SureBackup

[badams]

OK, I am getting through this one page of the user guide at a time. It's hard, because sometimes I feel as though the user guide is the best, sometimes switching over to the evaluation guide works better for me, and sometimes I use Best Practices. All for Hyper-V.

I am a little confused, because in my reading it seems to say you can test backups with SureBackup, InstantRestore and the Sandbox. I believe SureBackup is read only, but starts with a snapshot, so anything changed can be kept. It also seems to do tests. I believe the Sandbox (which I haven't tried yet), is more for what one would do in a sandbox: Play around with it, try this, break that, etc. I haven't even thought about InstantRestore.

It seems as though when I tried to use SureBackup, it had a warning on the window that said Direct vs something which was connecting to a network that stated I needed Enterprise Plus, and I only have Enterprise. Maybe it meant I couldn't select anything other than Direct, which was the default.

When I select back backups which contains two VMs, one always fails. It seems as though I have to at minimum, run the heartbeat, ping and verification and one other. For whatever reason, each time I ran the job, one VM would pass and the other would fail. The key here is I don't really want to run any tests. I just want to be to open the VM, which I am able to depending on which one seems to work.

Finally, when I make my virtual lab, it is made on the production server (Hyper-V with the VMs). What does it actually do there. I mean when I am not working with SureBackup is it affecting the server? Sorry, this part was just hard for me to understand.

[Andreas Neufert]

Virtual Lab is the base for all this. Sometimes called Sandbox.
An appliance is started only if you run a virtual lab. So it do not consume anything when not started.

Application Groups are Servers that you can start in front of a test.
They have the option to keep them running after a test (checkbox in Surebackup job)

You can create SureBackup Jobs in 2 ways:

1) Ondemand Test environment
- Place all servers in the application group.
- Create Surebackup job and add the application Group. Select the checkbox at the bottom to keep the server running.
- Do not add linked jobs.

2) SureBackup restore verification (auto run)
- Create a sure backup job
- Add only server in the Application Ggoup that you need mandatory running to. importe the other VM tests (AD Server for example)
- Link Jobs that you want to test
- Schedule it


Please send more details what the SB job says about the VM that was not completed successfully. Click on the VM in the SB statistics to get details.

[badams]

Thank you. Will do.

[badams]

So, I was asked to include more information of the error. Yet, it clearly states above, I am not supposed to send this unless it has been sent for a support ID. I guess there is a difference between my paraphrasing the error and copying it.

It definitely seems to be saying that it is a memory issue. Each VM is alotted 8GBs of memory. That seems like plenty, but I can increase it I suppose.

Also when following the userguide, at each step where it says right-click on Application Group of Lab, it shows and states that it should then say > Hyper-V > Virtual lab. It does not include Hyper-V, but it seems to work OK, and does show the Hyper-V. I don't believe it actually states the name of they hyper-v.

Thank you.

Details
3/17/2018 8:41:38 PM Error [RiverviewDB]: Error: Job failed (''RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job)' failed to start. (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)

Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job) with ram size 8192 megabytes. (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)

'RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job)' could not initialize memory: Ran out of memory (0x8007000E). (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)'). Error code: '32778'.
Failed to p
3/17/2018 8:41:45 PM Error Failed to power on virtual machine
Job failed (''RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job)' failed to start. (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)

Not enough memory in the system to start the virtual machine RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job) with ram size 8192 megabytes. (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)

'RiverviewDB (SureBackup Job)' could not initialize memory: Ran out of memory (0x8007000E). (Virtual machine ID C394184D-4EBE-4012-9255-E09110C9035B)'). Error code: '32778'.

Total tasks 2 End time 3/17/2018 8:41:46 PM
Processed tasks 1 Duration 0:01:13
Successful tasks 0 Warning tasks 0
Failed tasks 1 Skipped tasks 0
Progress 100 %

Virtual machines status

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi,

„Hyper-V“ is not shown as you have only Hyper-V. This reduce an unnecessary step (one less click).

The error say that you do not have enough free RAM to run the VM on the selected host.
You can reduce the RAM usage per VM in the Application Group or SureBackup Job.

The setting is „Amount of memory to allocate to VM“. You can set both to 25% to start your 8GB VMs with 2GB each. Depending on the VM configuration at Hyper-V the memory can not be overprivisioned at the host.

[badams]

Wrote a long post, but since I wasn't logged in, it was not recorded, so quickly:

Removed application group and "ping" and it worked. I guess app group may be for those with many VMs and need to group them.
I am able to ping the host from the backup server so don't understand that.
After it runs, I am unable to open a VM and use it in read mode.
I had read, I thought, that it had a restore point, and I could do things in read mode, but save it as the actual production VM.
FYI: I do have to choose Hyper-V when I do other things such as make a backup. Thanks for that info though. But a little confused.

Thanks.

I did send this question to support but only before I did some of these things.

[Andreas Neufert]

For automatic restore verification (SureBackup).
- The Application Group is started (you can start your server that you need online the whole time in the lab).
- Linked Jobs will boot VMs in parallel dependant on the amount you have selected at the setting.

If PING do not work, there are several things why this can happen:
- Firewall acitve within the VM and no Active Directory Server available in the lab (Application Group). Then Windows Firewall detects the network as a public one and you can not PING the VM (blocked by Windows Firewall).
- SureBackup is correctly showing that the VM would loose it´s IP at restore. This is one of the exact usecases why SureBackup is pretty good tool (detect restore problems).
There are other things you can look at.

If you have such a VM
you can place it allone in a Application Group
Create a new SureBackup Job and select only the Application Group (without Linked Jobs). Set the checkbox that keeps the VMs from the Application Group online.
Start the SureBackup Job and wait until it is at 99%. Then login to the VM and look if it lost the IP address or if the Firewall has detected the network as public one.

For Hyper-V by design of the Storage Backend, Instant VM Recovery and SureBackup create different disk types. At IVMR we will reserve the whole space of the VM data and you can migrate the data easily. For SureBackup we save space and do not reserve the whole used space and therefore you can not migrate it.

If you need a server to test some stuff, you can IVMR it without network and manually change the netowork then to a test environment. If you complete you tasks you can change the network to production and start the disk migration.