Backup Exec 2012 Media server on VM Machine

[Sajid_Siddiqui]

Hi,

In our infrastructure we have 3 ESX servers with Vmotion and i also installed BE 2012 Media server on one of the ESX machine in which i installed SAS card for Autoloader. Now When i successfully installed BE Media server on one of the VM machine and successfully configure the Autoloader on BE. But when i run inventory it is getting offline and below error is coming in event viewer

Backup Exec Alert: Storage Error

(Server: "BACKUPSERVER") The drive hardware is offline.

Please confirm that the drive hardware is powered on and properly cabled.

Q1. Now let me know the reason of this error ? and how to resolve this?

Q2. Is this recommend to install media server on a VM on production environemnt?

Q3. As you know SAS card only installed on one of the ESX server and as per Vmotion works BE server could be move on another ESX servers as well so obviuosly backup would be fail in that case ?

Regards,

Sajid

[Colin_Weaver]

We do not support library or tape drive access if Backup Exec is installed inside a Virtual Server.

USB passthrough disk access may also have problems.

As such recommend you build a physical server to run Backup Exec.

Note: If you have an iSCSI library instead of SCSI, Fiber Channel or SAS then it is possible this might be supported as it is the hardware passthrough that has not been tested.

[T35216]

Although unsupported you could try passing the SAS controller to the virtual machine so the Windows operating system on the guest vm handles the controller.  Please see this article from vmware

[VJware]

Here is a detailed KB - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH130609

[Colin_Weaver]

When reading the article provided by VJware, make sure you read the information abouth it being an Alternative Configuration.

This basically means if you have a problem, for us to support it, you have to prove to us that you would have the same problem with a fully supported environment  As such in your case you would need to prove to us that a Physical media server with the same SAS card and tape device has the same problem before we will be able to support you - hence unsupported and my original recommendation of use a Physical media server still stands.

[Vasilis_Peppas]

I would agree with Colin. Firstly it is unsupported. Secondly I have tried to do the same thing  with various configurations. 8 out of 10 times I had problems with the drive. My recomendation is the same as Colins. If you want to backup to tape the backup server must be physical. Otherwise you will keep having problems and no one will be able to help you on this. The scsi passthrough that Vmware recomends for this solution does not work correctly, The time you will spend troubleshooting will outweigh the cost of getting a physical server for the job.