VMware/AVVI Backup - How to undo Symantec's work!

[LozBC]

Hi,

I am currently using Backup Exec 2012 SP4 with NBD mode to backup some VMware VM's through vCenter.

I have a few instances where the job has crashed. Clicking Cancel does not appear to do anything so I have to reboot the entire Backup Exec server or restart all the Backup Exec services...

When the server comes up I then am able to stop the recovery job from running and all is fine.

I then have to go into VMware and remove the snapshot that Symantec has created on the VM.

I am looking at using SAN Transport mode and during testing have noticed that in addition to the creation of a snapshot by Symantec there is also a VMware task called Assign Disk Lease and Release Disk Lease.

My question is in the event of a backup job failing and me being unable to cancel it, how do I manually clear these down from vCenter in the event of a Backup Exec server reboot?

[Colin_Weaver]

You'd probably have to check with Vmware but that might be just an getting assign to snapshot statement, which means if the snapshot is forcably removed then you would not need to release.

We have never had anyone ask about that and to the best of my knowledge never had a problem caused by failure to "Release Disk Lease" although there have been reported issue related to snapshots being orphaned and left behind (performance etc)

[Artegic]

There's also an option for Backup Exec to clean up orphaned snapshots automatically, see:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH200709

Perhaps that's good enough for you so you don't need to do it manually.