3PAR Hardware VSS - CLI Tools or WSAPI for Hardware VSS

[bazzla]

We are using Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 3 to backup Virtual Machines on our Hyper-V Cluster VMs are stored on CSVs from 3PAR VVOLs.
This is currently all working using Hardware VSS Provider, however we have an issue with the 3PAR CLI using an outdated version of Java JRE.

Hyper-V Cluster hosts are 2012 R2
The array OS and CLI tools are at version 3.2.2 MU6
Hardware VSS Provider is 2.7.2

We have to get rid of this outdated JRE and really want to avoid resorting to using Software VSS if at all possible!

It has been suggested to us that if we upgrade Veeam to v10 we may no longer need to use the CLI tools to manage snapshots and will instead be able to use the 3PAR Web Service API.
Is anyone able to confirm that this is the case?

Any pointers as to anything that we would need to do to get this up and running would also be extremely useful (as far as I'm aware we do not have the WSAPI enabled currently)

Thanks in advance …

[Gostev]

This would make some sense if you had VMware, where we integrate directly with 3PAR through its native API... but in case of Hyper-V, this makes no sense whatsoever - as there is simply no storage snapshot integration in Veeam, no matter what version. We just use Microsoft VSS framework.

So if Veeam is your only concern, then I'd say you can safely remove that CLI, as Veeam never required or used it to start with.

Thanks!

[Andreas Neufert]

Please let me add. If it is really Hyper-V (VVOLs???) ... You need to check the requirements for the Hardware VSS provider from HPE that you use and what their requirements are.
We tell the Host to create a VSS hardware snapshot through a specific selected HPE provider. Then the storage system performs the snapshot.
Our Proxy (or Veeam Server itself) has the storage connection and the same HPE hardware VSS provider and we get through the same Hardware VSS framework access to the snapshot data.
Again we as Veeam do not speak with the storage it is Windows VSS through the HPE VSS hardware provider.

If it is VMware, please let me know.

[bazzla]

The question arose from someone suggesting that the latest version of Veeam might be able to work directly with the array, to help us address the outdated Java issue.
However now I recall the way the VSS stack works between the host and the guest and any VSS aware apps running within the guest … Veeam only uses the VSS providers to manage these snapshots with Hyper-V.

In our case this is using the 3PAR VSS provider, the user guide for the the installation of the latest version states the following:

Before installing HPE 3PAR VSS Provider for Microsoft Windows, the host server must have the 3PARCLI installed and configured.

So this means that to continue to use the hardware VSS method we must have the 3PAR CLI tools installed.

The only option we have to continue to use Veeam to back these up without the 3PAR CLI tools being installed is to use Microsoft's Software VSS provider.

Just wondering … Does anyone think it's a pretty poor show on HPE's part that the latest version of the CLI tools (3.3.1 MU5 released in June 2020) is supplied with a Java 8 Update 92 JRE released in 2016?

[Andreas Neufert]

It is best to contact HPE regarding JAVA updates for the HPE own CLI tool.

Yes Software Sanpshots are the other option to process the VMs. This would bring extra load to the hosts that process the backups then, but overall of our Hyper-V customer base it is a very stable processing method compared with Hardware VSS provider processing.

We speak directly with the 3PAR system in case of VMware Storage Snapshot processing. Maybe there the comment came from.