Windows Server 2016 on Server 2012 Cluster

[stmchapman]

Hi all, before I raise a support ticket, are there compatibilty issues with Veeam 9.5 and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V nodes running Windows Server 2016 guests?

I have just set up Exchange 2016 on a new fully updated Server 2016 VM and I get the following error when trying to back up with Guest Processing enabled:

Guest processing skipped (check guest OS VSS state and hypervisor integration components version)
Failed to create snapshot (Microsoft CSV Shadow Copy Provider) (mode: Crash consistent) Details: Guest processing skipped (check guest OS VSS state and hypervisor integration components version)
Error: Guest processing skipped (check guest OS VSS state and hypervisor integration components version)

Obviously server 2016 VMs contain version 10 of the integration services built in... I was just wondering if this is a compatibility issue between the varying versions of software or whether something is wrong with our install

I should add we are running SCVMM 2012R2 and both the veeam server (2016) its related jobs and the exchange server are brand new installs - no upgrade paths were taken

Thanks

[foggy]

You can verify with support, but this most likely comes down to the Integration Services version, which on the guest is higher than the maximum allowed on the host itself.

[stmchapman]

I'm guessing that this is by design then?

We are looking to move to Hyper-V 2016 in the summer - so it's not a major thing at the minute

Thanks

[foggy]

Yes, there's a KB article regarding that as well.

[stmchapman]

Ahh Ok! Didn't realise there was a KB article.

Thanks for the information

[Aurock]

I found KB2185, which describes exactly the issue I'm having backing up one of my VM's. The article basically says that the integration services version in Windows 10 is newer than that of 2012R2, and not backwards compatible, so application aware image processing will fail. The recommended workaround is to disable application aware image processing for that VM and just let it use the native guest quiescence instead.

https://www.veeam.com/kb2185

Since the article is dated nearly 6 months ago and only specifically mentions Windows 10, I thought I'd check here. Is the information in that article 1) still current? 2) applicable to guests running server 2016?

Thanks!

[foggy]

Hi Steve, yes, the article is valid and is applicable to your case.