Best Practises for Backups of a VM with iSCSI-Disks attached

[jetjaguar]

Hi Forum,

we have a Fileserver (VM) which has an iscsi disk attached to it. The Fileserver itself is part of a Filecluster in Windows Server 2012 R2. How do i get a proper backup of this machine including the data storage attached to it. I read in the forums that veeam is not able to "see" the attached iscsi-disk in the VM. The solutions that i found so far are kind of misleading. So is there a best practise to backup iSCSI-Targets presented to VMs in Veeam?

Thx

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi,

There are two options available for you: either convert these disks to vRDMs or use Veeam Agent for Windows to back up this VM.

P.S. iSCSI disks cannot be backed up with Veeam B&R as VMware vSphere does not recognize these volumes as disks, not much we can do here.

Thanks!

[jetjaguar]

Thx for the reply,

ok that means i can use Veeam Backup Agent for Windows and backup these VMs including the iSCSI-Disk?

Thanks for clarification.

[DGrinev]

That's correct. Thanks!

[jetjaguar]

One thing: My Hypervisor is Hyper-V on a Windows Server 2016

[DGrinev]

You can check the system requirements for the VAW.
You're good to go with Windows Server 2016. Thanks!

[nitramd]

My experience has been that VAW 2.0 works well on 2016.

[jetjaguar]

Oh thx for the advice.

One more question:

I´m using VAW 2.0 together with VBR9.5. In VBR i´ve setup a specific subnet for backup tasks - is VAW able to handle this? Should i restars dt VBR9.5 services to apply this preferred subnets usage?

Thx.

[nitramd]

If you're referring to "specified networks for data transfer", I don't believe that this would work.

As I've observed, VAW 20 is mostly independent of a Veeam Backup and Recovery server, i.e. the VAW agent pushes data directly to a backup repository without the help of a data mover (aka proxy server). This may or may not change in Update 3.

If a machine that has VAW 20 installed is in the same subnet as you've mentioned prior then it's probably a moot point.

[jetjaguar]

Yep, that´s what i´m experiencing. VAW is unaware of any backup subnets configured in VBR9.5

Thanks alot!

[Vitaliy S.]

That's correct. If you want to route traffic via specific subnets, then you should be adding the target repository via required IP and then adjust the routing table of the machine where backup agent is installed (usually it is done via hosts file).

[unsichtbarre]

I have a client with SQL servers that have several volumes mounted directly using the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator. This presents problems for Veeam, because it cannot snapshot the iSCSI volumes. Nevermind the soundness of the basic premise (I will help them build a better VM using VMDK, multiple paravirtual SCSI controllers, and Eager Zeroed for DB and Quorum), my question is;

Is it possible to treat this VM as if it were a physical system and use the Veeam Agent to capture all of the disks in a backup?

[vClintWyckoff]

As long as the disks are mounted in Windows the Veeam Agent solution would be able to backup the data on these drives.

[DGrinev]

Hi John,

Your topic has been merged to an existing discussion. Thanks!

[derekmerritt]

My apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I have a similar issue as Unsichtbarre. We have a SQL server that uses iSCSI volumes mounted as disks on the VM where the database mdf and ldf files are stored. If I installed the Veeam Agent for Windows on that SQL server, would I then be able to get SQL backups in Veeam?

Thanks,
Derek

[DGrinev]

Hi Derek,

Yes, you can do that.
The Backup Agent should back up these volumes without an issue.

Thanks!

[BSChris]

Hi guys,

I have one question about iscsi backup with agent.
In a VMware infrastructure I have a virtual Windows File server with a mounted iscsi hard drive. All data is on the iscsi hard drive.
In Veeam B&R I am creating a new job with a Windows Agent backup because I am using the iscsi hard drive
and Veeam would not see the iscsi in their normal job and would therefore not be able to save. How would you secure my trap?
Do you have an other idea to backup the files.

Regards Chris

[wishr]

Hi Christofer,

The use of Veeam Agent is a proper approach for backing up a VM with attached ISCSI disks.

Thanks

[BSChris]

Thanks, next time i use the search function
Sorry guys.

Regards Chris

[wishr]

Chris,

You may also want to take a look at our NAS backup capabilities allowing you to back up data from a file share.

Thanks