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BE2012 Off Host Backup and Dell Equallogic

ASKumar
Level 2

We have the following

Backup Server with BE2012 + Dell TL4000 (with 2x LTO5 drives)

Hyper-V Cluster (4 nodes) all running Windows 2008 R2

Dell Equallogic 6100X

There are about 8 VM’s all running Windows 2008 R2, except two which are windows 2003.

Host integration tools V4.5 is installed on all the 5 servers and all the VM’s (except the windows 2003 as HIT V4.5 is not supported)

BE2012 agents are installed on all the physical servers and VM's

In backup exec the job is pointing to the cluster and only the “Microsoft Hyper-V HA Virtual Machines” is selected.

Under advanced open file – I have tried the following

Use Snapshot technology – Microsoft VSS copy server – System – use Microsoft software shadow copy provider

  •  This runs fine – but the CSV is put into redirected mode

Use Snapshot technology – Microsoft VSS copy server – Hardware – use technology provided by hardware manufacturer

  • Fails with the error V-79-10000-11225 – VSS snapshot technology that you selected does not support snap technology for this volume

Use Snapshot technology – Microsoft VSS copy server – System – use Microsoft software shadow copy provider – Advanced Disk-based backup enabled for Offhost backup

  • Fails with the same error as above along with “ADBO: Offhost backup initialization failure”

Use Snapshot technology – Microsoft VSS copy server – Hardware – use technology provided by hardware manufacturer

  • Fails with the same error

 

Anyone have any ideas where we are going wrong... Sadly Dell’s web site is lacking in BE2012 specific information. What I found related to BE2010 and did not appear to point to the correct configuration.

Ideally we are looking for the ability to run two jobs on the two tape drives concurrently, If we try to do it now with the CSV in redirected mode the 2nd jobs fails saying a backup is in progress.

6 REPLIES 6

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Ideally we are looking for the ability to run two jobs on the two tape drives concurrently, If we try to do it now with the CSV in redirected mode the 2nd jobs fails saying a backup is in progress.

You can have 2 backups jobs running to 2 tape drives concurrently (will require the LEO license here), however the backup job's source data cannot be same. If you are trying to achieve backup of a single client/server to multiple tape drives concurrently, then this feature (multistreaming) is supported by Netbackup & not Backup Exec

When running a backup of CSV, the volume will be in redirected mode (as expected). Do you mean to say this mode is not cleared post the completion of the backup ?

Do ensure options such as Checkpoint Restart, offhost, synthetic backups are disabled in the backup job properties. (ADBO is not supported for Hyper-V)

 

 

ASKumar
Level 2

@VJware - Many thanks for your response.

 

Yes we have the LEO license and just to clarify I am able to run two jobs concurrently (one of the cluster and another of another physical server).

 

This is to clarify (as well as double check my understanding)

 

There are four nodes (which I am able to back up) – but this does not backup the VM’s running on the cluster.

So I have a single job backing up the VMs (8 of them) running at the cluster (selected them from the “Microsoft Hyper-V HA Virtual Machine” and unselected all the rest) – this runs fine except it puts the CSV into redirected mode.

 

I cannot setup two jobs as the second one fails due the CSV is in redirected mode and already being backuped by the first job

 

Putting it into redirected mode does not allow me to run two jobs of 4 VM’s each – this is not multistreaming – just splitting the job so they are backuping different VM’s.

 

I understood from Dell Equallogic guys (they have a tech paper on how to do it in BE 2010 but nothing on BE 2012) that I should be able to run a backup of the cluster with the Equallogic tools installed on the physical servers – which will create a hardware level snapshot and make that available to the backup server thus releasing the cluster to normal operation in a few mins (or seconds) rather than the normal way which puts the CSV into redirected mode for the full duration of the backup.

 

Hope that makes sense,

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

As a workaround, post the completion of the first backup using software vss, you may run the following cmdlet via Powershell to unlock the redirected access mode thus allowing for the next backup to run ~

Test-ClusterResourceFailure "name of csv"

Lastly, under AOFO, select the option - Automatically choose snapshot technology & run the backup. Hardware VSS gets the first priority & check if the backup completes successfully or not.

ASKumar
Level 2

Thanks again for the quick reply...

 

Just trying to understand this:

 

“As a workaround, post the completion of the first backup using software vss, you may run the following cmdlet via Powershell to unlock the redirected access mode thus allowing for the next backup to run ~”

 

So are you saying run the first job on the cluster using software VSS, let it finish and then run the 2nd job on the cluster with the cmdlet via powershell?

 

Please pardon my ignorance – I lost the point of that – because as soon as the 1st job is finished the redirection on the CSV is removed as expected. So yes I can chain two jobs together that way. But What I am trying to do is run two jobs concurrently

1st job backing up VMs 1 to 4 – target tape drive 1

2nd job backing up VM’s 5 to 8 – target tape drive 2

 

Both jobs start at the same time.

thanks

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Using software vss, concurrent jobs with Backup Exec will not be possible. Hence, the recommendation for the jobs to run one after the other. Have a look @ this KB - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH138919  for why

Using hardware vss can overcome this limiatation, provided the hardware vss supports parallel backups. As you mentioned earlier, when explictly choosing hardware vss doesn't work, an alternative would be to set the automatic choose option from AOFO & check. If this doesn't work either, would recommend you to log a formal support case.

ASKumar
Level 2

Yes it is the hardware VSS that I am struggling to get working. Perhaps I do need to get a case opened up with either Symantec or dell themselves.