CBT and swap file exclusion

[cdecker]

I am starting to implement Veeam VBR 6. If I am using CBT and specify "Exclude swap file blocks from processing", is the swap file really excluded?

I have read conflicting information on this. Some have said that when using CBT, you still need to put the swap file on a dedicated VMDK and exclude that disk from the backup job in order to exclude it. Others say the exclusion works without doing that.

[foggy]

Charles, with v6, swap files are automatically excluded during backup and replication of Windows VMs, while for Linux VMs you can move it to a dedicated VMDK and leverage the exclude disk functionality. Thanks.

[rhnb]

I must admit this confuses me too.

Taking one W2008 server as an example.

It has its swap file on a separate VMDK. That VMDK is 6GB in size.
During backup, I see...
Hard disk 3(6.0GB) 4.0GB read at 87MB/s [CBT]
...
Swap file blocks skipped 2.0GB

Now looking on the VM, the swapfile does indeed have 2GB allocated at startup, so fair enough.

My problem is I can't exclude the disk (we do our backups by 'folders') and I can't see a way of populating that so I can say VM1 - exclude disk 3
VM2 - exclude disk 2
VM3 - exclude disk 5
etc.
So, as it's only a 6GB disk I live with it.
If anyone knows of a way of doing it - so we still can use folders then I'd love to hear it.

Cheers... allan.

[tsightler]

I'm curious, why do you want to exclude the disk if Veeam is already skipping the swap file anyway?

[rhnb]

Well it wouldn't have to read the 4GB it read in the above, plus the time taken adding it etc, so for 50 odd Windows VM's that could save a bit of time - every little helps as they say - especially as CBT isn't working on disks other than HD1 on most of them.

I take it there is no way to exclude disks then if you use 'folders' as your source for backups rather than a list of individual VMs?

[Gostev]

You can define disc exclusion rules per VM or per container. Click Exclusions, go to the Disks tab, add the required VM or container to the list, and specify the disk exclusion settings for the added object.

[rhnb]

Yes I've seen that, but not all VMs within the 'folder' are exactly the same in terms of disk layout, so excluding HD3 might be the swap disk on one, but a data disk on another.
No matter - I can live with that.

[foggy]

Allan, even backing up the whole folder, you can still specify the exclusions for VMs in this folder granularly. Just add the individual required VMs to the list on the Disks tab and specify the disks to be backed up for each of them separately.

[rhnb]

Brilliant - thanks for that foggy - I hadn't realised you could do that.
Cheeers... Allan.