NetBackup & Hyper-V - Restores

[SYMAJ]

I have a Hyper-V cluster consisting of 6 x W2K12R2 nodes.  I have installed the NBU 7603 client on each of the nodes and backup to a 2603 appliance is working well.  Hyper-V integration services are installed on each of the nodes.

Restore, both full VM and individual file (GRT), is all working well.  When I try and restore a full VM to a different node in the cluster, or to a different Hyper-V server altogether, my job fails with errors relating to Hyper-V snapshots, then socket write failures and finally a 2821 Hyper-V Policy Restore Error.

When I look at the application event logs on the Hyper-V server where I am trying to restore to I see VSS errors as follows:

Event 8194, VSS

Volume Shadow Copy Service Error.  Unexpected error querying for the IVssWriterCallback Interface.  Access is Denied.

I am initiating the restore from my Remote Admin Console, not the Hyper-V node. 

I am specifying the second radio button on the Hyper-V restore screen, 'restore to a different location on the same server or an alternate server', and then I have to enter a path for the restored files.  I cannot see any examples of the syntax of the path to be entered - what format should this be in ?

Why is the restore looking for VSS Snapshots ??

In summary, I can backup OK, I can restore OK to the same Hyper-V node but have this problem when re-directing the full VM restore to an alternate node.

Any advices welcome.

AJ

[INT_RND]

A windows backup is a VSS snapshot. The first thing I would recommend is to ensure that the user account performing the restore has permissions to the file system and also Hyper-V admin permissions. The user in this case is the user that the BPCD (Netbackup client service) process is running as. Log in to the node that you are trying to restore to and check what that user is. 

"This is often caused by incorrect security settings in either the writer or requestor process."

"If you try to restore files while the NetBackup Client Service is logged on as the
Local System account, the restore fails. The Administrator
account allows NetBackup to write to the directories on the virtual machine to which
the data is restored."

TECHNOTE:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH207196&profileURL=https%3A%2F%2Fs...

Next you should read through the prerequisites on page 16 of the Hyper-V admin guide:

http://kbdownload.symantec.com/resources/sites/BUSINESS/content/live/DOCUMENTATION/6000/DOC6460/en_U...

Then check out the the troubleshooting section on page 59.

[SYMAJ]

I was using the NBU service account which has full rights - that wasn't the problem.

The problem turned out to be different levels of Hyper-V / Windows on the two clusters in question.  Whilst both were W2K12R2, one was at a higher service pack level than the other.  I could restore from the lower to the higher, but not from the higher to the lower.  It took a lot of testing to find this - but once I understood what the issue was all was fine.  We will now bring both clusters to the same SP to avoid this issue.

Regarding the syntax for the path (alternate location restore) I simply used a standard format and the files were places in that location (i.e. G:\VM-Data).

AJ