Forum Discussion

ScotH's avatar
ScotH
Level 4
15 years ago

How get Backup Exec to delete snapshots?

With Advanced Open File option turned on in Backup Exec, snapshots are created for VMWare virtual machines.  These snapshots are not deleted after the backup completes, however.  How can I get these snapshots to automatically delete?

2010
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
BESR 2010
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    15 years ago

    They should be automatically deleted when the backup completes.  But It looks like you have a few snapshots from before Backup Exec started running backups.  Can you remove all the snapshots then try running another backup to see if it deletes the new one?
  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    15 years ago

    They should be automatically deleted when the backup completes.  But It looks like you have a few snapshots from before Backup Exec started running backups.  Can you remove all the snapshots then try running another backup to see if it deletes the new one?
  • ScotH's avatar
    ScotH
    Level 4
    15 years ago
    I'll delete the snapshots during off-hours. 

    To confirm how the backup of the virtual machine should work...the snapshot is created on the virtual host, then backed up to tape, then deleted from the host? 
  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    15 years ago

    Yes BE should remove the snapshots when the backup finishes - however if something happens to the Backup Exec services on the media server before it can remove the snapshot then it won't remove it

    So if you check each day to see if snapshorts are left behind - if they are then check the event logs on the media server for faulting applications.


  • Ben_L_'s avatar
    Ben_L_
    Level 6
    15 years ago
    Correct, that is how it should work.

    Also, are you on BE 2010 R2 yet?  If not I'd suggest upgrading, there are a lot of fixes for the VMware agent in R2