VMware GRT for Exchange

[KeirL]

Hi

I'm trying to get GRT for Exchange working within a VMware backup and it's just seems to be totalling ignoring the setting.

I have a 2 node DAG and formally had the DAG configuration working fine with GRT enabled. However we had an issue with a DAG node and moved away from the DAG config and this may be the issue. The users that were on the database hosted by the failed DAG node were moved to the database that is on the surviving DAG node and the other node simply turned off. The database that was active on the failed node is now not mounted anywhere and the exchange team want to move away from a DAG to a single server.

I may have read somewhere that Backup Exec will ignore GRT for databases if one or more DB's aren't mounted? Could this be the issue as I'm not getting any errors and the backup jobs are showing 100% success..... the GRT option is selected in the 'virtual machines' section of the backup job but when I try to restore I get no options to restore either entire databases or individual items. I can restore individual files from the VMware backup.

Secondly (and I guess this is related to the first issue) is that the exchange logs aren't being truncated. I can understand this as the exchange isn't being backed up so I think a resolution to the first problem will resolve the second.

As the formally configured DAG backups worked ok I'm assuming that all permissions are good as is the RAWS agent on the exchange vm.

thanks in advance

KL

[VJware]

If the application is dsitributed across VMs (such as an Exchange DAG), then application GRT using the VMware agent is not supported. The only supported method is to back up the Exchange VMs as if they are physical machines using the Remote Agent for windows.

[Colin_Weaver · Accepted solution]

I am not sure that simply turning off the DAG node full makes Exchange think it no longer has a DAG configuration, as such Backup Exec is probably still seeing the configuration as a DAG (albeit a single nmode DAG) perhaps you should check with Microsoft about the correct method to decomission a DAG.

Also we have had issues in the past with database technologies (SQL, EXCHANGE etc) being dismounted or offline but still configured in the systems concerned. I can't confirm the exact symptoms however so am not sure this would be part of your problem, however it is certainly not recommended to have databases dismounted, they need to be unregistered or detached so that they are no longer part of the configuration.

[KeirL]

Many thanks both

The plan is to tidy up the Exchange DAG so that the DAG config is cleanly removed and the Exchange server will just exist as a 'non-DAG' single server. Hopefully this will allow the VMware backup of the Exchange server to function as expected with GRT enabled.

Secondly, it would appear that VMware backups of an SQL server with a single offline database will cause Backup Exec GRT to ignore an entire instance. We detached the database and then the GRT worked fine.Not sure if this is just VMware GRT or if an agent backup would also behave in the same way.