Got open ticket w/ Symantec, but will post here too: Exchange 2007 w/ BackupExec 2010

[KevinS]

Physical 2003 R2 SP2 Media Server w/ Backup Exec 2010 and latest Hotfixes connected iscsi to backup storage array that emulates tape library
Virtual Exchange 2007 on 2008 Enterprise 64 bit w/ Backup Exec 2010 agent w/ latest hotfixes

Exchange is housed on a NetApp SAN w/ iscsi luns and also has Snap Manager for Exchange running. It runs once a day outside the backup exec schedule.

Here are the errors i get in the job:

V-79-57344-65298 - The Exchange Store service is not responding. Backup set canceled.
V-79-57344-34108 - An unexpected error occurred when cleaning up snapshot volumes. Confirm that all snapped volumes are correctly resynchronized with the original volumes.

GRT and non GRT jobs result in the same errors, and on the exchange server the agent crashes:

Faulting application beremote.exe, version 13.0.2896.0, time stamp 0x4b184ba1, faulting module bedsshadow.dll, version 13.0.2896.106, time stamp 0x4b6483a1, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00000000000d2f7a, process id 0x1f64, application start time 0x01caf0b774c37d70.

Any assistance would be great, if second tier support makes any progress ill update this post.

thanks


 

 

[sksujeet]

The problem i think is the snap manager as after taking the snapshot of the exchange when backup exec takes the snapshot it still thinks that old snapshot is not deleted. Can you disable the snap manager or uninstall it and try the backup of exchange again

[teiva-boy]

I'm going to concur that snap manager is the likely culprit.  Often snaps need to be scheduled to not happen during backup windows.

[Colin_Weaver]

If the Snap manager is using VSS and we are using VSS - then it is possible that existing snaps still existing from Snap Manager would cause BE to have a problem. I also would not expect us to have done any interoperability testing of Snap Manager with RAWS (we might have done some with Snap Manager and the NDMP Option)

Are you expecting BE to need the snapshotss created by Snap Manager to support your Exchange backups? As this is  possibly only needed to make a consistent Backup of Exchange when using the NDMP Option (which backs up the LUN as a single file)

If using our Remote Agent for Windows we request out own VSS operations against Exchange from within the Operating System that is running Exchange and at this point in time the NetApp LUN is seen as a locally attached disk on the server.

[KevinS]

AOFO: Started for resource: "\\email.domain.com\Microsoft Information Store\Third Storage Group". Advanced Open File Option used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
The following volumes are dependent on resource: "G:" "H:" .
The snapshot provider used by VSS for volume G: - Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider (Version 6. 2. 0. 4519).
The snapshot provider used by VSS for volume H: - Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider (Version 6. 2. 0. 4519).
Network control connection is established between 10.14.1.26:3805 <--> 10.8.1.39:10000
Network data connection is established between    10.14.1.26:3807 <--> 10.8.1.39:3894

When i run "vssadmin list providers"

Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
   Provider type: System
   Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
   Version: 1.0.0.7

Provider name: 'Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider'
   Provider type: Hardware
   Provider Id: {ddd3d232-a96f-4ac5-8f7b-250fd91fd102}
   Version: 6. 2. 0. 4519C:\Users\administrator.CABARRUSHEALTH>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

[KevinS]

Snap Drive created the "Data ONTOP VSS Hardware Provider"

I removed snap drive and snap manager for exchange and rebooted and now i can backup exchange 2007 w/ GRT enabled to virtual tape library.

From what i have read there are no known conflicts between backup exec agent for exchange and the Netapp products, so its a bummer i am having this issue.

I have read that VMWare Tools has a VSS program too, and we also run Snap Manager for Virtual Infastructure, so im not sure if that could be causing the issue?

Any ideas, are welcome..

thanks

[teiva-boy]

Dont use the VMware tools VSS provider for anything unless it's just a plain OS with no apps on it.

It's not a full VSS implementation, thus it will not quiesce and commit logs for a database, nor can it truncate logs.  All it can do is quiesce the filesystem, not applications.

[Valutus]

I have exactly the same issue, snapmanager for Exchange and BE 2010 with 2 differant customers.  The Exchange backup is only successful if you copletely disable the snapshot schedule and run an NT backup to clear the VSS writers.  We have had several tickets logged with NetApp and Symantec in an attempt to resolve the issue, and we are no closer to a solution. 

Symantec's solution recommendation was to "disable snapmanger for Exchange"  Disabling a technology that allows up to the second replication and restoration of the entire Exchange store within seconds, because Backup Exec is not compatible is quite frankly a joke.  I'm aware of several other sites that are using Snapmanager for Exchange + Commvault or Arcserv that don't experience any issues.

If Symantec can't get their act together they are going to lose a lot of business as we are going to be forced to recommend that our customers utlise alternate backup solutions.

I hope you find a solution to the issue.

[Domenico75]

Any VSS Requestor which uses VSS Software provider will break once a VSS Hardware Provider is installed. That is because by Design, when Micrososft VSS service will query the list of VSS providers, it will pick a hardware provider if one exists. Data Ontap VSS Hardware Provider is one of them. It comes with SnapDrive and it is used when SME (SnapManager for Exchange) is requesting the VSS backup.
If Backup Exec uses the VSS Software Provider to make consistent snapshots of the LUN's, then it is expected that VSS will attempt to use the Hardware provider for making snapshot. If the requestor (Backup Exec in this case) is not meant to work with a hardware provider, the backup will fail. NTBackup and even Symantec's NetBackuphave worked around this problem by finding a way (modifying the registry) to force VSS to use the VSS software provider insead.

[Terry_Sposato]

Any concrete workarounds from Symantec to fix this issue??
I am getting the same errors with Exchange and SharePoint, both using Snap manager products and both have the Windows agent for BE 2010 installed....