Backing up virtual center VM

[rschmaltz]

I'm running Vsphere 4.0 and have virtual center set up as a VM. It fails on backup because Veeam is using it to do the backup (I get a message that VSS Fails to freeze). I've read that the work around is to create a backup job where you add the host directly (by IP) that holds virtual center. However, if DRS moves the VM the job will fail.

Are these my only options? Is there a way to say, check all of these hosts and back up the VM on whichever one is holding the virtual center VM?

[withanh]

I use VA mode (Veeam is also a virtual machine) and just turned off the VSS for that one machine. I'm sure that there's probably a better way to do it, but this works for me.

[Ace T]

We are also going to virtualise our VirtualCenter server but a bit worried about this as we use our VC in VeeamBackup. We also have the software installed on a physical server and not a VM so cannot use Virtual Appliance mode I think. What will be the best way to handle this ?

[Gostev]

Best way to backup vCenter is through the workaround mentioned in the first post. Alternatively, you can do what the second post describes (disable Veeam VSS, the processing mode does not matter), this will produce crash-consistent backups of vCenter VM.

[Ace T]

Will the second method work with VA mode as we use Veeam on physical servers

[Gostev]

Sure.

[Chris128]

I have a couple of problems with this:
1. What if our vCenter virtual machine is not locked to one physical ESX host? We have a high availability cluster of 4 ESX hosts and any of the VMs can move between any of the 4 physical hosts...
2. We are using ESXi and when I try to add one of the servers to Veeam I get "Failed to login to "server name" by SOAP, port 443, user root, proxy srv: port:0. Input string was not in a correct format (when I try to add one of the servers that is still running ESX rather than ESXi it works fine).

[Gostev]

1. You would have to remember to update the backup job each time when vCenter VM moves
2. You are trying to use a very old Veeam Backup version (that does not support vSphere 4.1) against ESX(i) 4.1

[Chris128]

1. That's going to be tricky as we don't know when it has moved, it just moves automatically to load balance or provide fault tolerance. I guess if the backup suddenly started failing we would have to just check and see if it had moved somewhere else but its not really a great way to work is it...
2. We are using Veeam 4.1 - I would have thought that would be compatible with vSphere 4.1 and ESXi 4.1 what with the version numbers matching... is that just a coincidence?

[BarryCoombs]

I would recommend disabling DRS for your vCenter VM if possible, this means if you get a problem with the vCenter and need to access it directly from a host you will know that it is always on the host where you left it, useful if this is the first host in the cluster etc.

This then means you know which host you need to do the workaround for Veeam backup with.

Cheers

Barry

[Gostev]

Yes, just coincidence - Veeam Backup 4.1 was released back in 2009, over half a year before vSphere 4.1 (which is eternity in this industry)

[Chris128]

OK thanks for the advice guys - will look at upgrading to the latest version as soon as we can

[Gostev]

If you'd like, you can request version 4.1.2 through support (this does support vSphere 4.1), do this minor upgrade, and postpone big upgrade to the latest major version (5.0) when you have more time on your hands to learn the new release capabilities. Plus, we will be releasing version 5.0.1 within about 10 days, so you may want to go straight to that and thus save yourself some time. Thanks!

[Chris128]

Cool thanks yeah we will probably wait for 5.0.1 then We actually nalso eed to rebuild our Server 2008 VM that Veeam is installed on anyway so I guess it would be a good idea to just install the new version on a fresh installation of Server 2008 rather than upgrading the existing Veeam installation.

[_d1z]

Was this issue solved in 5.0.1?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Igor,

Not sure what issue you are talking about... If you want to backup vCenter Server then you need to add this VM through direct host connection.

[RumataRus]

If you want to backup vCenter Server then you need to add this VM through direct host connection.

I guess in case of Virtual Appliance it is possible to back up vCenter Server without "Enable application-aware image processing" and then additionaly restore vCenter SQL database, if it is non-consistent after recovery.

[Vitaliy S.]

You can backup vCenter Server through vCenter Server connection if only both "Enable application-aware image processing" and VMware Tools quiescence are disabled. If you want to have transaction-consisten backups then you need to backup vCenter Server through standalone host connections.

[RumataRus]

You can backup vCenter Server through vCenter Server connection if only both "Enable application-aware image processing" and VMware Tools quiescence are disabled.

Thank You! I had understood it.

If you want to have transaction-consisten backups then you need to backup vCenter Server through standalone host connections.

By my previous post I want to say that it is possible to have crash-consistent backup and additionaly made vCenter Server SQL database.
So we can restore crash-consistent backup and then vCenter Server SQL database. Thus we will get "well-behaved" vCenter Server, won`t we?

[Gostev]

In most cases, crash consistent for low activity SQL server will work fine. If you want to be 100% sure, or if you SQL server has significant load, you need transactionally-consistent backups.

[RumataRus]

In most cases, crash consistent for low activity SQL server will work fine.

Indeed? Well, in this case you calm me down.