NetBackup for VMware Question

[fdiaz]

Currently running NBU 7102 and have 1 media server (MS2008) configured for VMware backups. Which has been setup for months but just realized that in disk management I see all the DataStore Disk that were presented to the server. Is this normal behaviour? Is there a way to hide them? 

[teiva-boy · Accepted solution]

This is normal if you want to do SAN based Vmware backups.

There is no way to hide this if you are.

Make sure you have good change control and that permissions are such that no one else can do damage to your server.

[Yasuhisa_Ishika]

Datastore volumes must be presented to VMware Backup Hosts when VM backups are configured with SAN Transfer type.

[fdiaz]

I figured that its a normal behavior but could not find any documentation that stated the obvious. Anyone seen this documented some where? I'm sure Windows is just detecting what is been presented to it but the SAN Admin is freaked out about it...

[Marianne]

Did you run  “diskpart” then  “automount disable” and “automount scrub”?

DIsks should be visible, just not mounted.

[teiva-boy]

As a workaround you can make the LUN's read-only...  but restores will have to be via NBD if you do that...  Much slower RTO

[teiva-boy]

If this wasnt already done, his VMFS volumes wouldn't exist anymore at this point, and we wouldnt be having this discussion...  Or at least more of a "Help, Netbackup broke my VMware environment!"

"automount disable," stops windows from writing a disk signature, which would break VMFS.  

scrub removes cached entries of previous mount points, it's not needed but EXCELLENT house cleaning regardless.  What if you re allocated a previously used LUN, nad windows decided it would retain the same drive info? Again, it's preventitive if anything.

[HEMANPR]

The SAN Drive its allways visible. I think the best option is what Marianne said. Use diskpart

[fdiaz]

Thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions but I think I will be sticking by Teiva-boy's original suggestion and lock down the server so one causes hard to those drives.

[pikachu]

You might want to disable auto scrubs.