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Backup Exec 2014 - Virtual Machines backup configuration (on VMWare)

Alfred81
Level 2

Dear Colleagues,

I am new in the forum but I use Backup Exec since the version 2010.

I am trying to configure Backup Exec 2014 and start backing up virtual machines running on a vSphere environment 5.0.
Actually I have 1 CASO server and 1 MMS server

We have both Windows and Linux VMs, and our goal is to:

1) have VMs backup and restore
2) have file-level backup and restore
3) perform a full backup and incremental on them

i am facing a couple of issue:
-(a) Linux servers are listed under the MMS as "storage device", and I have to delete them from the MMS's console to fix this issue (?)
- (b) Sometime the backups I take on Windows VMs are not listed under "backup sets" even if i see "backed up" and i cannot neither restore directly from the backup job (right click on the backup job and select "restore backup sets created by this job" i receive the message "this job does not have any backup sets to restore from"
-(c) I cannot find the right combination of flags to have Windows server GRT enabled from VMs backup (I see "you cannot perform GRT-enabled restore of application data from this backup")
-(d) i cannot understand why standard Windows virtual machine (no AD\Exchange\SQL) are not supported for incremental (while in some test with BE2012 it worked) and i see "incremental\\differential backup methods are not supported for this VM. The backup job failed"

I thank you all in advance for any hint \ advise you can give me on the matters
 

2 REPLIES 2

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

a) Have you installed the Remote Media Agent for Linux (RMAL) license or are you using DeDupe ?

b) From where are you viewing the "Backup Sets" tab ? Is it from the Storage or from the VM host or VM itself ?

c) Setup atleast 3 backup jobs.

One backup job with GRT options disabled. Typically only for Linux VMs.

One for Windows VMs with File & Folder AND Application GRT enabled. (For VMs which are running an application such as AD, Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint and which fulfil the requirement for Application GRT)

One for Windows VMs with File & Folder GRT but no Application GRT enabled

d) There can be multiple reasons as to why incremental/differential backups were not performed for a VM. Would recommend to first ensure if Change Block Tracking (CBT) is enabled or not. If enabled for a problematic VM, then try resetting the CBT.

Alfred81
Level 2

a) we are using deduplication, and we have a dedicated storage of 40TB (and 64GB of memory both on CASO and on the MMS server)
 

b) i cannot see the backup-set from any location: from the vCenter server used to take the VM backup, from the protected server (but this shoul be correct, right?), neither from the storage itself (i see other VMs and legacy backup data-set)

c) on Linux servers i already have set 2 jobs: 1 for the VMs without GRT and 1 legacy (with agent on board for each single server)
    on Windows servers we don't need to restore applications such as Exchange\SQL\Shp, only single files and eventually AD, so at the moment i am performing test on only one server whit
  "Use backup Exec GRT to enable the restore of individual files amd folders from virtual machine" without any additional option (AD, Exchange, SQL, Shp are not selected) on VMWare box i have
 "Backup using Microsoft VSS shapshot provider" and "Use VSS Copy backup" the transport method is NBD only

d) ctkEnabled set as true also on the single disks (scsi0:0 and 0:1)

thank you for answering