ONTAP Snapshot Integration Issues

[chjones]

Hi all,

I have a few questions, or potentially issues, with ONTAP Storage Integration with Veeam that I am trying to understand.

After a backup completes and the storage snapshot is created, the Restore Points count is not updated under Home > Backups > Storage Snapshots. If I manually rescan the ONTAP Cluster(s) under Storage Infrastructure > NetApp > "Cluster", then the restore point count is updated. I'm assuming the backup job doesn't rescan the storage when completed. How long until the restore points should be updated?

I can perform Application Aware Backups with NetApp Snapshots. For this example I'll use Active Directory. When I select Restore > VMware vSphere backup > Application Items > Microsoft Active Directory, none of my backed up VMs show in the list of VMs that I can restore from. If I backup the exact same VM with the same exact job settings except I change the backup to be stored in a regular Veeam Backup Repository, the VM is recognised as have Active Directory.

For reference, I am running Veeam 9.5 Update 3a and using ONTAP 9.4. I don't want to mess with our production environment so I've been testing this in a lab. I have a Veeam Server also acting as a proxy and two ONTAP 9.4 Clusters (I am SnapVaulting between the clusters), a dedicated vCenter 6.7 and ESXi 6.7. ESXi is connecting to ONTAP via iSCSI and the appropriate igroup mappings for the Veeam Server/Proxy and ESXi Server are in-place.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Chris

[chjones]

I should also add, if I browse to Backups > Storage Snapshots > Volume > VM and right-click and select "Restore Application Items > Microsoft Active Directory Objects" this works. The FlexClone is created and mounted back to an ESXi host, the disks are mounted are C:\VeeamFLR, and the Explorer starts and I can browse the AD objects.

Another thing, if I just select "Restore > VMware vSphere backup > Entire VM", Veeam shows me no VMs available for restore. Even if I then select to "Add VM ... From backup", again, Veeam shows no VMs available.

It's almost as if Veeam isn't actually keeping track of what VMs were backed up in which jobs, or what applications were inside those VMs.

Is this just a limitation of using NetApp Storage Snapshot Integration, since Veeam does not actually move any data as ONTAP does this, or could it be an incorrect configuration on me end?

[Andreas Neufert]

I am just guessing here. Do you create Snapshot only Jobs?

If so, Snapshots are not seen as backups and so the restore point count there stays 0. As well if you want to recover "backups" and there are only snapshots, there will be not restore points shown if you select backups.

Regarding the delay. If you create new snapshots a background scan will happen (mount the snap to proxy and then scan for VMs). My guess is that the restore points under Home > Backups > Storage Snapshots will be updated after some minutes. You can check if the scan works fine under History - System

[chjones]

Thanks Andreas. Yes, I am creating NetApp Snapshot Only backups, and then instructing Veeam to update a SnapVault. If I rescan the Storage, Veeam is aware of the snapshots and the VMs inside each snapshot, and therefore updates the number of restore points for each VM. So Veeam is aware of the backups that occurred.

If the snapshot is triggered by Veeam itself (veeam takes a VM snapshot, then instructs ONTAP to create a storage snapshot), Veeam still doesn't report any VMs available for restore in the Restore Wizard, nor any application items available. I'm wondering how I can confirm that the VM snapshot that was taken by Veeam was actually aware of the application that was installed (AD, Exchange, SQL, etc). The job logs in the Veeam Console don't list the applications that were found in the VM, are there entries in the log files on the Veeam Server/Proxy that would indicate that application aware processing was actually used and detected the application(s)?

[Andreas Neufert]

I guess there is an issue with background scan of the job as you said it works when you manually perform the scan. Please open a support ticket and upload logs. Reference as well to this forum entry there.

[foggy]

Automatic rescan is performed every 10 minutes, so the fact that the number of restore points is not updated immediately after the job, is currently expected. This will be addressed in the upcoming Veeam B&R v9.5 U4 though.

To be able to restore VMs/application items from storage snapshots, you should use Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots, while Restore Wizard you seem to be using, allows to restore from regular Veeam B&R backups, not storage snapshots.

[chjones]

Thanks Alexander and Andreas for your responses.

I wasn't aware the restore options would be different if only using Storage Snapshots and ONTAP. I've been testing this for a week now and the differences and limitations of both methods of backups (snapshot only vs traditional Veeam Backup) are now much clearer. Thanks for your assistance.