VM Backup Failing - unable to quiesce an application?

[Ben_Blackmore1]

Hi,

We've just setup a new VMware vShphere 5 environment with several VMs running CItrix & Oracle. None of the VMs are in production use at the moment as we are testing, and baselining. We've just tried to perform a backup of the main Oracle database server (60GB C: & 200GB D:), just a standard VM backup, no granular restore, and got a backup failure, with the message:

"Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe000959a - An attempt to take a snapshot of a virtual machine failed because it was unable to quiesce an application.
Final error category: Resource Errors"

I've searched the forums & support web site, but most article are only relivant to ESX v3.5, not v5, or suggest a solution by installing VMware tools, but this is already installed on the VM.

The setup is:

• Physical Backup Exec server running Backup Exec 2010 R2 SP2
• 2x ESXi v5 hosts
• 1x Dell EqualLogic PS6100 SAN hosting the datastore
• Physical vCenter 5 server
• Oracle server Windows 2003 Standard R2 SP2 running BE Agent & VMWare tools

We also have a vSphere 4.1 environment being backuped up by BE 2010 R2, and this works, with all the same Backup settings, so I'm unsure why this is failing!

Any help anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks

Ben

[Sush---]

BE 2010 R2 does not support VMware vShphere 5.

The support for VMware vShphere 5 is from BE 2010 R3 with SP2.

Here is the Software Compatibility List (SCL) which gives this information.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH137682 : Backup Exec 2010|2010 R2|2010 R3 Software (SCL)

So my recommendation would be to first upgrade to BE 2010 R3 with SP2 and then try the backups.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[Colin_Weaver]

I am not 100% sure Oracle can be supported in an AVVI backup either - do any non-Oracle VMs do the same thing?

[Ben_Blackmore1]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

My mistake, on the details in the original post, it should read:

• Physical Backup Exec server running Backup Exec 2010 R3 SP2

It's the older server backing up vSphere 4.1 that is R2.

Also, I just noticed that the backup job that I manually ran last night was successful, however the same job which was scheduled to run at 11pm failed with the error detailed above. Even though these 2 jobs were exactly the same, from a policy, but the successful one I just selected 'run now' the other ran as scheduled! (See attached pic)

I will perform a test of one of the other servers on the vSphere 5 infrastructure. We have some Citrix XenApp servers that aren't being used.

Ben

[Ben_Blackmore1]

Hi,

Just tried to perform a backup of the XenApp server (also unused currently) and it failed after 3 minutes 4 seconds. Same error:

Job ended: 28 June 2012 at 13:03:13
Completed status: Failed
Final error: 0xe000959a - An attempt to take a snapshot of a virtual machine failed because it was unable to quiesce an application.
Final error category: Resource Errors

For additional information regarding this error refer to link V-79-57344-38298
 

Ben

[Colin_Weaver]

Hmm you have XenApp inside a VM?  - well I am 100% confideent we have not tested that - making it unsupported. (Do you even know if XenApp is VSS compliant?)

The fact the the Oracle one may somestimes work could be a timing issue against something else slowing down the quiesce request and then running into a timeout. Again still not sure what we test with Oracle inside of a VM.

[Ben_Blackmore1]

Thanks for the reply again.

I'm actually currently on a XenApp 6.5 training course and I've asked the course instructor about XenApp running in a VM and being backed up, and he says it shouldn't have any problems, as Citrix support it in XenServer, and he has backed up XenApp running ina XenServer VM with Backup Exec.

Could it have anything to do with the transport mode - we currently use SAN on the vSphere 4.1 infrastructure - but I remember Backup Exec 2010 R2 had issues when we initially set it up. I will try an NBD backup, however I think this runs vastly slower when performing the backup than when SAN mode does.

[Ben_Blackmore1]

Hi,

NBD mode was successful, for both the Citrix & Oracle VM servers, however the speed was much much slower, only 400mb/min, when I would expect around 1,300mb/min (vSphere 4.1 with BE 2010 R2 achieves this speed) if I were using SAN transport mode.

Why is SAN transport failing? The setup is:

• Dell PowerEdge R510 running Backup Exec 2010 R3 on Windows 2008 R2 x64
• SAN is a Dell EqualLogic PS6100x
• Switch is a Cisco Catalyst 3560X

Any help would be much appreciated

Ben