3PAR storage snapshot - veeam functionality

[ivordillen]

Hello,

We have 2 3PARs in service and we are using veeam for backup with the storage integration.

We see that if there is a snaphot with full vm's it is possible to restore via the storage snapshots.

If the vm is located on multple datastores/luns, is it possible to do the same if I snapshot these luns at the same time? What if I spread active datastores over the 2 3PARs?

Kind regards,

Ivor

[Gostev]

Hello, actually we require that VM disks are located on the same LUN, so what you are trying to do will not work. Thanks!

[ivordillen]

Thanks for the clear answer.

Is there a possibility that veeam b&r will ever be able to snapshot a entire vm over more LUN's. You are able to snapshot it for backup so why not for storage snapshot?

kind regards,

Ivor

[Gostev]

VM snapshot used for backup is handled by hypervisor, so it can be made atomic regardless of VM disks placement (as the entire VM is stunned why virtual disk files are processed on individual LUNs). Storage snapshots, on the other hand, cannot control the VM execution process, and are performed one LUN at a time, so you cannot achieve a consistent VM state across two snapshots (there will always be delta if a VM has disks on multiple LUNs).

[kte]

but if you first thake a vmware snapshot, an then thake a storage snapshot of all the luns an then commit the vmware snapshot, i don't see why i wont be consistant, because all thewrire go do the vlwaredelta disks, and you must only backup a freezed vmdk file

[Gostev]

I am confused now... you've been talking about taking storage snapshots, and restoring from them. How backup has any play in this activity?

[emachabert]

FYI: When you want to have consistency accross multiple snaphots within the same array (virtual copy in 3Par terms), you can make a VirtualCopy consistency group, so that the array will synchronize the snapshot process accross multiple LUNs.
But for now, Veeam Backup has no information about those consistency groups and can't use them.

What would be great is to be able to Schedule a storage snapshot directly from Veeam Backup for point in time recovery purpose. I didn't look at it in v8 but I remember that in v7, you could only take storage snpashots manually.

[ivordillen]

Indeed you can only take storage snapshots manually but Veeam is able to take a backup with storage integration so why wouldn't it be possible to 'storage snapshot' a VM via the veeam interface... It is not that different than a backup... but lets keep the snapshot online.
Maybe I don't need a application consistent snapshot but for a large fileserver it could come in handy....

Ivor

[Gostev]

We can do this in v8, but for NetApp storage only.

[emachabert]

Can you plan it for v9
It could bring point it time recovery for 3Par customers. Like being able to plan an hourly snapshot during the working hours directly from the backup software and leveraging veeam explorers at restore time, and then killing the snaps before daily backup.

Looks like easy to integrate since you have the code to do it manually on one side and a scheduler in the other side

[Gostev]

v9 plans were finalized last year, in fact we are getting close to the first alpha may be in future, depending on the amount of requests (this is the first in 1.5 years). Currently, you can achieve the same pretty easily by scheduling such hourly snapshots with the native snapshot scheduler. Thanks!

[emachabert]

Yes, that's what I usually do. And furthermore, if you have the VMware Suite licence, you can Schedule the snapshot through the vcenter plugin. Using this approach you'll have a quiesced snapshot (VMware tools) within the VM.
what would be cool, is to have the Veeam VSS quiescence with the hourly snaps