VM backup with dedup completed with exception

[PoohZai]

hi

I faced a problem backup VM with dedup.

Error: Client-side deduplication is enabled for this job, but it could not be used.

I checked with http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH77683&actp=search&viewlocale=en_U...

but still cannot.

any idea?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

You cannot use client-side dedup when you use the AVVI agent.  See this document

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO21767

in particular

Use client-side deduplication for all deduplication jobs, except in the following situations:

• You are backing up a non-Windows platform, such as Linux, NetWare, or NAS servers (NetApp, EMC, etc.). Client-side deduplication is not available on non-Windows platforms.

• The remote computer has limited or no resources available to dedicate to the deduplication process during backup jobs.

• You want to back up multiple servers in the same job.

• Your environment contains multi-server configurations of Microsoft SharePoint servers, Microsoft Exchange 2010 DAG servers, and Symantec Enterprise Vault servers.

• You want to back up virtual machines with the Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure.

[Sush---]

Are you taking backups of your VMs using Backup Exec VmWare Agent?

If yes then for VM backups using VMWare agent Client side dedupe can not be used and will not work. Only Media server side Dedupe will work.

 The reason for this is that for Client side Dedupe we need Remote Agent installed on client side. In VMWare backups since we backup from ESX server or VCenter, we do not install any agent on these mchines and so Client side Dedupe is not possible.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[PoohZai]

thanks for reply,

OK. it can't work with client side dedup but working fine with media server side dedup.

however if didn't install remote agent. backup exec will show another error where GRT cannot be use.

After installed, backup with media server side dedup completed successfully without any exception.

thank you.

[Colin_Weaver]

phk has provided the correct answer below but just to fill in the details against how Sush wrote his answer.

For a Remote Agent / Standard backup the key processing is done by the remoet agent on the remote server (hence client side dedup can be enabled as the agent on the cleint is responsible for the work)

For AVVI without GRT all the processing is performed by the remote agent service on the media server  hence you are not addressing any process on the client

For AVVI with GRT enabled we use the remote agent inside the client just to gather metadata for what is inside the VM (just so we can then locate that data during a GRT restore), all the processing to actually transfer the data for the backup is still done by the remote agent on the media server, hence we still don't use a process on the client to allow client side dedup.