writing correcty if I don't try to run too many backups at one time. If I go over 3, I start having issues.