Advice for SQL DIFF backup failure

[DrRandy]

Hi,

I'm a DBA.  We support a few SQL Servers in ESX.  Most of our SQL Servers are physical.  We have SQL Server jobs that do full, diff, and log database backups.  Recently the SQL Server jobs that do diff database backups started failing in the VMs.  The Server team is using VEEAM to do backups.  It appears that SQL Server is aware of the VEEAM system backup.  Unfortunately, SQL Server detects the out-of-band backup and refuses to perform a diff backup until a new full database backup is done.  However, we want the base full backup for the diff or transaction log backups to be in the system backup.

The server team does the backup once a night.  Their interest is to have a fully consistent system backup.  It is also rather nice that they can restore to any version the prior 30 days.  However, DBA wants to be able to restore any database to a point in time to the original server or to another server.

Does DBA need to now use VEAM to do diff and transaction log backups?  Can a restore using VEEAM backup be for just one database to the same server or to another server?  Is there an option to have the VEEAM backup be COPY_ONLY so that it does not affect the SQL Server backup jobs?  What is the most flexible and reliable?  I only know a little about VEEAM and VSS.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Randy

[DSTAVERT]

I would direct this question to VEEAM.

[DrRandy]

Can you direct me to where I do this.  I do not see a VEEAM specific forum.  Thanks.   

[DSTAVERT]

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=2

[DrRandy]

Thank you.  

[DSTAVERT]

Very welcome. The Veeam people are very responsive.

[Josh26]

Randy In Marin wrote:

Can you direct me to where I do this.  I do not see a VEEAM specific forum.  Thanks.  

I think we should clarify - Veeam is a third party. The difficulty you are having is not related to VMware, but another product that is in use in your environment.

[DrRandy]

Thanks for the clarification.  I was thinking that VEEAM was from VMWare.  I have a response from a post on the VEEAM forum.  There is an option that we can try.  I hope it works. 

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6853#p28070

[Josh26]

A lot of people think this - I'm not sure why.

Customers tell me about problems they have with "VMware" and on delving deeper, they are talking about an unrelated product from a different company.

[DrRandy]

Probably because it sounds like it should be a name you should have used - VeeaMWare.  :smileyhappy:

[DrRandy]

FYI: Veeam support was able to verify the issue.  The fix should be in the next release.