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perez_cmz's avatar
perez_cmz
Level 6
12 years ago
Solved

SLP's and VMware type backup policies

As the first operation in the SLP, is "Backup" or "Snapshot" recommended with VMware policies ?

  • All my VMware policies have the SLP with the first operation as Backup  and then Duplication.. and i have not set Snapshot in any of the SLP that i use for Vmware policy type.. its been running fine..

     

     i just did the small test... 

    created the SLP with snaphost operation and tried to add it to the VMware policy type.. and endeded with the below error, policy validation is failing with the error.

    "SLP expects snapshots but backup policy does not create them with SLP management enabled"

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO73050

     

    so i believe it should be Backup in SLP  for the VMware policy as i have been using it from past few months.

  • Backup.

    I believe Snapshot is used for Replication Director.

  • You need to select Snapshot as first option for VMware policies.

    If you read through Chapter 14 of NBU Admin Guide I, you will see that all policies that have snapshot enabled need to have snapshot in SLP as well.

  • All my VMware policies have the SLP with the first operation as Backup  and then Duplication.. and i have not set Snapshot in any of the SLP that i use for Vmware policy type.. its been running fine..

     

     i just did the small test... 

    created the SLP with snaphost operation and tried to add it to the VMware policy type.. and endeded with the below error, policy validation is failing with the error.

    "SLP expects snapshots but backup policy does not create them with SLP management enabled"

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO73050

     

    so i believe it should be Backup in SLP  for the VMware policy as i have been using it from past few months.

  • Strange... I remember a customer at my previous company logged a call with Symantec Support about failed VMware backups (cannot remember exact details).

    Support engineer told them to add the Snapshot step. This was for NBU 7.1.

    As per Nagalla's excellent post - TEST.

    Use the method that is working for you.

  • I haven't seen any configuration in VMware backup using "snapshot" operation first, most are "backup". From my understanding, the "snapshot" seems valid when it comes to Replicaton Director, but again, I am not sure about that.

    I have tried to setup "snapshot" before using a typical Windows host, but it's not working even during the setup - I guess it requires some sort of special snapshot technology at the backend level such as SnapMirror & SnapVault for Replication Director.

    Extract from admin guide:

    "A Snapshot operation creates a point-in-time, read-only, disk-based copy of a client volume. NetBackup provides several types of snapshots, depending on the device where the snapshot occurs.
     
    Use a Snapshot operation as the first operation in a storage lifecycle policy for a NetBackup Replication Director configuration."
  • To add to this thread, also our env is setup using Backup as first option , then duplication in SLP on our vm backup policy.