WMware on AWS (VMC) SDDC with NSX-T not supported by Veeam 9.5U4a

[l.vinokur]

Hi all,
This post is a community service. I am testing VMC SDDC with NSX-T (all new ones are with NSX-T) and restored a bunch of VMs from our onprem Veeam.
During restore, the last page ask you to map networks. As I pre-created all the networks in NSX-T (actually VMC interface, but not relevant), I was surprised to find that in the network selection there are 0 networks shown. To those who are not familiar with VMC SDDC with NSX-T - this is the only network type you can use - called "opaque network".
Long story short, I opened a support ticket and was told by support Veeam currently does not support NSX-T and there is no ETA. Quote:

Unfortunately, NSX-T is not supported with Veeam now - we're not able to see these networks, you can't also select them in replication jobs or surebackup jobs, for example. This is planned to be added in future releases, as far as I know, but there's no ETA that support team can provide on this.

For those who need this - you are welcome to +1 the post, contact support, etc.
Workaround:
Apparently, the network config of the VMs was OK - meaning as the network names were the same as in onprem, the NICs were configured with the correct networks. The only thing remained to resolve was the "StartConnected" property - easily fixed by a quick PowerCli script. The cause of this - if Veeam does not recognize the network object during restore, the NIC will be "disconnected", meaning the "StartConnected" property is deselected after restore.
Note that you must use the latest PowerCli or during "network name set" operation you will get an exception.

[Andreas Neufert]

Hello Leonid,

thanks for this feedback. We closely document what is possible and not for VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) within our KB2414
https://www.veeam.com/kb2414

When you restore a VM to original, no change is needed as long as you do not change the network settings within the restore job.
For restore to other VM or if the original VM was deleted completely, then you have to delete the network cards manually and read them at the vCenter VM configuration.

The reason for this is that Veeam do not support yet the NSX-t specific API calls for network handling. It is scheduled for one of the next updates/versions. It will be then general support for NSX-t at VMC and regular VMware versions. The timing and change notification on the VMC side was not ideal and we are forced to catch up with this change (see statement above).

The reason why you have to delete the network card and then add it again is the situation that NSX-t configures switch port usage internally within the VMX configuration. If you force to connect the network card by powershell (the UI do not let you do this ... or better say revert the configuration after you press OK), then you have potentially two VMs on same switch port which means one connection goes down. VMware has introduced a specific new set of API calls for NSX-t and broke compatibility with the existing network API calls.

My last statement form VMware was that it is possible to get NSX-v version of VMC on request.

Please let me know if you have further questions.
Andreas

[l.vinokur]

First, Andreas - thank you for the followup and clarification. You are correct - merely having the same name is not enough. The backend NIC type is incorrect.
The solution to this issue does not require deleting and re-adding the NIC. It is possible to "re-set" the NetworkName and the issue is resolved.
So after restore, you would do in PowerCLI (assume that the restored VMs are in the "MyVMs" folder):

Code: Select all

$nics = Get-VM -Location "MyVMs" | Get-NetworkAdapter
$nics | Foreach-Object {$_ | Set-NetworkAdapter -NetworkName $_.networkName -StartConnected:1 -confirm:0 }

This code will go over each VM and each network adapter and try to set the network to the same name and mark it to start as 'connected'. If there is a network with that name, the command will succeed.
So if your original port group was called "Servers", you would create a network segment in the Networking panel of the VMC called "Servers", restore the VMs and then reconnect the network.

[Andreas Neufert]

Thanks for sharing this interesting workaround.

[browngb]

Any method to provide support for NSX-T networks in SureBackup? The mapping doesn't work because Veeam doesn't see any of the logical segments VM's are tied to.

[foggy]

Hi Bishop, please review this thread for the details of NSX-T support. Thanks!