The necessity of enabling CBT on a VM-by-VM basis

[shale]

I have conflicting reports of the necessity of enabling VSphere 4 Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on a VM-by-VM basis when using a VSphere API enabled
backup app like Veeam 4.x B & R -

What's the Real answer ?

Thanks -

SH

[Gostev]

Hello Scott, for many backup apps this is true indeed, however Veeam Backup enables CBT automatically for you on all processed VMs. There is an option for this available in the Advanced job settings. Hope this helps!

[shale]

Hi - Yes, I noticed this, I also noticed that no modifications are done to the VM config files, and there is no "-ctk.vmdk" file created in the subdirectory that the VM
files reside in - is there are reason for this ?

[Gostev]

You have to run the job first, then during the first pass (full backup) it will set CBT up on all processed VMs.