Backup Exec 2010 R2 + VMware vSphere 4.1 + differential backup = not working

[Airtimes]

Hi,

I have searched for existing forum content to answer this question but wasn't able to find anything that matched the scenario I am experiencing.

The environment is:

Backup Exec 2010 R2 (v13.0 Rev 4164 64bit) with patches SP1, HF150096,HF144101,HF148347,HF153090,HF147674,HF155520 and HF154003 installed.  AVVI licences. VMware vSphere 4.1 - (plus current patches) (ESXi 4.1) and vCenter 4.1.

What I am attempting to achieve:

Differential backups of ESXi guests (Windows guests).

What I have done:

Installed agent on vSphere server, installed agent on ESXi guests.
Setup policy (this is the only way to do differential VMware backups according to Backup Exec).
Setup templates in the policy for full and differential backups.
Selection List selects the VMware guests through the 'VMware vCenter and ESX Servers' node on the selection tree.  Viewing the Selection List shows it specified as VMVCB:\\VCENTER\VCGuestVM\DATACENTER\vm\GUESTNAME\*.* /SUBDIR .
Carefully ensured that the differential template specifies the backup as a differential under both the 'General' and 'VMware' sections.

What I am experiencing:

Backup Exec carries out the full backup as expected.  BUT... the differential backup is the same as a full backup.  On inspection the differential jobs created by the policy specify the backup type as 'Full' in the VMware section of the job properties.

I have experimented creating new policies and noticed that even though the differential template in the policy specifies differential in the General and VMware properties, the summary screen of the create policy action lists the differential job type as 'Full' under the VMware details.

HELP

Can anyone assist me in getting a differential level backup to work with Backup Exec and VMware?  Thank you very much in advance.
 

[ZeRoC00L]

Please make sure CBT (Counter block tracking is enabled on your VMs) which will read the changed block in case of inc/Diff backups.
See here to enable it:

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/what-is-changed-block-tracking-in-vsphe...

The VM hardware level needs to be in level 7 (if you upgraded from ESX3.x it needs to be upgraded).

[Airtimes]

Yes, ctkEnabled = "TRUE" is in the vmx files and also associated with each scsi entry.  The -ctk.vmdk files are confirmed to exist.

The guest are running hardware level 7.

[ZeRoC00L]

Seems to be that more people have the same issue.

See these topics:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/thin-nfs-vmdk-backs-thick-sort-does-not-happen-vmfs

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/backing-thin-vms

The last one did a copy of the VM, a little dramatic, but it resolved their issue.
If you have a valid support contract, I suggest to contact Symantec and let them investigate this issue.

[Colin_Weaver]

Have you edited the registry key as specified in the notes for Hotfix 147674

Http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH147674

[Airtimes]

Yes, the registry has been edited as per the instructions for HF147674.

To me this looks like a bug in how policies create backup jobs.

When I create a new policy which contains full and differential backup templates, the summary screen shown just at the end of the process before the policy is actually created, shows the VMware backup type for the differential job as 'Full'.  So I am not surprised the differential jobs are doing full backups.  This is of course after carefully ensuring the backup type of the differential template is set to Differential in both the 'General' and 'VMware' sections of the template's properties.

[Colin_Weaver]

I suspect that the Job Summary Screen has it's own cosmetic bug and it not diplaying the correct job details - even thiugh teh correct details is being set. As such you probabaly have another issue.

Do you have any of the following that might affect the volumes in that VM:

• A disk is ‘Thick’.
• A cloned thick disk is created.
• Disks are formatted using the Long Format setting .
• Disks are created with vmkfstools using the ‘eagerzeroedthick’ format option.
• A VMDK is stored on storage that does not support VMFS, such as NFS or iSCSI devices.