VMDKs at root of Datastore (vmWare ESXI 5.0/5.1)

[PKN_GN]

Hello everybody,

we have a problem to backup VMs in our Cloud. We are using Citrix CloudPlatform running on vmWare ESXI 5.0/5.1 hypervisor. The major problem is, that Citrix CloudPlatform store some linked VMDKs of the VM on the root of the datastore.

Our Backup Exec 2012 Media Server can not backup the VMs.

This is the Error:

Sichern- VMVCB::\\10.90.2.11\VCGuestVm\(DC)REALCLOUD(DC)\vm\i-3-331-VMV-79-57344-38290 - Ein Versuch zum Überprüfen eines Datenspeicherpfads schlug fehl.

The linked parent of the disk '[RCBLNSAN02-VMCLP-Vol01] ROOT-331-381-000001.vmdk' is at the root of the datastore.

I know that Backup Exec can not backup VMDKs which are stored in the root. It is impossible to move the VMDKs into subfolder because Citrix CloudPlatform crashes.

The other option is to make a backup directly from the LUN. We have HP LeftHands P4500.

So is their a way to make backups directly of the LUNs?

Thanks and best regards
 

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

I am pretty confident we do not support a VMware environment  managed by this "Citrix Cloud Platform" and if it has issues that forces the vmdk's into the root then there will be little we can do.

As the LUN is almost certainly a datastore you cannot access the data any other way than with the vStorage API - which from a BE point of view means our VMware agent. (which you already know cannot handle it)

All you can do with BE is install our remote agent inside the VMs and do traditional agent backups instead of virtual agent backups.

[Colin_Weaver]

I just did some checking - we do not currently support vCloud Director or Linked Clones  for backups with Backup Exec as apparently VMware does not curerently provide vStorage APIs for their backups.

Now when I did some searching on Citrix Cloud Platform, this appears to tie into vCloud Director which would then confirm the lack of support for such a configuration.

[cruisen]

Hi,

i thougt that it was not supported anyway on 5.1

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/quality-wins-every-time-vsphere-51-support-update

[Colin_Weaver]

True but whilst we are about to support ESX 5.1, we have no current plans to support vCloud Director, so almost certainly have no current plans to support this Citrix Cloud system either as such the more important of the things that is stopping this customer is the cloud setup.