Oh, interesting, I didn't get far enough in the release notes for the Tintri VAAI plugin. There are more details on the snapshot capability, but I think it supports my point that taking a VMware snapshot does not offload the snapshot to the array. Instead, it's used only for creating clones (typically via the View Composer or vCloud Director). Would still like to see the outcome of the test I proposed, though.
From page 9:
Full File Clone
Full file clone primitive allows the Tintri VMstore appliance to create space efficient and high performance clone VMs. Coordination between vSphere hosts and the VMstore appliance reduces the load on vSphere hosts, and the network between the vSphere hosts and the VM-store appliances. Primary use case for full file clones is deploying VMs from a template from the vCenter user interface.
Snapshot based cloning in Tintri OS
Snapshots of VAAI category are created when the Tintri VAAI plug-in is used for creating clone VMs. The clone VMs are created as writable copies of the snapshot. These snapshots are auto-matically deleted when the clone is deleted. These snapshots cannot be used for cloning from the VMstore user interface.
Recommendations
Use of a powered off VM is recommended for creating clone VMs.
Use of template VMs is recommended for creating clone VMs.
Limitations
The number of clone VMs that can be created is subject to the maximum number of VMs sup-
ported by a VMstore appliance. Please see Tintri OS release notes for more information.
I created a VMware snapshot, the snapshot created in my virtual machine folder. I checked Tintri, there was no additional "Tintri only" snapshot, however it did flag to me that the VM had VMware snapshots currently in place. I also rolled up nearly a gig of changes when deleting the snapshot and it did it in under a minute on my own virtual desktop while I was working with no perceived performance impact.
You may also like to reference this VMware KB which states that VAAI on 5.x has "Native Snapshot Support – Allows creation of virtual machine snapshots to be offloaded to the array." http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1021976
I stand by my original comment that if you are holding out on buying Veeam or Tintri until there is a software integration - reconsider if you even need to as they work as a really great combo already.
Thanks Geoff, I certainly wouldn't hold out either just for this feature. Even if the snapshots aren't offloaded, Tintri and Veeam are both great products.
I referenced that VMware KB earlier. I'm pretty sure it's a misleading description of the capability, and that the native snapshot support is limited to creating linked clones via VCAI for View Composer and vCloud Director. I can't find any indication that VMware has integrated the native snapshot VAAI capability into the standard VMware snapshot UI or API.
The only reason I'm pushing this so hard is because Veeam doesn't seem to think there is value in integrating with Tintri snapshots due to the perception that the VMware snapshots are already offloaded to Tintri with the VAAI feature. I think that is a misconception, and that there would most definitely a lot of value with this integration.
Indeed Loren, there is no VAAI primitive for snapshots, only cloning - So you would need to use the Tintri vSphere Web Client Plugin to use vCenter for Snapshots. My apologies for misstating and I appreciate you keeping me honest
I took this topic up with Tintri support directly. They responded with the text below:
Tintri snapshots are complementary to VMware snapshots. Installing the Tintri vSphere Web Client Plugin, will not change the behaviour of VMware snapshots.
I too am patiently waiting on Veeam to integrate with Tintri. We're a 24/7 shop so snapshot folds after backup and replication jobs can be a little tough at times. I agree that Tintri is fast enough to handle it well but I've watched snapshot operations take my production VMs offline for nearly a minute. This has been a nightmare on a few occasions with some of our large file servers.
I have
c7000 blade enclosures with 10Gb virtual connect modules
BL620g7 blades with 5Gb dedicated to storage
2 x Tintri T650
Tintri VAAI plugins installed on all hosts
I too have issues when the Backup job completes and removes the snapshot where my Exchange 2010 CAS VMs go offline for bewtween 1 and 2 mins and system time is updated in the event logs.
I am only using our CAS VMs as examples but Im pretty sure that its happening with our SQL 2008R2 VMs as well.
+1 for Veeam Integration with Tintri VMSnapshots! It will absolutely helpfully and needed feature. Please go ahead and work with Tintri Team for an integration.
Was talking with our Account Reps on this topic and they lead me here. Sounds like people have been asking for this since 2014. Having this integration with Tintri would alleviate a huge pain we have in our environment trying to backup some "intense" vm's.
+1 for Veeam SS integration with Tintri. I am currently at VeeamON2017 and was disappointed this morning to see several other big storage vendors added to v10 storage integration support, but no Tintri. The Universal Storage API sounds like more potential is in place to make it happen, so I don't know if any next steps are in the works?
The DBA team in our organization will not allow us to keep the dozens of MSSQL VMs on Veeam service because of occasional and unpredictable disruptions to overnight processing / connections during Veeam initiated snapshot commits. We are still on vsphere 5.5 and may be migrating to vsphere 6.5 in the next few months which may offer some improvement to these stuns, but utilizing the storage snapshots would be ideal.
If you were at VeeamON you would know that we will have the Universal Storage Integration API for our storage partners to being building the integration.
I was reading some posts about Tintri Integration. I have a Tintri/Tegile array that is attached to our VMware infrastructure. the Tintri Plug-in was never installed.
what i read (from Tintri) was that the plugin enabled me to avoid the VMWARE Snapshot process by having the array attach directly and create the snapshot. However the articles i read here seem to indicate Otherwise. ( i noted that these posts are old.) I do have issues with VMware Snapshots stunning running machines for too long and disrupting processes (24x7 Public Safety app)
I was considering installing the Plugin. but not if it is unreliable for provides no benefit. Does anyone have any updated information of the veeam Tintri Storage Plug-in for TIntri ?
The main point of the Plug-in development is to reduce the overhead of the VMware Snapshot processing to the bare minimum. If you process consistent backups, it will create a VMware Snapshot, will afterwards create the volume snapshot and remove the VM snapshot right after some seconds. So the data that goes into the VM snapshot is only the data from some seconds and you do not have the usual side effects because of it.
Crash consistent (backup or Snapshot only jobs) processing will not use VMware Snapshots at all.
Consistent Snapshot only jobs (no backup is performed) will only create a VMware Snapshot if VMs have disks accross storage volumes.
