ESXi 6.0 Vmware Tools quiescence problem with backup

[vmrsk]

Hi,

ESXi 6.0 with Veeam B&R 8.0 patch 2.
Other OSes than Windows are without bigger problems.
Windows with AAIP is almost ok.
Windows with VMware Tools quiescence has problem creating snapshot with VSS driver installed.
Manual snapshot however works fine.
So solution is to use AAIP or uninstall VVS driver from VMware tools.
Anybody able to use VMware Tools quiescence with VSS driver installed and Veeam backup?

Thank you,
Richard

[foggy]

What kind of problems are you talking about? Have you already contacted technical support with this?

[ribye]

I have the same issue, upgraded to VMware 6 veeam 8 sp2. Uninstalling the veeam vss seems to have worked, I'm backing up on a server that before this I was not able to. I could back up some servers but it seems about a 50% failure rate I'll keep trying this method.

[veremin]

Hi, Ron, can you be more specific about problems you've had with using Veeam Application Aware Image Processing? Thanks.

[ribye]

I have a ticket open with veeam, I setup a clean esxi 6 server, migrated my 5.5 machines onto it. I was running veeam 8.0.0.1x Nothing would backup kept getting the quiescence failed, upgraded to sp2 some of the machines will backup several still get the quiescence error , upgraded vmtools and vmhardware levels that did not help. I can do a manual snapshot on vcenter that works but veeam still gets that error on several machines. One machine I did a uninstall the vmwaretools and then reinstalled it without the VMware vss driver and after that the backups started working for that machine. All of these are manual backups not scheduled.

[veremin]

I have a ticket open with veeam, I setup a clean esxi 6 server, migrated my 5.5 machines onto it. I was running veeam 8.0.0.1x Nothing would backup kept getting the quiescence failed, upgraded to sp2 some of the machines will backup several still get the quiescence error , upgraded vmtools and vmhardware levels that did not help. I can do a manual snapshot on vcenter that works but veeam still gets that error on several machines. One machine I did a uninstall the vmwaretools and then reinstalled it without the VMware vss driver and after that the backups started working for that machine. All of these are manual backups not scheduled.

So, we're talking here about VMware quiescence not working properly when their specific VSS driver is installed, not about Veeam runtime process that is used to freeze activity inside Windows-based VM? Since VMs in questions are Windows-based one, why not to stick to Application Aware Image Processing, instead of using VMware Tools Quiescence?

Also, can you post your ticket number here for the convenience of future readers.

Thanks.

[ribye]

This is what we found Doing a quick zip fails, scheduled jobs seems to work. According to the tech " In the scheduled job it is not attempting to use VMWare Quiescence, the issue is it trying to quiesce that machine when the snapshot is taken " esxi 5.5 everything worked but guess 6 is different. scheduling it with defaults does work. Ticket was Case # 00919368 He also sent this link to help on the quick zips http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/80/p ... brzip.html

[foggy]

scheduling it with defaults does work.

Are you sure about the defaults? Isn't application-aware processing enabled in the successful job? The fact is that VeeamZIP uses VMware Tools quiescence, while in the scheduled job you can enable AAIP.

[ribye]

The scheduled job that worked did not have aaip checked. I loaded up a second server same model hp dl380 gen9 got same results. I did try a manual with quiescence VMware snapshot, it worked, did not when the tech was looking at it. At this point I either go back to esxi 5.5 or use AAIP or uninstall VVS driver from VMware tools. I haven't tried contacting VMware yet, I'll go that route next. The ISO I have is also created for an HP server but it came from VMware's site. I also updated the esxi 6 to the latest hotfix but that didn't help. follow up I just tried manual with quiescence VMware snapshot for a second time it failed

[veremin]

So, something seems to be wrong with VMware Tools quiescence. So, it might be worth reaching VMware support with the question about it.

However, since you're trying to freeze activity inside Windows-based VMs prior to backup, why not to leverage AAIP for that purpose (it appears to be working fine, according to your words)?

Thanks.

[ribye]

AAIP I think will work, these are all windows 2008 and up, thanks