No Guest File Indexing with Storage Snapshots?

[DerOest]

Hello,
we're just getting started with Veeam B&R and we're hitting a rather unpleasant issue right from the start.

TLDR first: Snapshot-Orchestration disables Guest file indexing, but the job actually performs indexing, then in Enterprise Explorer file-search nothing shows up


We want to make use of Netapp storage snapshots (+SnapVault destination) instead of "normal" Backup-Copy-Jobs.
But we also need to perform Guest File Indexing.

Now here's the problem: If you create a new Backup Job and as "Storage -> Backup Repository" you select "Netapp SnapShot (Primary storage snapshot only)", then you can NOT select "Enable guest file system indexing" in the "Guest Processing" tab!
But if you change the Backup Repository to a traditional Veeam Repository, guest file indexing becomes available.

So using Snapshot Orchestration = no Guest File Indexing? Thats disappointing!


What really makes this issue confusing: If you look for the progress of such a Snapshot-only-Job (without the indexing), you will see that the Guest File Indexing actually runs! (First it popped an error about missing "mlocate" which we fixed, then it actually took some time indexing in the next runs)

And it gets even more confusing
Now we've run the job which performed guest file indexing (according to the job log), in Veeam Enterprise Manager -> Files -> i can not select the VM, it doesn't show up.


If somebody could shed some light on this issue, i'd be very happy!
Thanks & greetings from Germany!

[foggy]

We want to make use of Netapp storage snapshots (+SnapVault destination) instead of "normal" Backup-Copy-Jobs.
But we also need to perform Guest File Indexing.

In this case you need to specify regular repository for storing backup file and add secondary destination for the storage snapshot.

[DerOest]

Thanks for the reply foggy,

just to clarify: Would that then be a "normal" backup-job which actually copies the files to a regular repository?
This is exactly what we want to avoid We'd love to just have the Netapp Snapshots...

[foggy]

With Storage Snapshot Only backup job guest indexing is not available, since there's no backup repository to put it in.

[DerOest]

So maybe this is a feature request?

Our goal is to use the file-search/history functionality of Enterprise Manager.
Right now, even if a Snapshot-Only job runs, it actually performs "guest file indexing" as seen in the job log. This information should just be stored in the Database or maybe a dedicated small repository.

There is no use copying 20TB of fileservers if you have snapshot-based storage...

[foggy]

I understand your concern, however keep in mind that storage snapshots is a great addition, but not a replacement for true backups.

[DerOest]

Hi Gostev,
do you know if indexing will finally be possible on Storage Snapshot jobs in v10?
That's something we really miss (and therefor can not use Veeam in some cases).

Thanks in advance!

[foggy]

It will not be possible in v10. Btw, you cannot even start FLR from storage snapshot from EM now, if it was created by a snapshot-only job.