Offhost Backup Proxy with iSCSI NetApp Storage

[Treeeman]

Hi everyone,

i need some help to get offhost Backup working, please.

Some Information about my infrastructure:
- 6x Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Hosts in a Hyper-V Failover Cluster
- 1x Windows Server 2012 R2 Veeam B&R Server (Hardware)
- 1x Netapp FAS2240 iSCSI Storage for Cluster Shared Volumes of my Hyper-V Cluster
- each Server has two 10GB NICs for LAN Traffic and two NICs for iSCSI Traffic

I tried to meet all requierements for Offhost Backup and did following:
- I installed Hyper-V Role on my Veeam B&R Server
- I installed VSS Hardware Provider (Data ONTAP VSS Hardware Provider Version 7.1.0.6561) on my Veeam B&R Server and my Hyper-V Hosts
- I mapped alle Cluster Shared Volumes to the Veeam B&R Server. I see the volumes and they are marked as offline
- My Veeam B&R Server is not a Member of my Cluster
- I added my Veeam B&R Server as a Veeam Offhost Proxy

My Problem:
If i try to Backup a VM and i did not set the Option within the Backup Job to fall back to onhost backup, i get following error message:
"Unable to select backup proxy. Failover to on-host mode is disabled, and there are no suitable proxies for off-host backup available.
Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: No off-host Hyper-V backup proxies are available"

Because the Error Message is not detailed enough for me i don't know where i should look for to resolve this issue.
Maybe someone has a similar inftrastucture to help me.
I am thankful for any help or tip.

Thanks.
Kind Regards
Marco

[Shestakov]

Hello Marco,
Have you contacted Veeam Technical support?
If no, please do. Otherwise, please provide us your support case number since it required by the forum`s rules when posting about technical issue/error.
Thank you!

[Treeeman]

Hello,

yes, there is also an open Case with the Number 00730422.

Kind Regards
Marco

[alanbolte]

I haven't looked at your support case, but just from your first post I think I see a problem:

"The version of the Hyper-V host and off-host backup proxy must coincide. For example, if you use a Microsoft Windows 2008 Server R2 machine with the Hyper-V role enabled as a Hyper-V host, you should deploy the off-host backup proxy on a Microsoft Windows 2008 Server R2 machine with the Hyper-V role enabled."
http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/80/h ... ackup.html

Your backup server cannot be an off-host proxy because the operating system version is different from your cluster (2012 vs 2012R2).

[Treeeman]

Hello,

thanks for your Reply.
Ok. I thought 2012 and 2012 R2 whould not be a Problem.
But you're right. After install 2012 on my Veeam Backup Proxy the offhost Mode works like expected.

Thanks.

Kind Regards
Marco

[mbedk]

Hi Treeeman,

How did you map your CSV luns to your Veeam Backup Server (offhost proxy).

Also I am curious to know how stable your backup has been using the offhost option.

[Vitaliy S.]

Martin, you should connect storage LUNs via regular Microsoft iSCSI initiator to the off-host proxy server. In addition to this you should install hardware VSS provider in the off-host proxy server.

[baltechnique]

Having problems on my side using Netapp Hardware VSS and Veeam doing a by Volume Backup (on CSV).

Backup with Microsoft Software VSS is OK but using Netapp Hardware VSS, HyperV 2012 R2 cluster kills randomly one VMs during the transfer of the mounted LUN of Netapp's snapshot (VM Resource goes to Fail state, and VM reboots, and sometimes not the one beeing backuped but always one on same volume).

Installed lastest patches from Microsoft from 22 July but didnt help.( kb3072380 , kb3068445 , kb3068444 )

Didnt open any case with Veeam for now, since i know this will be a "ping pong" between Netapp saying their VSS is only supported on their backup products and Veeam saying that if backup is OK with Microsoft VSS, its Netapp's side. And by the way the backup is always 100% OK, even if some VMs are rebooted.

If someone has seen this problem, i'll be happy

[PTide]

Hi,

Do you use an off-host proxy for that job? If so, could you please try switching to on-host proxy and see if the problem persists? Please use the same VSS provider (NetApp) to see if there is a problem with proxy or VSS.

during the transfer of the mounted LUN of Netapp's snapshot

Could you please clarify what do you mean, the mount proccess of a NetApp snapshot on an off-host proxy?

What about your NetApp VSS version? Is it the latest? As far as I heard, there could be some fixes available from NetApp for these backup scenarios.

If you see the same issue when using on-host proxy could you please trigger the VSS snapshot manually and see what happens?

Please don't forget to check your Windows VSS log for errors.

Thank you.

[baltechnique]

hi,
using off-host or on-host does the same thing.
We can not use the latest VSS since the firmware of the storage is not supported on the latest version.
We'll open a Netapp support case and i'll create a dedicated forum entry here in case of someone has the same problem.
And there are no error on VSS logs, only in failover cluster : the resource failed, which is caused by IsAlive on virtual machine which didnt respond (but i think its false since the VM is running fine when the hypervisor decide to kill it).