Backup causing application problems

[sandroalves]

Hi friends,

we have observed that after implementing the veam backup some applications have a problem with the service during the backup task.

We have had some bad experiences with another backup solution using agentless and I believe we are suffering from the same problem with veam backup.

Looking at the application's logs and the windows logs shows that during the routine some activity related to the Windows VSS connection and disk disconnection occurs during the process and at that moment the application falls.

I think about installing the veam backup agent to assess whether the problem in the applications will persist but I have some doubts:

- Is there any configuration using agentless that I could try to assess if the problem will persist? How for example to disable the integrity of applications during the backup routine?

- As soon as I install the agent on the virtual machine, will the backup that will be created create a new backup or use existing backups made with agentless?

NOTE: I am using infinite incremental bakcup forever.

Thank you.

[HannesK]

Hello,
I strongly recommend to contact support... but to answer your questions

1) yes you can do backups without application aware processing and without VMware tools quiescing. Just remove the checkboxes. To simulate a backup, you could also create VMware snapshots without memory and wait some time and delete the VMware snapshots.
2) the agent will create a new backup.

Best regards,
Hannes

[sandroalves]

Yes, I am evaluating I opened a case with the support, but I want to test with an agent first.

But as I already had a problem with another solution, I believe the problem with the performance of our vmware hypervisor infrastructure.

Our applications are very sensitive and I was talking to the VMware team where they told me that VMware itself initiates agent backup for some types of services like (Exchange, SQL and etc.)

As much as the application is simple services based on apache tomcat, there is an interconnectivity relationship between servers and if during the backup there is a loss of performance during the snapshot process this may be causing failures in this interconnectivity.

I've seen it happen in another environment with the same solution that we use. In this other environment, I don't know what backup solution they used, but the symptom is the same.

I understood that with the agent backup I will have to create a new JOB and reconfigure everything again, this worried me about storage space.

[sandroalves]

Hello,
I strongly recommend to contact support... but to answer your questions

1) yes you can do backups without application aware processing and without VMware tools quiescing. Just remove the checkboxes. To simulate a backup, you could also create VMware snapshots without memory and wait some time and delete the VMware snapshots.
2) the agent will create a new backup.

Best regards,
Hannes

Hi.

When I backups without application aware processing and without VMware tools quiescing, what does it mean in practice?

When I restore a server will the applications be compromised?

Thank you.

[HannesK]

Hello,
I believe there are too many moving parts to cover that on the forums... I suggest to split it into smaller questions when contacting support

1) I suggest fixing the environment load. if the environment cannot handle backups, how should it do a proper restore?
2) as you mention Exchange and SQL... there is a KB article for DAG / always on clusters to avoid cluster failovers
3) backup from storage snapshots might help with VM stuns: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100
4) It just works in most cases. A proper operating system / application can deal with power outages (crash-consistent backup). Of course, things like SQL logshipping or Exchange log truncation do not work in crash consistent mode.

Best regards,
Hannes