Database Exclusion not working on SQL 2014

[Vasko]

Hi guys,

I'm on B&R 7 Patch 3. It's backing up a vSphere 5.5 System with ~15 Machines on it. I'm hosting the vCenter VCDB database on a dedicated SQL 2014 Enterprise Instance which is working totally fine. However when I'm backing up the SQL 2014 Machine through a Job where the VM has been added through the vSphere Machine the backup fails because of the situation stated in KB1051.

The Backup Agent correctly detected the VCDB database on the SQL Server and added an exception in "Database Exclusions" however it is not excluding the Database (I can see the freeze operation in the logs on the SQL Server). And so the Backup fails with "VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout" which is the expected behaviour in that case.
I tried to remove the VCDB exclusion and add it manually. Without luck.
When I add the ESXi host the SQL server is running on to Veeam Console and back it up through the standalone host everything works like a charm!
To me it just looks like Veeam is just ignoring the exclusion.

Now my question is: Is this known? And if yes, is there a fix/workarround?

Greetings,
Felix

[foggy]

Felix, I don't think we support SQL 2014, since it has just been released and we had no chance to test database exclusions on it. I will check with QC though.

[foggy]

QC were not able to reproduce the behavior you're observing, so kindly please contact technical support and provide full logs for investigation. Database should be excluded fine in the described scenario.

[Vasko]

Thank you foggy! will do so!

[foggy]

It would be great if you could also post the case ID here, for more convenient further tracking.

[dschoene]

I can confirm this same behavior with SQL 2012, Veeam 7.0.0.839 and VMWare 5.5 U1. The SQL server that has the vCenter DB fails to backup with error "VSSControl: Failed to freeze guest, wait timeout". I too have tried the DB exclusion option as described in KB1051, but Veeam appears to ignore the setting. I removed the exclusion that was automatically added by Veeam and added it back (to correct case sensitivity), but the setting was still ignored.

[Vitaliy S.]

Thank you for your post, can you please tell me if you have a support case already opened on this?

[dschoene]

Hi Vitaliy,

No, I have not opened a support case. I will do that shortly.

[Vitaliy S.]

I will also appreciate if you could update this topic once the issue is resolved. Thanks!

[Vasko]

Hi guys,

I wasn't able to work on this until now.
My case ID is 00549183.

I was able to make some progress in this matter:
One of the Veeam support guys pointed me in the direction of case sensitivity.
In my case Veeam automatically detected the vCenter DB and created the entry "vcdb" on "HOST". To test case sensitivity I deleted that entry and added "VCDB" on "HOST".
This made the backup work but not for long. As soon as Veeam runs the Job that contains the VM providing vSphere services (prop. vCenter is the service to blame here) it removes my manual "VCDB" entry and replaces it with the faulty "vcdb" which makes the backup fail again. It doesn't matter if the vSphere VM is in the same job as the SQL Server VM or not. As soon as the vSphere services providing VM is processed, the entry gets set back to "vcdb" and backup fails.

I'm waiting for suggestions from support. I like working with Veeam support so far. Fast responses. Constant follow ups. Friendly guys. Feel like my problem matters! Keep it up!

Felix

[foggy]

Felix, thanks for the update and positive feedback. I'm sure support will be able to nail this down eventually.

[Vasko]

This behavior has been confirmed to me by Veeam Support as a bug and will be fixed in one of the upcoming versions.

Best,
Felix

[foggy]

Thanks for coming back to update the thread, much appreciated.