BUG(?): Backup Copy Job Excludes VMs Incorrectly

[craig.anderson]

..or so I think.

Veeam 7 Patch 1 installed

Here's the scenario simplified for discussion purposes:

Virtual Machines in cluster: A, B, C

Backup Job 1: A, B
Backup Job 2: All servers in cluster excluding servers already backed up (exclude A and B)

This is our common "catch-all setup" where we have jobs for specific types of VMs and then finally a catch-all job in case the client spins up new VMs or does something we don't predict.

Backup Copy Job: Select Backup Job 1 and Backup Job 2
Result: only Server C gets copied offsite

Workarounds:
a) Create a separate backup copy job for the catch-all
b) Individually select all servers to be backed up and don't use exclusion ANYWHERE for servers you want copied
c) Select VM's individually in the backup copy job instead of selecting "jobs"

What I think is happening:
When the backup copy job is building the VM list it is using the exclusion settings of the jobs i the selection list and excluding VMs based on that (even though I have not put any exclusion settings in the backup copy job itself)

Does this make sense? I'm not really looking for support here since I know how to work around it, mostly looking to see if anybody else has encountered this or if it is a bug. Case 00469057

[Gostev]

Makes sense. I will ask QC to try and reproduce this.

[Gostev]

Checked with devs already, appears to be known issue. Too late to include in the upcoming Patch #2 (not a small change), so we will instead create a hotfix on top of Patch #2 once it is out (next few weeks). I recommend that you request to keep this support case open until the hot fix is available, to be notified upon availability. Thank you, and sorry for this inconvenience...

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Hi
We’re seeing a strange issue with Backup and Copy jobs.
We first created a Backup Job based on folders which included VMDC01 / VMDC02 / VMExchange
After some time we noticed this job was too big, so we split the job into 3 jobs.

- First job: all vms based on folders, exclude: VMDC01 / VMDC02 / VMExchange
- Second job: Just VMDC01
- Third job: VMDC02 / VMExchange

The copy job should copy all VMs from these three jobs to a remote location. However when the copy job runs, we’re seeing that it reports that VMDC01 / VMDC02 / VMExchange should be excluded. Which is not correct. It looks as if the exclusion from the first job is also used in the second and third job.

We already created a support request, but maybe someone on the forum knows

[Gostev]

Based on my previous comment, the fix should have been included in Patch #3.

[Gostev]

Foggy checked for me and I was wrong, this was not included in the patch because there was a single support case only on this issue. But perhaps they still have the hot fix, so opening a support case was good idea. Thanks!

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Thank you, I will ask for the hotfix

[itfnb]

So there may be a hotfix for it?

Last fall, I broke out a DC into its own job to keep the SYSVOL DFSR from getting re-broken:

Backup Job 1: DC1
Backup Job 2: All other VMs

Backup Copy Job: both Backup Jobs, but DC1 gets excluded from the copying

[foggy]

Please contact support directly, if there's a fix, they will be able to provide it to you.

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Unfortunately support didn't want to supply the hotfix. We now changed the vCenter folder structure so the VMs aren't in that folder anymore and we don't have to exclude them. Case nr: 00535730. My customer asked for a reason why it couldn't be supplied but I haven't heard back from my customer yet.

[foggy]

Probably there're simply no hotfix for this issue since, as Anton has stated above, by the time of patch 3 we've got just a single report about it.

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Can you reproduce it? Because it seems quite simple to reproduce. Create two backup jobs. First jobs makes a backup of a folder with a number of vms included. Plus one VM, let's call it VMXYZ. Then exclude VMXYZ from the first job. Create a second job for just that VM. Create a copy job that copies both backup jobs.

[Gostev]

I have forwarded this to QC lead.