Backup Job only using Hot Add proxies and not Network Mode Proxies

[bpayne]

If a Backup Job is configured to use a pool of Proxies that lets say half are configured for Hot Add mode and the other half are configured as Network Mode only, is it default behavior for the Backup Job to process VM's using the Hot Add Proxies only and its chooses to NOT use any of the available Network Mode proxies? This is something that I'm seeing.

Back story. As many others, I've been hit with the VMware Update 2 bug which causes Proxy VM's to become Invalid (vmware-vsphere-f24/vsphere-6-5u2-suppor ... 1-105.html). So I decided to change only those Proxy VM's to use Network Mode only in that particular VMware Cluster that has ESXi hosts with Update 2. Because I have a large VM infrastructure, I have many Backup Jobs that have VM's from multiple clusters (some ESXi hosts with Update 1 and others with the problematic Update 2), so with each of these Backup Jobs configured to use a pool of Proxy VM's from multiple clusters, half with Hot Add mode and the other half with Network Mode only.

So with this configuration, I am seeing when a Backup job runs, it will only choose to use the Hot Add mode proxies and when it runs out of available hot-add proxies, the rest of the VM's have status "Resource Not ready: VMware backup Proxy" when it should be using the available Network mode proxies. I have checked the jobs are configured to use both Proxies.

Thanks in advance

[foggy]

Hi Brandon, yes, this is an expected behavior. With the default proxy selection algorithm, direct SAN and hotadd proxies are preferred over network mode proxies. NBD proxy is never selected if there is at least one available direct SAN or hotadd proxy.

[DonZoomik]

Sorry about digging up ancient threads but I had a similar question.
Just added a Linux HotAdd proxy to an environment where there used to be only a Direct SAN proxy and new HotAdd is not used at all. Status is "Resource not ready: backup proxy".
Is there a similar priority at play here where Direct SAN is exclusively prefered over HotAdd? Can I override it? v10 here.

[foggy]

Have you checked if any of the Linux proxy or hotadd requirements/limitations comes into play?

[DonZoomik]

Went through the list (where requirements apply AFAIK)
It's a Debian 10 very basic install (UEFI mode, SSH and standard tools, default shell seems to be bash), 5vCPU, 4GB RAM, 16GB thin disk
disk.EnableUUID is enabled (by Add Proxy wizard)
Only Virtual Appliance (hotadd) is expected to be used
No AWS, only onprem vCenter/vSphere 6.7
Expecting to use only for backup, restore and replication target (seed from backups)
Proxy VM and VMs to be backed up are within one VMware datacenter (and a physical DC as well)
Host has access to all iSCSI backed datastores
Latest open-vm-tools is installed.

SCSI 0:X controller must be present on a backup proxy. In the opposite case, VM data processing in the Virtual appliance transport mode will fail.

Not sure what to think about it, VM has a Paravirtual SCSI controller.
Proxy affinity is set to to prefer this Proxy (and Direct SAN one) for site-local repositories (this Veeam setup manages several physical sites).

Disabled Direct SAN proxy for a test and backup job errors out with "Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: All backup proxies are offline or outdated". Clicked through proxy wizard again, no errors or warnings there but job is not still picking it up. Restarted Veeam system, no help.

There's something else at play here probably so time to contact support.

Really strange, as it worked like a charm at my home lab with Community edition.

[foggy]

Yes, opening a case would be your best bet here.

[DonZoomik]

Just got around to it...
#04155208
I also deployed a second proxy for testing that is co-located with backup server in same network and it seems to work fine. Problematic proxy is in another country and another network but I can't see anything obviously wrong in logs that I've looked at.

[DonZoomik]

Case closed - it was a dumb mistake on my part. I had forgotten that I had explicitly selected proxies in job settings in addition to repository proxy affinity. Clearing proxy selection in job settings allowed jobs to use HotAdd proxy just fine.