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Backup VMware vCloud Director VMs with Backup Exec

julmer
Level 3
Partner

Hi there,

has anyone experience with using Backup Exec to backup vCloud Director created VMs?

We installed BE 2010 R3 together with vCloud Director 1.5 in our Lab and never completed a backup.

VMs were Thin Provisioned and some also use Linked Clones. This of course could be a problem but also simple "standalone" VMs force a crash of the beremote.exe on the Media Server.

I think I can say that it is not a configuration error. Backup Exec can backup VMs that were not created using vCloud Director very well.

The Data Recovery Specialist from VMware says it should work:

http://blogs.vmware.com/uptime/2010/09/backing-up-and-restoring-vmware-cloud-director-provisioned-vi...

Any suggestions?

Perhaps we run into the same issue as described here:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH169308 

Is the stack of NetBackup and Backup Exec the same?

Regards
Julian

 

7 REPLIES 7

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi,

 

vCloud Director doesn't show up in the SCL for BE 2010 or BE 2012. The stacks for BE and NBU would be different as well.

I checked that article and the guy states that he used the agent-based backup. He never states if he used the RAWS agent, or the AVVI agent in order to back up the full VM.

Have you tried to back up files in those VMs instead of the VM themselves?

 

Thanks!

Ben_L_
Level 6
Employee

Currently BE does not support vCloud Director or Linked Clones.  I'm trying to find the BE documentation on the both of those to pass along. 

NetBackup and Backup Exec do share some code base, but I can't say at this moment if the issues are exactly the same.

julmer
Level 3
Partner

Hi guys,

thanks for your replies.

VMware always says that vCloud Director is only a kind of workflow engine that runs provisioning jobs on vCenter. So I don't think that BE or any other Backup solution will need to "support" vCD as well.

The only reason would be if Backup Exec would talk to vCD to control backup jobs from the vCloud GUI or set VMs to maintenance mode or do some inventory...

All infrastructure underneath is quite normal VMware vCenter / ESXi.

It is not a problem caused be the naming convention vCloud Director uses (very long paths, file names,...). It must rely on the vmx file configuration. There are some differences (like upper case/lower caser) and of course some additional entries (see attached files)

Backup Exec starts processing snapshots and transfers data but i think at the end of data transfer the beremote.exe on the media servers crashes.

The error code is E0009543 => this is a documented issue but the issue described in the according knowledge base article (permissions in vcenter) is not causing the problem.

Any idea?

Does NetBackup work with vCloud Director?

 

Thanks a lot

Julian

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

I know NetBackup 7.x (7.1 and later ) does work with vCD, though there are certain binaries to be applied

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH127089 Page 17

julmer
Level 3
Partner

So can anybody tell me of BE will support vCD shortly? I think NetBackup is to powerfull for this job ;)

I think about upcoming 2012 V-Ray editions which are made for 100% virtual environments and also for small and medium businesses should support vCD as well.

vCloud Director is not only for big service providers :)

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...sadly there appears to be nothing for this in BE 2012, but I am not sure about the V-Ray edition.

It looks like it's currently only supported with NBU!

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

Not sure if Symantec will tell when they will support certain products. Normally they will just release it when the product is finished and working.

What you can do is post this in the idea section:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/backup-and-archiving/ideas

Symantec may pickup the idea.