Setting up EMC VNX/Clariion Hardware VSS for Veeam Backups

[hopways]

Hi all,
i just want to share this information for anyone needing to configure EMC VSS Hardware VSS snapshots for Veeam Hyper-v Backups

EMC SAN:-
you need to have the SNapview enabler installed on the SAN (this is included in the VNX local protection pack)

on the EMC VNX or Clariion you need to create a global login account for the VSS driver to use
you also need to go to the properties of each storage processor (A+B) and configure a prvilidged user account for each hyper-v host (system@ip of hyperv-host)

HYPER-V Hosts:-
EMC software available from powerlink.emc.com
Support > Software Downloads and Licensing > Downloads T-Z > VSS Provider

download se7400-WINDOWS-x64-VSS.exe (4.6 or greater this also includes EMC solution enabler which is required)

install this on all of the Hyper-V nodes
during install you are asked what daemons to install, install the base plus the symapi daemon

now you need to specify login details for the enabler

go to a command prompt and type
cd C:\Program Files\EMC\SYMCLI\bin

you now need to specify the previously created global login account for the enabler to use this must be done on each Hyper-V host

symcfg authorization list (this shows any users that have been previously configured it should be blank)
symcfg authorization add -host (ip address of SPA) -username xxxxx -password xxxxxx
symcfg authorization add -host (ip address of SPB) -username xxxxx -password xxxxxx
symcfg authorization list (this should now show the SAN global login accounts specified above)

symcfg authorization add -host (hyperv host name or ip address) -username (windows domain admin account) -password xxxxxxx -hyperv

Veeam:-
in Veeam go into Servers then select each server
right click and select manage volumes you will then see EMC VSS Hardware Provider

voila finished and you can now do CSV volume backups using VSS hardware assisted backups and no more redirected CSV backups (it only redirects when creating snapshot)

this took me a while to get right and the information to get it working is not easily found so i thought it would be worthwhile sharing it

have fun

[Vitaliy S.]

John, thanks for finding time to share this info with the Community, much appreciated!

[Gostev]

Awesome, thanks for taking your time to post this... going to be a very useful reference for the future readers!

[collinp]

Hopways,

Isn't there also a step where you need to install the EMC VSS Provider on the offhost proxy and run symcfg auth on it as well? Then enable automount in diskpart on the offhost proxy? I've been trying to get this to work for a while. I have performed all of your steps. When I run the backup job, I see the snapshot being created on my Clariion CX4. It goes from inactive to active. But then the snapshot deletes itself and I get the error message listed below this message. I also created a storage group presenting the CSV LUN to both the Hyper-v host and the offhost proxy server.

Code: Select all

Unable to create snapshot (EMC VSS Hardware Provider on <server name>) Details: Unknown status of async operation The shadow copy provider had an error. Check the System and Application event logs for more information. --tr:Failed to create VSS snapshot. --tr:Failed to perform pre-backup tasks.
Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: Unable to allocate resources for taskId: 'c808afd4-2d6e-473a-9e5e-b0c2dc98c6dc'

[matizmat]

Hi,

Thank you for your topic about emc vss hardware provider, I have follow your recommandation to configure vss, but i'm not able to establish a snap. Have you another documentation on the vnx configuration ? and the Global utilisation?

My error:

Code: Select all

25/01/2013 15:27:49 :: Unable to create snapshot (EMC VSS Hardware Provider) (mode: Crash consistent). Details: Failed to check whether provider '{04aaf00b-f272-4449-ae63-e8ac935a102c}' supports shadow copies on the volume '\\?\Volume{f5b9194c-3264-4e40-9fd5-1ed60d40060f}\'.
Vss error: '0x8004230f'
--tr:Failed to add volumes to the snapshot set.
--tr:Failed to perform pre-backup tasks.

(have a vnx 5300 and csv cluster hyper-v 2012)

[Shralok]

So are you able to use on-host backup with the SAN VSS provider or must you use an off-host proxy?

We are using an EMC CLARiiON AX4 with a 5-node Hyper-V 2008 R2 cluster.

[foggy]

So are you able to use on-host backup with the SAN VSS provider or must you use an off-host proxy?

Yes, you can perform an onhost backup using hardware provider. Actually, Veeam B&R will automatically select hardware provider by default in case it is available.

[Shralok]

Thanks - I will need to test this. I am trying to get away from Redirected Mode in my 2008 R2 Hyper-V Cluster, but it is not clear whether using the on-host backup will still use Redirected Mode when using hardware provider.

[foggy]

but it is not clear whether using the on-host backup will still use Redirected Mode when using hardware provider.

Only while the snapshot is being taken. After a snapshot is created, the volume resumes in direct I/O mode.

[hopways]

Hi, you do have the SNAPVIEW enabler installed as without this it will not work and it is a chargeable option on the Clariion and VNX series

you must also have Naviseccli installed on the Hyper-V Hosts along with the unisphere agent and the Solutions enabler and VSS driver
and the global user you specify when installing Naviseccli must be created as a Global user on the EMC SAN

i have just installed this again on an 8 node 2012 Hyper-V 3 cluster with Veeam 6.5 and it worked straight away on the 14-4-2013

have you also checked that you have created a priviliged user for each Hyper-V host on SPA & SPB

if you look on the SAN does it create the snapshot

[mtnman1000]

Is there possibly anything else that needs to be configured on the VNX other than adding the B&R/Proxy to the storage group for the host being backed up and following these steps? Reserved LUNS or snapshot luns or anything? We are getting the error below.

Also, since you have to add the proxy to the storage group of the host, how do you use VSS hardware provider to backup more than one host or cluster since you can only add the B&R/Proxy to one storage group

Hopways, if you see this maybe you can PM me?

Unable to select backup proxy. Failover to on-host mode is disabled, and there are no suitable proxies for offhost backup available.
Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: No offhost Hyper-V backup proxies are avaliable

[mtnman1000]

We decided to go ahead and present the LUN from the host to the Veeam Proxy last week and bring it online which resolved our issue and are no backing up using snapshots on the VNX. Unfortunately this presents 2 potential issues and am wondering how you all worked around this:

1) We use Microsoft's SCOM to monitor our servers and ended up with an error "The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable" on the LUN that has the VM's being backed up. How did you ensure Veeam does not write to the LUN?

2) Back to a question in my previous post, how did you give the Proxy access to LUN's form various storage groups? Since the Proxy ends up with the drive letter from the Hyperv host after bringing it online I can see some conflict happening.

We need to add a cluster now and are concerned about these 2 potential issues. Unfortunately I do not have a lab with a hyperv cluster to test with.

Thanks in advance.

[collinp]

Are you sure the disks are supposed to be online? The CSV's that I present to the offhost proxy are offline and I am still able to do offhost backups. It is hard for me to believe that the disk should be online both on your Hyper-v host and your offhost proxy. I'm not using EMC storage though.

[foggy]

Simply bringing the LUN online does not corrupt anything, but disk initialization does. Since Veeam B&R automatically sets SAN Policy to Offline during installation, this prevents disks from being initialized.

That said, there's no particular reason to make disks online as Veeam B&R requires read-only access to the LUN, which is provided when it is in offline mode.

[mtnman1000]

Thanks all. Indeed we brought the disk offline and can still backup. We had to delete the backup job first and recreate it but after that all was well. Anyone else reading this, let me explain one potential ramification of bringing a LUN online on the Offline Proxy other than corruption. Our original backup repository was the servers "G" drive however so was the hosts LUN we were backing up so when it was brought online it removed the LUN for the repository. In essence we began backing up from and to the "G" drive. Not good.

All is well, and thanks again for your responses.

[foggy]

And thank you for the valuable update!

[lowlander]

Is this also applicable to VNXe systems ? any experiences ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Not sure, but maybe this topic would be helpful for you, since it is talking about the same storage (but different series) you've been recently asking about.