Backing up Hyper-V virtual servers..
Hi, I think I'm confusing myself.I'm usingSymantec Backup Exec 2010 R3. I have one Microsoft Win 2008 R2 host server with 3 virtual servers running, which I have the virtual BE agent installed. What I'm unsure of is this: In BE, under the host server I see all three VM's and they are checked for backup. However..I also see the VM in the resource list, basically shows as a machine running the agent. My confusion/question is - do I need to back up both? do I backup the VM's under Virtual Machines on the host server AND the individual servers too? need input please, Dee1.4KViews4likes6CommentsSystem Recovery 2013 Server Edition vs Small Business Edition?
Hi! On our good old Windows XP machines for backup and recovery in our small business we used Symantec's Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image. Now we are switching to Windows 8.1 and will also add a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials (the new Microsoft Small Business Server). Because Microsoft's built-in free backup cannot be configured with advanced options and does not seem to be very reliable we are now looking for a new and hopefully better small business (paid) solution. What we actually need is an imaging solution with backup tasks that can be targeted at lokal disks as well as network shares and USB disks attached to the server for offsite rotation. Automatic nightly backups through wake on LAN or BIOS wake up timer are needed, so the backup solution should be also able to turn off the PCs after backup. Unfortunately, it turns out that there are not any reliable solutions out there in 2014! We tested Acronis business products which turned out to have nice features but are very unreliable and unusable in the end. We tested ARCserve which is ok but cannot be configured much, it actually offers only a single backup task and does not have Win 8.1 support, although it claims to be certified for this OS already - they wanted to send me some internal beta patches but we did not accept this. And so finally we came to System Recovery 2013 which was actually not easy to find between all the other solutions on the market, maybe it is the lack of marketing information available... So we finally tested SSR 2013 SP2 on our Win 8.1 desktops and it seems to work fine - better than the other solutions. There are not many changes compared to Norton Ghost but it does its job, can be configured with advanced options and that's what we need. Now the problem with Symantec System Recovery 2013 is that there is too few information on this product and there is nobody to ask. You want to buy a product and there is no info - really annoying! In the key features you read about Win 8.1 / Server 2012 R2 support (and it seems to be available through SP2) but nobody seems to care to update this info in the system requirements on Symantec's website. Does not sound very promising for a business product. The situation is even worse when looking for information about the Server editions of SSR. There is a Server Edition and a Small Business Server Edition. But what is the difference? Can they backup Hyper-V virtual machines? From the host? From the guest? Is Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials supported in the SBS edition? The Essentials Server is actually Microsoft's new small business server so it should... I requested a callback from Symantec here in Germany but nobody seems to care. It is also still unclear how many licenses I need. In the new Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Microsoft allows to install the OS on the physical host + on one free Hyper-V server VM. Is this Hyper-V VM also covered by the SSR Small Business Server Edition license? Do I need any additional agents if I need to backup from the physical server AND from whithin the virtual Hyper-V server (file level recovery is needed)? How much will it finally cost? I don't find any docs especially for the server editions and I don't see any clear Hyper-V licensing statements. Again, very disappointing for a business product. But maybe someone here can provide more info to help us in our decision? Thanks in advance. AnguelSolved2.1KViews3likes16CommentsLiveStream Q&A: Virtualization, Appliance or Software – Where do backups fit?
Location: Sign up at http://buex.ec/Spiceheads Time: Wed, 22 May, 2013 -11:00-12:00EDT On Wednesday 22 May at 10.00 a.m. CDT, thanks to the fine folks atSpiceworks, Backup Exec is hosting a LiveStream Q&A:Virtualization, Appliance or Software – Where do Backups Fit?.Things are a little different this time around. This year we are happy to have have 2 power users of Backup Exec Tim Gunsteens– Manager, Logistics and Technology atCitrus County Supervisor of ElectionsCitrus County sits in a low-lying area on the Gulf Coast—prime hurricane country—so Tim must make sure that all systems, particularly the proprietary voter registration application, can recover quickly after a natural disaster. Nathan Streb– Systems Administrator –NAC Solutions The challenge for Nathan was to improve business continuity, so he began virtualizing NAC’s servers in late 2011. Within 18 months, five racks holding 30 physical servers shrank to 1.5 racks holding two VMware ESXi hosts, containing a total of 24 virtual servers running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Linux. Nathan says that, eventually, NAC’s data center will be 100 percent virtual. Charles Butler- Director of Product Management forBackup Exec. Charles has been in this role since 2008. A key component of his work is speaking with customers to understand their daily requirements for Backup Exec. You can find Charles on Twitter at@butlercp. Matt Stephenson– Your Humble Narrator I live in the Spiceworks community doing everything I can to help Spiceheads. I lead a team of 3TechnicalSupportEngineerswho are an official extension of Symantec support. But you are what we need to make this work. Sign up to join us for the live webcast and join in the conversation. We will be taking questions via Spiceworks – use this thread to post questions for the event LiveStream chat – there is a native chat client built into the LiveStream player We want to hear your questions about virtualization, purpose built backup appliances, disaster recovery and even good recipes for jambalaya. Find out what other IT Pros are doing with their backups. Talk directly to Product Management about your expectations. Help us understand more about the job backups occupy in your organization. Take a minute to jump out tohttp://buex.ec/Spiceheadsand sign up. We’ll see you on Wednesday the 22nd. PackMatt73342Views3likes0Commentsvmware backups status code 13
Hello All Vmware backupscontinuouslyget the error13, before getting status code 156 . Also ndmp backups getting status code 13 What can I do for this issue Thank you Jan 19, 2012 10:04:27 AM - requesting resource dc1bckapp01-hcart3-robot-tld-5 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:27 AM - requesting resource xxxxxx_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.PREVMHKTWEB01 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:27 AM - requesting resource bcksrv01.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBS.xxxxxx_ALL_DRV_SNAP Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - granted resource xxxx.NBU_CLIENT.MAXJOBS.xxxxxx Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - granted resource bcksrv01.NBU_POLICY.MAXJOBS.DC1_VMWARE_xxxxxxx_SNAP Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - granted resource 002700 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - granted resource HP.ULTRIUM4-SCSI.022 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - granted resource xxxxx-hcart3-robot-tld-5 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - estimated 0 kbytes needed Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - begin Parent Job Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Start Notify Script Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - started process RUNCMD (pid=14995) Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - ended process 0 (pid=14995) Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Start Notify Script; elapsed time 0:00:00 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Step By Condition Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Step By Condition; elapsed time 0:00:00 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Read File List Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Read File List; elapsed time 0:00:00 Jan 19, 2012 10:04:28 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Create Snapshot Jan 19, 2012 10:03:31 AM - begin Create Snapshot Jan 19, 2012 10:03:32 AM - snapshot backup of client xxxxxx using method VMware Jan 19, 2012 10:04:29 AM - started process bpbrm (pid=6136) Jan 19, 2012 10:05:43 AM - Error bpbrm (pid=6136) socket read failed, An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. (10054) Jan 19, 2012 10:05:44 AM - Error bpbrm (pid=6136) cannot send mail to Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end writing Operation Status: 13 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end Create Snapshot; elapsed time 0:03:13 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Stop On Error Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Stop On Error; elapsed time 0:00:00 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: Delete Snapshot On Exit Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Delete Snapshot On Exit; elapsed time 0:00:00 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - begin Flash Backup Windows: End Notify Script Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - started process RUNCMD (pid=15134) Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - ended process 0 (pid=15134) Operation Status: 0 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: End Notify Script; elapsed time 0:00:00 Operation Status: 13 Jan 19, 2012 10:06:44 AM - end Flash Backup Windows: Create Snapshot; elapsed time 0:02:16 file read failed (13)717Views3likes4CommentsCause of Slow Dedup when Hardware Is Underutilized
I'm sharing for anyone else who has run across a situation where dedup runs far slower than expected, and there are not any actual bottlenecks on any of your hardware. In my situation, I can push more than 500 MB/sec doing a simple file copy of VHD between a hyper-V host and my backup server target. But, backup job rates do not approach that at all. During backups no obvious bottlenecks - net even a single-core CPU bottleneck of dedup is present on source server or target server. The short story is that the Hyper-V agent only keeps a queue depth of 1 outstanding IO reading the source, so source storage array never sees IO pressure that would cause it to scale read-ahead to get better sequential read throughput. A normal file copy keeps queue depth at 4, source storage sees IO pressure, and scales read-ahead so you get much better throughput. My particular storage allows me to manually specify a large read-ahead, which I am now doing in pre-commands as a workaround, and increases job rates more than 50% and prevents cases where some other IO causes inexplicable variations in job rates. Full details are at the link below. http://www.symantec.com/connect/ideas/boost-hyper-v-dedup-job-rates-50-or-more-increasing-agent-read-queue-depth-beyond-1 Frankly I think this should be embarrassing to Symantec - the fact the IO queue depth matters is such a basic storage concept. It's incredibly frustrating to have good hardware completely underutilized because of this software codingidiocy. If they implemented this change, I could probably double or triple my backup rates with some more concurrency. So far, no one at Symantec has cared at all. Anyway, if after investigation you find this could be a possible cause, please thumbs-up my idea at the link above. Maybe others will find forcing higher read-ahead on source storage during backup helps job rates. (BTW you also wantto make sure your VHD access is truly sequential, not fragmented etc). Maybe someone at Symantec pays attention. But, maybe it's time to look at other products.455Views2likes0CommentsBackup Exec 2014 - How do you install the Agent for Hyper-V on a Hyper-V Host?
On page 863 of the BE 2014 admin manual PDF, the "Requirements for using the Agent for Microsoft Hyper-V" are listed. One of the requirements is that this Hyper-V agent be installed on each Hyper-V host. However, I don't see a way to do that. I can't find it on the ISO and I can't see how to do it using push. I have backups running on a couple Hyper-V hosts and they only have the RAWS client installed on these hosts. Is this just old information from a previous version?Solved1.9KViews2likes5CommentsHyper-V VM Incrementals same size as full
Hello, My hyper-v VM incremental backups are the same size as my full backups. The backups are going through the hyper-V host, they have GRT enabled, unticked box to run VM as full if inc is not supported, and verified agent is installed on host and VM's. BE2014 server is 2008r2, and Hyper-V host and VM's are 2008r2. Not really sure what else to try here, and I was told my symantec that this would work properly. I do not want to do agent based backups on these VM's. See attachment for picture of storage. Any suggestions would be appreciated.Solved1.1KViews2likes6CommentsRestoring Active Directory to a different server Backup Exec 2014
Hello All I'm in the process of writing and testing a DR plan, but I have limited resources. I have an 2 Hyper-v Host one with a virtualised domain controller (vDC) and the second one is DR Hyper -V host. I've done GRT backups using the agents of the vDC but I want to restore to system state (with active directory) to the DR VM. Both Hyper-V hosts are on different networks but share the same media server. I'm not worried about hardware conficts as they are VMs or the Authoritative Restore as covered here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc961934.aspx But how do I get this data to the DR VM? Many Thanks Note: The DR VM is an older copy of the vDC with all the services and roles working.Solved4.1KViews2likes13CommentsBackup Exec 2014 SP2 cannot detect vm on Hyper-V
Hi, My BE2014 installation has problems with detecting VMs on Hyper-V host. Environment: Single host: Windows 2012 R2 with Hyper-V role installed. VMs: Windows 2012 R2, vm1 - AD controller, vm2 - application server. I've tried to install BE media server on vm2 and backup host together with vms but both vms weren't detected by BE (cannot install agent on guests and cannot add them to backup selections as Virtual Machinescontainer shows"None"). Later I installedBE media server directlyon host but with exactly the same result. I can backup host (but without vms). I did manually add agents on VMs but it changed nothing. I'm using trial license as I wanted to test BE before buying V-Ray edition license. Here is what I see when I select host: Can anybody have the same issue and know what's going on?Solved2.4KViews2likes7Comments