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Backup of VMware VMs with configured RDMs

Bembel
Level 3

We are running VMware 5 hosting a two-node Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 FailoverCluster (SQL Server 2008 R2) using three physical compatibility mode RAW LUNs from our fibre channel SAN. While we backup SQL data with BackupExec 2012 SP1 SQL Agent, we would also like to backup the VMs without their RDMs. What I have read so far is that BackupExec 2012 would just skip the RDMs since they do not support snapshots, but I always get a VMware error message like this even if the VM is powered off:

Virtual machine is configured to use a device that prevents the snapshot operation: Device '' is a SCSI controller engaged in bus-sharing.

We also tried to exclude the RDMs in the backup set - which is not supported by BackupExec - but anyway I get this error message.

Is there a supported/valid scenario where we can backup the VMs using BackupExec VMware Infrastructure Agent?

Thanks in advance!

1 REPLY 1

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

The only way is to do a traditional agent backup.
The AVVI agent includes the licenses to install the BE agent in all you VMs. So licensing should be no issue.