Moving VMs to different host

[cag]

I Just moved one of my VM's from 1 server to another. Running MSSQL / VCenter. Once I did this Veeam Complains that the object cannot be found.
Ok no problem I added the server at its new location. Now the Replication Job complains there are duplicate files.

So whats the problem its the same server with the same destination. Seams to be a BIG DESIGN FLAW that the replication process is not smart enough to
understand that this is the same server. Is Veeam V5 Beta software, and not all features are complete yet ?

What am I missing ?

Veeam please understand that VM's will move. Thats the idea behind VMWARE, easy to move resources.

I think this would work if I added the VM from Vcenter instead of the host directly, but then Veeam cannot VSS the server. So either way you are screwed.

How can this be fixed without starting over. 180GB over a WAN cannot happen. Is there some other product I can use. Veeam Replication seems to be very limited

when it comes to replication. It should be set it and forget it.

[Gostev]

This can be true depending on how you configured your jobs, and how you "moved" the VM.

This won't happen if you configure your jobs through vCenter server as opposed to individual hosts. If you move VM located under vCenter server, it will not change its unique ID, and therefore your jobs will not "brake". Unless of course instead of actually moving, you unregister and then register VM back (doing this will also create new unique ID for VM, and thus "break" existing jobs).

For more details on how Veeam B&R tracks virtual machines see my response here > Backups break after host remove/add

Thanks.

[cag]

Any plans to fix this.
Seems very limited and a very poor design.
I do replicate using host because I cannot backup via vcenter, vss wont work then.
Please fix replication to work and support what real people do. Things move and change.

[tsightler]

You should really try to figure out why VSS doesn't work when you use vCenter because that doesn't make any real sense at all. Veeam does exactly the same things when added via vCenter as when added via the host so there's no reason VSS shouldn't work. I replicate all of my hosts via vCenter and VSS works fine and I move my VM's occasionally just as designed.

[cag]

VSS Doesn't work because Vcenter is running in the VM, It works with all other VM's except the one were VCenter is running.

Is there somthing I need to change to make vss work where vcenter is running.

[Vitaliy S.]

The only possible way to backup vCenter Server with VSS is to use direct host connection, otherwise while being frozen vCenter Server wouldn't be able to process API calls which are essential to move the backup process forward. In other words, this causes a "deadlock" and backup fails out after timeout.

As for whether to use direct host connection or vCenter Server, then certainly you should configure all backup/replication jobs through vCenter Server, as it will make all your jobs "VMotion" aware.

[tsightler]

VSS Doesn't work because Vcenter is running in the VM, It works with all other VM's except the one were VCenter is running.

Is there somthing I need to change to make vss work where vcenter is running.

OK, I see. Yes, we have this issue as well and we also add the vCenter VM directly via the ESX host. But backing up the vCenter VM is a unique circumstance and your original post implies that this is some major shortcoming in Veeam's design, but there's actually pretty good reasons why this specific use case is a difficult situation to handle. Obviously you cannot backup vCenter with VSS while using VSS because vCenter can't process any commands while the VSS state is frozen, and obviously Veeam would have difficulty tracking VM's if you add them directly via the ESX host since, well, if you move it, that VM is no longer on that host.

But this problem doesn't exist for any other VM. There are two reasonable workarounds:

1. Configure the vCenter VM with a pre-freeze script to trigger a normal SQL backup of the vCenter database (or simply schedule a normal SQL backup of the vCenter database sometime prior to the Veeam backup of this host) and simply don't use VSS for this host, knowing that, if you have to restore the vCenter VM, and the backup isn't crash consistent (it probably will be fine) then you may need to perform a native SQL restore from the last backup.

2. Do you best not to move the vCenter VM very often and, if you do, know that you have to edit the job to re-add this VM. This is only for this specific VM and will not affect any VM's added via vCenter.

[ccrichard]

why not just use a sqlcmd script to backup the database? As Long as you have a template or standby VM you can just recover the sql database.

------Oops, sorry, Somebody beat me to this suggestion.

[Gostev]

Just wanted to add that, as other people already mentioned, there is no way for us to track VM moving from one host from another when you configure your jobs through standalone hosts. Because our engine can only use host-level unique VM ID in this case, after you move the VM to another host, new host will assign different host-level VM ID. And, as I explained in the above-referenced topic, the only reliable way to match VM is using its unique ID. Anything else will simply not work (things like name, disk sizes etc. are too common). Thus, there is no way for our engine to match newly registered VM into some one old one (and there will never be the way). Our engine simply cannot know if this is the same VM with the information it has available: only you yourself know this.

And, in fact, our next version will enable you to leverage your knowledge We are planning to provide you with ability to setup mapping between source and existing target VM manually, and this will resolve your biggest issue (requirement of full replication over WAN).

Thanks.

[chazhill]

[merged]

Hi Guys,

If I move a VM to another ESXI host can I change the job in Veeam to reflect the move or would I have to create a brand new backup job?

[chazhill]

Well it looks like I got my answer, thanks!

[Scott]

[merged]

Hello,

I am looking moving the guests on one of my ESXi5 hosts over to some shiny new hardware

This host has the guests on local storage and a RDM. We also VB&R 6.1 to replicate the guests to a remote DR site.

I know I can use the VM Copy functionality to copy over to the new kit, my question is what happens with the replication job - will it just continue without missing a beat if I change the host that VB&R is pointing to - or will I need to effectively use the existing replicas as a seed?

Cheers,
Scott

[foggy]

Scott, for replication jobs to continue flawlessly, it's better to move the VM (not copy and re-register) using native vSphere tools or Veeam B&R Quick Migration feature. Otherwise, you have to edit replication jobs to point them to the new VMs on source and mapping them to the right VMs on target. Thanks!

[Scott]

Ah thank you. I'll give that a shot.

Cheers,
Scott