How to Backup VMs Directly from SAN with Backup Exec 2010?

[Pseudomix]

Hello,

We have a 4.1 vCenter structure with Backup Exec 2010 and his VMware Agent in a SAN environement.

All is working as we want except for the route used to access the SAN.

The backup don't use the SAN but hte Network to backup the VMs.

In Backup Exec we have tried to Select only SAN method but the Job doesn't Work.

The access to the Datastores is good because we can Open VMs and Datastores from VCB.

So where we are wrong? Have we forget something.

Thanks!

[Pseudomix]

Anyone ?

Is there a possibility to use the FC or ISCSI SAN connection to backup VMs without VCB in Backup Exec 2010?

Thanks

[Cyberfed27]

I did a poor mans solution for this using a Fibre SAN and BEXEC 2010.

I simply created a large lun on my Backup Exec server (physical server) (which is also my vCenter server). I exported out the VM's I wanted to backup to tape from vCenter to the backup server itself. Then I just do a simple file backup of that SAN drive in BEXEC.

Since the connection is all fiber its blazing fast. For me I don't need to backup to tape VM's except after major changes so this works for me.

Again...poor (or lazy??) man's solution but it gives me copies of my VMs in multiple physically different mediums.

[alvinswim]

there is, I am actually working on it as we speak.. in esx 4.1 backup exec talks to vcenter and then tries to mount the san vol via iscsi network ( in our case) and then backs it up

i haven't got it working yet.. but I'm sure I'll have it done in the next few hours

[idle-jam]

in the version 4.1, VCB has being replaced by VADP (vstorage api for data protection) in which it is in built and you do no need to install any proxy. All you need is the Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure; I believe you're near there and should be reporting back with your success soon.

The documentation is pretty extensive and you will not go round from there. Good Luck!

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

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[Pseudomix]

We have the Agent for ESX and it's opérating correctly.

We have 2 paths to the SAN (1 iSCSI & 1 FC) and the Backup Server always use le LAN to Backup and not the Fiber Channel or iSCSI.

We have tried to force the agent to use the SAN but no success.

For now we use the LAN and it's enough to our backups.

If you have a solution to configure the job to use the SAN link i take your solution.

Thanks for your answers.

[Lakshmi Gayatri Kundem]

I am sure you would have checked this already, but just wanted to confirm the setup.

Is the BackupExec Server installed on a physical machine able to see all the SAN luns ?

[AndreTheGiant]

Is the BackupExec Server installed on a physical machine able to see all the SAN luns ?

Yes, if is connected to the SAN and configured for the right zoning / masking.

Andre

[Lakshmi Gayatri Kundem]

> Yes, if is connected to the SAN and configured for the right zoning / masking.

Ok, Thanks.

1. Are you able to backup any physical machine (with the backup Exec agent) on SAN using the SAN mode only?

2. Is diskpart, automount marked as disable on the Backup Server?

[AndreTheGiant]

1. To use the SAN mode you need a physical backup server.

Otherwise (for a VM backup server) the hot-add mode can be used.

2.You have to disable it, or you can loose your VMFS datastore...

Andre

[Pseudomix]

Yes the connection is OK because we can use the old VCB directly from SAN to extract VMs.

The server is a physical server with à FC card.

[Lakshmi Gayatri Kundem]

Could you take backup of any other physical machine on the SAN using the SAN mode?

Does Backup Exec logs tell you something?

[Pseudomix]

We don't have any other physical machine but the ESXs.

BackupExec tells us when we force to use SAN that he can't find the VM files with error: e0009585.

Anyway we have to use the FC card within another server.

The production needs to be ready since yesterday so we can't do supplemental tests.

Thank you very much for your assisstance. If i have any other infos i will fill this thread.

[gucluozbek]

We had the same issue.Here is our solution maybe it can help.This problem is because bes server don't have permission to see storage with FC port.

So we made a map to the storage from our backup exec server.Ant with that i could see the lun at disk management.After a restart i could take the backup with only SAN option.

[habibalby]

Hello,

I'm not trying to offend you or something like that.. But BackupExec is reall suck and pain in the b*tt. I have it in our enviornment and it always giving problems and most of the time it doesn't remove the snapshop once the backup finish after is taking ages to finish.

When I log a call to Symantech, thier support is useless:) and most of the time they don't know thier product well.

Since last couple of months I change the VMs backup plan and I rely only on the vDR. vDR  destinations are NFS/Windows Shares and i utlize the BackupExec to backup the VMs as Files only.

I use BackupExec for file level backup only.

[idle-jam]

we used to be like you with symante, we keep escalating the support everyday and eventually it get resolved.

[habibalby]

You are lucky then:)