Backing up VMWare Virtual Machines

[DaveWill]

Hi All,

I have a number of VMWare Virtual machines that need to be backed up nightly.  I have a job setup that targets the vSphere center machine and whiel it appears to back up I always get this message against each GUEST:

Backup Exec failed to connect to virtual machine '\(DC)name of domain(DC)\vm\SageServer' and was una...

Any ideas on how to get this to work so that I can do a file level restore if needed?

[CraigV]

Hi,

Check the TN out below:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH155335

That should point you in the right direction.

Thanks!

[Mange_24S · Accepted solution]

In the job options, do you have the GRT checkbox for files and/or the different checkboxes selected for application GRT such as SQL, Active Directory, Exchange?

If you have all 5 checkboxes selected for GRT, BE will look for applications it may be able to GRT backups for and try to catalog those resources. To be able to do app GRT you have to have firstly Vmware Tools and then Backup Exec remote agent installed in the virtual machine, this to collect some metadata for the applications.

If you dont need to have the application GRT when backing up your virtual machines and if it will be sufficient to be able to restore files, you can deselect all application GRT checkboxes but keep the GRT for files selected. BE Remote Agent is not a requirement when doing the file level GRT from VM's.

I always install firstly Vmware Tools, reboot, install BE Remote Agent, reboot for my virtual machines I protect using BE with the vstorage API. When doing that the BE remote agent replaces vmware tools VSS in the VM and the snapshot of the VM will most often work as supposed to. Also, if app GRT is needed you have everything in place to support it (in theory).