VM Backup Policy ignoring Exclude Data Disk selection

As a starting point, when there are issues with exclusions the bpbkar logs should be looked at.

So created this debugging directory on the NetBackup Vmware Host.

Increase debugging verbose level to 5 and rerun.

Compare those clients that work with those that don't. See if any tell tale signs.

Thanks Stuart, 

I set the bpbkar log on the VMWare host and this is attached

The LONBFBVMHOME1 server has two drives, C: (60Gb allocated) and D: (500Gb allocated) this backup works fine, the VM backup covers 20.86Gb of the C drive only and we then backup 265Gb via a different policy on the D drive

The LONBFBVMSHARED1 server has two drives: C: (60Gb allocated) and E: (1Tb allocated) this backup failes to differentiate between the two drives, we already backup 894Gb of the E drive via a seperate policy.

I terminated the SHARED1 backup after it reached approx 300Gb.

Got the VM team to look at the server setup again and the one thing that is different between the two servers is that on the HOME1 server and also all the others that work the C drive is set as a Basic disk where as the ones that are failing have their C dives set as Dynamic.

I assume that with a dynamic drive this will not be seen as a seperate disk by Netbackup as it will be part of the "whole" disk and as such the policy will fail to differentiate between the System disk and the Data disk so therefore will create the snap and vmdk of the complete server?

Kev

Hi Kevin,

I think this thread might have your solution:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backup-vm-windows-dynamic-disks

Direct link to the technotes:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH179969
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH141059

Next, straight from the Netbackup VMware guide:
To exclude a boot disk or data disk, note the following requirements:
- The virtual machine must have more than one disk.
- NetBackup must be able to identify the boot disk.
- The boot disk must not be part of a managed volume (Windows LDM or Linux LVM).
  The boot disk must be fully contained on a single disk.

The boot disk must include the following (even if you are excluding a data disk):
- The boot partition.
- The system directory (Windows system directory or Linux boot directory).
- The full swap file (Windows pagefile.sys or Linux swap partition).

If Exclude data disks is enabled in a policy, that policy does not back up the data disks if:
- If the virtual machine has only one disk, such as C,
  the C drive is backed up. It is not excluded.
- If the virtual machine's boot disk is an independent disk, and the virtual
  machine has a separate data disk, the boot disk is backed up.
  The restored boot disk however contains no data, because NetBackup cannot back up
  the data in an independent disk.

Lastly, one other thing I would add, is that GPT partitions inside a VM (basic or dynamic disk doesn't matter) is not supported. Currently, only the traditional MBR partitions are supported when you do a VMware policy type backup.
You can check to see if a partition is GPT or MBR by using the DISKPART> list disk command.

RLeon
 

Many thanks RLeon,

having spoken to our VM team they state that we are only using MBR partitions in the environment, we are also running ESX 4.1 update 2 I have asked them to run the DISKPART command to verify the settings.

Kev 

Had a report back from the VM team and it looks like any of the servers that have their C dives set as dynamic along with the data drives are not excluding the data disks, so my question now is why do dynamic disks have the issue, is there something that we are missing........

Some more info on Dynamic Disks from vmware docs

Because you cannot revert to a snapshot with dynamic disks, quiesced snapshots are not used when backing up dynamic disks.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-4-esx-vcenter/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.vmadmin.doc_41/vsp_vm_guide/managing_virtual_machines/c_about_snapshots.html

RLeon, I did read that bit but lacked the understanding of how these disks are created within VM, your explanation clears that up completley now, thanks.

Stuart, that is interesting, I will pass that on to the VM team for their comments.

Kev