Quiescing snapshot fails after tools upgrade 10.0.6 to 10.1.7

[TCBCBen]

Hi All,

So I just spent the last few weeks putting some new hosts in to production and moved from ESXI 6.0U2 to 6.5U1 (Both Cisco UCS Custom) at the same time as part of that upgrade I took the time to upgrade vmware tools as well which were on 10.0.6 to 10.1.7

Since the upgrade quiescing snapshots fail meaning my Arcserve backups fail, tools always installed as full/complete.

I even went as far as to install 10.2.1 to no avail, so after various service restarts, powered off snaps first before quiescing, restarting VS service etc etc they still fail (writers always stable before snap), moved back to 10.0.6 and TADA! all working again.

Are we saying here I'm stuck on 10.0.6? forever!?!

Logged support call and awaiting first contact, seems to be mostly on my big data file servers (2-6TB) mix of 2008R2, 2012, 2012R2 and 2016 boxes.

We do have a nimble array so I'm contemplating moving from VMFS datastores long term over to VVols so I can offload the backups on to the array, a lot of work due to dodgy vmware tools though hey!

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Ben

[daphnissov]

Have you looked into the tools log to see why it's failing? Although I know this doesn't help you, VMware tools has a long history of providing broken and, at best, unstable quiescence. If it even has worked in the past it has either done so partially or caused CBT issues or take your pick. By far the best option is to not use them at all, but you can only safely do so if your backup application provides their own. This is what Veeam decided to do years ago after noticing the same trend, and since then I've had zero issues with it. I don't know if Arcserve has this option, but you might see if they do, otherwise you may take a look at Veeam. In addition, they do have direct Nimble support for storage integration, and it works awesome.