Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
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rawtaz
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Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by rawtaz »

Hi,

When having backed up a VM for a while, and now running it from backup storage via Instant Recovery, and wanting to finalize the migration using the Quick Migration Wizard, should one choose the original/backed up VM (named Foo and currently off) or the currently running-from-backup-storage VM (named Foo IR and currently running) in the dialog to add VMs to the migration?
foggy
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Re: Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by foggy »

The one you actually want to migrate - in the DR scenario, when the source VM is lost and you are running it from a backup, you would want to migrate this running VM to the recovered production environment keeping all the changes since it is fired up.
rawtaz
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Re: Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by rawtaz »

Alright, makes sense. Was just a bit confusing though since the original VM that was backed up and still resides on the (one) ESXi host in a shutdown mode was listed too, even though it can not reasonably be migrated anywhere since there's only the ESXi host and the backup repository (two of them).

Another question though: I did a Quick Migration of the VM that was running from backup. No error messages, all fine. But when I connect to the migrated VM it is an exact copy from the backup, it does not contain any of the changes that I made to the Instant Recovery published VM.
To clarify: When I started an Instant Recovery of the VM, I relocated the temporary/write storage to the local datastore on the ESXi host instead of the vPower NFS. Then, when the VM was running from backup, I installed an application in it and fiddled around a bit. Now in the migrated VM i am looking at, the application does not exist, which leads me to believe that the changes that were made to the running VM are not merged with the migrated one, so to say.

As I understand the texts at page 36 and 50 in the user guide, the migrated VM should be updated with the changes made to the VM running from backup, when one does Instant Recovery and then finalizes the migration using Quick Migrates. Am I wrong?

Thanks!
foggy
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Re: Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by foggy »

You are right, the changes should be applied to the migrated VM. Please open a support case as logs should be reviewed here.
rawtaz
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Re: Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by rawtaz »

OK, so there is no setting I might have overlooked or something else that needs to be done? Having a VM published in the "Instant Recovery" list under "Backup & Replication" in the left tree in the main Veeam window, and then doing a Quick Migration of this VM should be enough? The image at http://grab.by/bNZE shows the progress Veeam reported.

Just want to make reasonable sure I didn't overlook something obvious before starting a support case for something seemingly silly as this. Are we really sure that changes in the running VM should be merged with the migrated one, even when one does not have vStorage vMotion, and have redirected writes to non-vPower NFS storage?
foggy
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Re: Which VM to Quick Migrate?

Post by foggy »

I just checked with our QC and it seems to be an issue with applying redirected changes in case of Instant Recovery. Support guys are already aware of it and are investigating it currently so you definitely should create a case to be able to help them and possibly get the resolution as/if it appears.
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