CSV clusters not supported in Update 4?

[reni3008]

According to the release notes for Update 4, cluster shared volumes (CSV) clusters "are currently not supported". Really? I am completely wrong or was this supported until and including Update 3a? And what about SMB3 clusters?

[Dima P.]

Hello Renato,

We have two limitations:

Backup of VMs with virtual disks located both on local and shared CSV/SMB storage is not supported due to Hyper-V limitation.

That's for vm backup in Hyper-V.

Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported.

This one is for agent-based backup of Windows failover clusters with CSV.

Please elaborate to which limitation you are referring to? Thanks!

[reni3008]

I meant the second one. So I understand correctly, that this limitation it's only to backup a hyper-v cluster with Veeam Agent. I asked regarding backing up VM's with B&R (not with the agent) where the VM's resides on a hyper-v cluster with SMB3

[Dima P.]

I understand correctly, that this limitation it's only to backup a hyper-v cluster with Veeam Agent

Yes, that's correct.

Backup of VMs with virtual disks located both on local and shared CSV/SMB storage is not supported due to Hyper-V limitation.

Unfortunately this limitation has been out there since the initial release of Hyper-V support, so that's not something new.

[Carloton]

I want to confirm that I 100% understand this limitation correctly. In the release notes it says:

"Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported"

What does the above limitation refer to specifically:

1. You cannot setup standard Veeam Backup and Replication jobs targeting Hyper-V guests that are hosted on a Hyper-V cluster that is using a CSV to host the virtual guest files

OR

2. You cannot backup a virtual HOST using Veeam Agent for windows (not the guests, just a host baremetal backup) if that host is a 'member' of a Hyper-V cluster that is using a CSV to host the virtual guest files

My understanding is that the limitation in Update 4 is scenario 2 I just mentioned. If that is the case, when is this expected to be fixed?

[alex.talmage]

Yep I'd like the same clarification as Carloton. The known issue itself doesn't mention Veeam Agent at all. Today on 9.5 Update 3 we are backing up our Hyper-V hosts in a Failover Cluster using CSV to host the VM guest files just fine, so this will halt our upgrade to Update 4 for sure if this is no longer supported.

[hasoft]

If it helps, I backup every day (and replicate every 30 min) my cluster with guests on CSV (hyper-v cluster w2016 with CSV on Fujitsu Eternus iSCSI) using B&R 9.5 U4 . So I think it's supported for Veeam B&R 9.5 U4.

[Mike Resseler]

@carloton, @alex.talmage
It is still supported.

@hasoft: Thanks for your feedback.

By the way, I'm trying to figure out where the confusion is in the release notes document. Can you let me know which page you found it? I might overlook it (which means I need more coffee )

[nmdange]

It's not clear that the section labeled "Microsoft Windows Server Failover Cluster" is specifically for the Veeam Agent for Windows, and does not apply to Hyper-V clusters backed up by Veeam Backup & Replication.

[Carloton]

@Mike Resseler,

Page 17| Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5.4.2615 | Release Notes

From: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_9_5_ ... tes_rn.pdf

The exact quote from that page is:
"Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported."

So I am a bit confused, if both scenario '1' and '2' that I previously outlined are supported, what exactly does that quote/limitation refer to?

@hasoft

Thanks for the heads up, that is good to know that it appears to work without any errors. However, the statement in the release notes could just mean that if you have ANY issues with it, Veeam will not help you with it. It might still work but they don't "support that configuration" as is sometimes the case with software vendors. That would be quite odd for such a standard use case but that might be what they are trying to say. Either way it's concerning.

@nmdange

Interesting. But even your statement confuses me a bit. I might be completely misunderstanding, but doesn't Veeam Backup & Replication, when you have the correct licenses (as we do), use Veeam Agent for Windows to handle all the baremetal backups of your targeted systems? In this instance those servers being Hyper-V Cluster Hosts that Veeam Agent for Windows backs up. So even if this 'not currently supported' statement applies only to Veeam Agent for Windows, I think it would still be a concern for us when using Veeam Backup & Replication to backup Hyper-V Cluster Hosts. I might be misunderstanding here but that is my current interpretation.

[Dima P.]

Guys,

Please review my comment attentively as there are two limitations completely independent from each other. One is related to Hyper-V support, another to physical server backup. Please do not mix these two limitations.

[nmdange]

Yes I am aware that these are separate limitations, just pointing out to Mike Resseler that section is where the confusion is and could be labeled more clearly

@Carloton. Normally you would not use Veeam Agent for Windows with Hyper-V hosts. In any case, there is nothing new in update 4 regarding what you can or can't do. I'll let someone from Veeam confirm, but I believe the limitations is only that you can't back up data stored on a CSV using the Veeam Agent for Windows, so I suppose you could still do a backup of just the OS of a physical Windows server that's in a cluster. Personally I have never done a baremetal backup of a Hyper-V host since there is really no reason to. All the data is in the VMs on shared storage, so if the host dies, you just reinstall Windows/Hyper-V and add it back into the cluster.

[Carloton]

@Dima P.

I am aware that there are two separate limitations. To be clear, I am not at all concerned about "Backup of VMs with virtual disks located both on local and shared CSV/SMB storage is not supported due to Hyper-V limitation.". No concerns there, completely understand.

I am looking for more clarity on:
"Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported."

If that is the case and it applies to the scenario I described (scenario "2"), when is this expected to be fixed? Unless I am mistaken, Veeam support previously told me that backing up our Hyper-V hosts that are in a CSV based cluster WAS supported (obviously but it would not touch the CSV mapped folder on the C: drive but that was complete fine, expected and desired). So did this change in Update4 or at some other time?

@nmdange

That's an interesting perspective. Totally fine with me if you can't touch the data stored on the CSV using Veeam Agent for Windows; I cleared that with Veeam support previously before we deployed Veeam Agent for Windows (I actually did NOT want it to do that anyhow). I think I have a different perspective on how quick it is to completely stand up a new Hyper-V host but I think that's completely beside the point. Either way, it's what we are currently doing and are planning to continue to do so I am curious to know what the plan is for this bug (IF I am correctly interpreting the limitation).

What I don't quite understand is, if the limitation does NOT apply to the scenario I described, what scenario does it apply to?

[Mike Resseler]

I'm still pretty sure that your #2 is supported. A Hyper-V failover cluster where the VMs reside on a CSV is supported. Just to be sure, I sent a message to some people to absolutely confirm it. I will update this thread once I have that final version (but I think it is more of a misunderstanding and that you need to see what DimaP has written, this only is not supported for Agents). Stay tuned

[alex.talmage]

Hi Mike,

Apologies, but I still think there is confusion about what myself and @carloton are asking for clarification on.

Today on Update3a, we take baremetal backups of Hyper-V hosts using Veeam Agent for Windows. These hosts are part of a failover cluster, and the VMs that they host reside on CSV clusters that the hosts have access to. The known issue implies that backing up a Hyper-V host that is part of a failover cluster with CSV storage is NOT SUPPORTED.

Your comment "but I think it is more of a misunderstanding and that you need to see what DimaP has written, this only is not supported for Agents" directly implies that the above scenario is not supported?

[Carloton]

@Mike Resseler

Interesting but I am still not 100% sure if we are discussing the same issue. It would be great if the scenario I outlined is supported but I then pose the question, if the limitation does NOT apply to the scenario I described (or the same scenario Alex also outlined in his previous message), what scenario does it apply to?

@alex.talmage

I echo exactly what you are saying here, this is the exact scenario we are also concerned about. I am also confused because the documentation implies it is not supported, Dima implied it was not supported above but Mike is saying that it IS supported? Is it possible that they believe we are talking about backing up a Hyper-V cluster as in terms of the guests that reside on the CSV? Or is there some confusion in terminology, does 'Veeam Agent' mean something different than we understand?

[Mike Resseler]

@alex, @carloton,

You are right... I did misunderstood your requirements. I was still thinking that you wanted to protect VM's residing on a CSV with B&R. Which is supported. Since both of you (unless I understood it wrong again ) are talking about protecting the Hyper-V host with a Veeam Agent (is this managed agent or standalone? Just for my info). I will talk to DimaP today for the agent part.

Are you protecting those hosts as a cluster?

[alex.talmage]

Hi Mike,

That's correct. Today on Update3a I'm backing up the Hyper-V Hosts using the managed Veeam Agent for Windows Server. Each host is backed up individually, one after the other and we don't experience any issues. We are doing volume level backup so as to avoid CSV volumes that are assigned a drive letter. We backup C:\, but this appears to skip C:\ClusterStorage where the CSV location appears without any further configuration.

[Carloton]

@Mike Resseler

What Alex described is precisely what we are doing as well. We are using managed Veeam Agents via Veeam Backup and Replication to backup Hyper-V hosts that are part of a cluster that uses a CSV for storage of VM's. Same exact settings as Alex, we target the C: volume as the backup for the host.

Prior to configuring the Veeam Agent based backups of our Hyper-V Hosts we contacted Veeam support and confirmed that backing up Hyper-V hosts would ignore the C:\ClusterStorage directory without an exclusion and that backing up these hosts was supported. That's why I am interested to know if this configuration is not currently supported in Update 4, when will it be fixed/supported?

[Dima P.]

Hi folks,

This limitations is known: agent jobs cannot process CSV and will skip those from processing but you still can protect the OS volume with with agent jobs (keep in mind: you still can use agent jobs to protect Operating System volume without any issues). Since you are talking about Hyper-V hosts with csv storage can you please elaborate why protecting VMs on the CSV storage via Veeam B&R vm backup jobs wont work for you? Thank you in advance!

[Carloton]

@Dima P.

Thanks for the reply. I think we may still be misunderstanding each other. We (customers in this thread) are NOT concerned about protecting VM files on CSV storage via Veeam B&R. I think all of the posters in this thread are using Veeam B&R to backup our Hyper-V, CSV stored VM's without any issues and are not in any way worried about that. We are also not trying to use Veeam Agent to backup VHD files on a CSV or something like that.

What we have been talking about is backing up Hyper-V hosts ONLY, (bare metal, OS backups). It's completely fine if Veeam Agent skips/leaves out C:\ClusterStorage when it completes a baremetal volume backup; that is expected behavior and we have no issue with that. So, if you understand our question now and are saying that backing up Hyper-V hosts is supported in Update 4, I am not sure what the limitation from the update 4 release notes means.

What does this quote from the Veeam documentation for Update 4 mean?

"Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported."

Please give me an example of a scenario that does not work based on this limitation. I am just curious as to what, specifically, this is referring to.

[Dima P.]

"Only failover clusters with shared disks are supported, CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) based clusters are not currently supported."

Veeam Agent for Windows while managed by Veeam B&R can protect any MS Failover cluster expect clusters with CSV storage. Same works for standalone agent deployment (as I stated above - CSV is going to be skipped from processing). Makes sense?

[Carloton]

Veeam Agent for Windows while managed by Veeam B&R can protect any MS Failover cluster expect clusters with CSV storage. Same works for standalone agent deployment (as I stated above - CSV is going to be skipped from processing). Makes sense?

So, there is no change in behavior in Update 4? When backing up the C: drive of Hyper-V hosts, the CSV was skipped for processing prior to update 4. So, this notation in the update notes is just re-stating what was already a limitation/functionality in previous version of the product?

[Mike Resseler]

Yes correct. Sorry that it took a while before we understood each other

[alex.talmage]

This is perfect, thanks for the clarification

[Carloton]

Yep, looks like we are all set to deploy the update in that case as well.