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wizdude
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backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by wizdude »

greetings,

i'm having problems with a scheduled backup job for vcenter after a vmotion or HA event has taken place.

since you cannot backup vcenter via vcenter, I have a backup job that directly attaches to a specific ESX host. this permits me to backup vcenter perfectly.
the other day I had a hardware failure that caused my vcenter box to move to another host. after I remediated the issue and vmotioned vcenter back to the original ESX host I noticed that the next backup failed with the error:

"Analyzing object "VCENTER" Object VCENTER not found. There are no objects to backup "

i went to edit the job and clicked on "recalculate" which resulted in the same error. I had to remove this host and browse back to the specific ESX host in order to get the backup to run successfully again. i'm guessing that the internal reference/pointer/ID that veeam uses to identify the host changes after an HA or vmotion.

to summarise:

VCENTER lives on ESX1. after a hardware failure, HA moved it to ESX2. I fixed the hardware fault, and knowing that my backup job specifically looks on ESX1 for VCENTER, I vmotioned it back to ESX1. the backup failed with the error above and I had to edit my backup job, remove and re-add the VCENTER VM, in order for the backup to start working again.

as a single instance this wouldn't bother me, but this is going to become an issue if it occurs each time after a vmotion since I'll need to put additional steps/notes into my maintenance procedures.

is there any good workaround for this? or is it a bug/limitation in veeam backup? or a bug/limitation somehow in ESX?

i am using veeam backup 4 with vsphere 4.

cheers, wizdude.
tsightler
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by tsightler »

I have experienced this as well. We have created a procedure to follow if the vCenter host is ever moved, where we edit the Veeam job and re-add the vCenter server, but this is certainly easy to overlook and thus far from ideal. I'd love to know if there is a better option as well.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Gostev »

Definitely there is no better option at this time... you cannot backup vCenter through vCenter-based job, because vCenter gets freezed during snapshot creation and is becoming unable to process management API commands (deadlock).
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

is removing/adding the objects back into the job still the only option?
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Gostev »

Can you please elaborate what do you mean by "objects" (plural). This thread is talking about a single VM (vCenter server). This is the only scenario when you need to do this. So I thought may be you have different situation/issue?
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

Hi there, Iget the same problems as Wizdude, I have ESX hosts configured into Veam whilst selecting multiple VM's from the host to backup, I get the error 'object 'server name' not found' and there are no objects to backup when the VM's moved off the server due to HA or vmotion. HTH.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Vitaliy S. »

Richard,

Could you please specify if you're configuring your jobs (adding VMs) using ESX host standalone connection and not the vCenter one? Try adding vCenter to your Veeam console and re-configure your jobs using vCenter. That should solve your issue.

See this link below for explanation on what happens if you're not setting up your job via vCenter connection:
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... ion#p13898

Thank you!
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

Hi there, I am not sure if I can add the VCenter into Veam as it is hosted on a remote site away from either of the two ESX, I can have the relevent holes cut in the firewall but would there be a performace issue? Are there any other issues that you can think of which would stop this from working?

Site1 vcenter - my work
Site2 primary site - multiple ESX hosts plus Veam hosted here
Site3 secondary site - more ESX hosts being backed by Veam down a VPN.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Gostev »

You should try it, I don't think there will be any issues with remote vCenter. In all cases, for environments with VMotion you definitely want to setup your jobs via vCenter versus individual ESX hosts, otherwise Veeam Backup will not be able to track VM movement across ESX hosts, and you would have to deal with this problem continuously.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

OK, will give it a go and see.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

Hi there, I have managed to get the VCenter tied into the Veam manager. When a backup is run I get the following error;

Creating snapshot
VssGAConn: Failed to connect. Errors:
"Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [100.10.10.20]. Account: [Admin].
Win32 error:The network path was not found.
Code: 53
"

Retrieving VM disks information...
Failed to retrieve "SCSI (0:0) Hard disk 1" disk information. Check VM virtual hardware configuration.
GetLocalText failed
Client error: NFC storage connection is unavailable. Storage: [stg:datastore-3282,nfchost:host-7110,conn:vcms.lgfl.org.uk]. Storage display name: [MSA1500-TH1-A-R5-1].
Failed to create NFC download stream. NFC path: [nfc://conn:vcms.lgfl.org.uk,nfchost:host-7110,stg:datastore-3282@WMS2003-VQ/WMS2003-VQ.vmdk].

Server error: End of file

All I have done is allow port 443 between the Veam manager and the VCenter, is there more ports needing to be opened on the firewall to make this work? Or is there something else which is not configured correctly?
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Vitaliy S. »

Hi Richard,

There are some existing topics about troubleshooting your first issue, please have a look:

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... are#p12756

And you may find all the ports required at our User Guide (Page 24)

Thanks!
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Gostev »

First error indicates that Veeam Backup server cannot connect to \\vm\admin$ share to be able to use Veeam VSS. You need to make sure you are able to do this manually from Veeam server, or disable Veeam VSS.

Second error would be best to troubleshoot through our support. I believe in addition port 902 is required (from a top of my head - not 100% sure).

Thanks!
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by richardw »

Hi there,

I am now getting this error when backing a windows based VM using the vcms configured in Veam backup;

0 of 0 files processed

Total VM size: 30.00 GB
Processed size: 0.00 KB
Processing rate: 0 KB/s
Backup mode: SAN/NBD with changed block tracking
Start time: 28/05/2010 12:26:12
End time: 28/05/2010 12:29:31
Duration: 0:03:19

Retrieving VM disks information...
Failed to retrieve "SCSI (0:0) Hard disk 1" disk information. Check VM virtual hardware configuration.
GetLocalText failed
Client error: NFC storage connection is unavailable. Storage: [stg:datastore-3282,nfchost:host-7110,conn:vcms.comp.org.uk]. Storage display name: [MSA1500-BH1-A-R5-1].
Failed to create NFC download stream. NFC path: [nfc://conn:vcms.comp.org.uk,nfchost:host-7110,stg:datastore-3282@WMS2003-VQ/WMS2003-VQ.vmdk].

Server error: End of file

Both ports 443 and 902 are open between both Veam and the VM to the VCenter for good measure, any suggestions?
Vitaliy S.
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Re: backup of vcenter not working after vmotion/HA

Post by Vitaliy S. »

Richard,

It seems like the source storage was unavailable for this VM at the time when the job was running. Please refer to our support team for a quicker assistance with technical issues.

Thanks!
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