Veeam Proxy not capable of doing Storage Snapshot

[eantonio]

Case: 00816645

I want to utilize Veeam Storage Snapshot. When I run my backup job, I get a warning saying : Cannot find backup proxy capable of retrieving VM data from storage snapshot. The servers I'm trying to backup is in vmfs datastore (no RDM disks). All my ESX hosts has access to this datastore and the proxy server can get to it as well. Any ideas why the proxy cannot retrieve data from storage snapshot?

[eantonio]

I also tried putting the proxy in the same datastore as the server I'm trying to backup. Still getting the same Warning saying "Cannot find backup proxy capable of retrieving VM data from storage snapshot"

[foggy]

Emil, do you have a VMware backup proxy properly configured for backup from storage snapshots?

[eantonio]

Foggy, since the proxy is in the same vmfs datastore as the server I'm trying to backup, doesn't that mean it has access to that datastore? I'm still getting the same warning.

[foggy]

It has access to the datastore and is able to to backup VMs residing on it using hotadd. However, to be able to perform backup from storage snapshots, you need to configure backup proxy as it is described in the user guide section referred to above.

[gglynn]

However, to be able to perform backup from storage snapshots, you need to configure backup proxy as it is described in the user guide section referred to above.

The linked section from the user manual is woefully short on any actual details. Can someone seriously flesh these out for us? For example, my backup proxy (Windows) has "direct network access" to my NetApp, in the sense that they're both on the same LAN and IP network, so what else do I actually need to do in order to enable backups from storage snapshots via NFS?

Also, Veeam uses its own built-in iSCSI initiator for scanning the NetApp for volumes and snapshots--which works great--so why has Veeam chosen not to use that same built-in initiator to perform SAN and SAN snapshot backups, rather than requiring us to use the Microsoft initiator? I'd really rather not have to configure the latter to access all my SAN volumes read/write, especially since Windows doesn't know anything about VMFS and essentially thinks my NetApp LUNs are blank and ready to write a partition table to.

[Vitaliy S.]

Can someone seriously flesh these out for us? For example, my backup proxy (Windows) has "direct network access" to my NetApp, in the sense that they're both on the same LAN and IP network, so what else do I actually need to do in order to enable backups from storage snapshots via NFS?

If you're using NFS, then all you need to make it work is to add your NetApp storage to Veeam backup server, and make sure that proxy has network access to the storage. If storage rescan operation has successfully finished, then you''re all set.

Also, Veeam uses its own built-in iSCSI initiator for scanning the NetApp for volumes and snapshots--which works great--so why has Veeam chosen not to use that same built-in initiator to perform SAN and SAN snapshot backups, rather than requiring us to use the Microsoft initiator? I'd really rather not have to configure the latter to access all my SAN volumes read/write, especially since Windows doesn't know anything about VMFS and essentially thinks my NetApp LUNs are blank and ready to write a partition table to.

In order to prevent Windows Servers from wiping out all data during volume, Veeam backup server automatically sets SAN Policy to Offline/disables disk automount during installation of the proxy server. In case of NFS protocol, iSCSI initiator is not required when storage rescan job is triggered.

Let me know if that helps!