NetBackup for VMware 7.5

[lucaruz]

We are testing Netbackup for VMware 7.5 .

Upon restoring full VMs the restored VMDKs are unformatted, making the VM unusable. The VMDK is there but it's blank, what might be causing this?

Restore Method: SAN, alternate location, original disk format, original VM hardware level.

Thanks

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

Ok - just a guess but are your VMWare backup hosts (Media Servers) Windows 2008 by any chance?

If so go to disk management and you will see the LUNS for the ESX Datastores show as off line.

You can back up in this state but not restore (even though it says it was successful)

Right click the far left of the disk and select online (DO NOT INITIALIZE OR ANYTHING ELSE!!!)

You restore should them work

As a test restore one via the LAN as you are now - that should be slow but successful

Hope this helps

[Will_Restore]

• For using SAN, make sure that datastore LUNs are accessible to the VMware Backup Host.
• SAN transport is usually the best choice for backups when running on a physical VMware Backup Host. However, it is disabled inside virtual machines, so use HotAdd instead on a virtual VMware Backup Host.
• SAN transport is not always the best choice for restores. It offers the best performance on thick disks, but the worst performance on thin disks, because of the way vStorage APIs work. For thin disk restore, LAN(NBD) is faster.
• For SAN restores, disk size should be a multiple of the underlying VMFS block size, otherwise the write to the last fraction of a disk will fail. For example, if virtual disk has a 1MB block size and the datastore is 16.3MB large, the last 0.3MB will not get written. The workaround in this case would be to use NBD for restores of such Virtual Machines.
• When using SAN transport or hot-add mode on a Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 VMware Backup Host, make sure to set:
  •  SAN policy to onlineAll
  •  SAN disk as read-only, except during restores

URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH183072

[lucaruz]

Mark, thanks, 

Yes the Media Server is 2008 and I have noticed before testing that the disks showed OFFLINE (I am using native MPIO btw). I did bring them online before the test, but I'll try to use NBD as you suggest and keep you posted.

Thanks

[lucaruz]

Restores through NBD work as expected. The media server is using MPIO to access the LUNs. The disks show as Online and Offline (the redundant path to device). Now I need to find a workaround. Is anyone using something other than native MPIO (Powerpath or similar) ?

Thanks

[Mark_Solutions]

MPIO software is usually tied to yoru SAN itself other than native Windows 2008 MPIO

Can you change the MPIO policy it ises so that both are online?

Right click the disk and select Properties - should have a MPIO section for the policy being used (maybe weighted paths will work?)

Check it all out first of course - look after those disks!!

[lucaruz]

I'll try that and post the results. No worries Mark, I set up a test environment for this