SAN backup option fails

[pkuczynski]

Hi everyone,

We purchased Veeam for our two HP esxi servers that also have a SAN, all connected to a 1gb switch using Vcenter. The backup box, 2003 server, is also connected to the same 1gb switch.

When we try to run SAN backups, they fail, NBD works fine however.

Any thoughts as to what might be wrong?

Thanks!

Peter

[Gostev]

Hi Peter, what do you mean by "fails"? Do you get any error? Reasons can be absolutely different, depending on the error.
You can try searching for the error in this forum to find possible resolutions.

Usually, no VCB SAN mode indicates that VCB server was not setup correctly for direct storage access, according to VCB deployment guide.

Some things to check:
- Do you have SAN HBA installed in your VCB server?
- Did you make VMFS LUNs available to VCB server?
- Can you use VCB in SAN mode successfully from command line?

[pkuczynski]

Hi Gostev,

so yes, I did not set up the vcb proxy properly: )

It's a 2003 server, with 2 drives, one for the os and such, and a second 750gb drive dedicated for Veeam.

I do not have a san hba installed on the vcb proxy.
BTW, my SAN is iSCSI if that makes a difference.

I do not know how to make VMFS LUNS available to the VCB server : )

Not shure about command line.

I do have 2 LUN's visible and available to my ESX servers from my SAN, and one LUN from my FREENAS box, used as a NFS share that holds my iso CD's.

Peter

[Gostev]

For iSCSI SAN, you can potentially configure and use software iSCSI initiator on your Veeam Backup server (Microsoft iSCSI initiator comes with Windows, see Control Panel). Someone has reported before that Windows 2003 version of this has some issues though (fixed in Windows 2008). Also, don't expect great performance from it. But it will work.

Also, you have to carefully follow VCB deployment guide and disable some Windows settings before making LUNs available to Windows server. By the way, we have a great white-paper available on our web-site which you may find useful (see "Tips to a successful Veeam Backup and VCB integration"). It covers all of your questions above. Hope this helps.

[pkuczynski]

Hi Gostev,

I installed the MS iSCSI software on my 2003 server, it found my SAn right away....then I started Veeam.

The backups are going great, thank you!-)

One last question on scheduling.

Lets say, I create a backup job for each of my VM's.

IF one backup still hasnt quite finished, before another is set to start...how will Veeam handle that?

Thanks again!

Peter

[Gostev]

Hi Peter, if you are talking about different jobs - Veeam Backup can run multiple backup jobs in parallel, so overlapping jobs should not cause any problems. If you are talking about the same job - new job cycle will simply not start if the previous job cycle is still running.