ESXi 6.5 and vCenter 6.5 support

[Pat490]

the latest fling should be even newer than shipping version of 6.5

[muhfugen]

For those claiming B&R 9 will work with ESXi 6.5 you missed a big caveat. It only works with hardware profile 11 VMs, profile 13 VMs wont be available to be backed up.

[Clayton Crain]

Any updates on when this is likely to work? Have just acquired full version of Veeam specifically for new ESXI 6.5 Build, and reseller failed to mention non-supported scenario. Am getting NFC errors all over the place...

[Vitaliy S.]

Clayton, this configuration will work once Update 1 is released. We are aiming to make it publicly available early next year.

[Gostev]

We now have the Release Candidate build of Update 1, so those of you anxious to test Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 against vSphere 6.5 are welcome to contact our support to get the supported pre-release code and participate in the pilot. Thanks!

[ian0x0r]

Is there a fix list available with RC U1 Anton, other than 6.5 support?

Thanks,

Ian

[foggy]

Full release notes for this update will be available when it goes GA.

[Gostev]

Please note however that we stopped publishing complete "fix lists" for updates a couple of years ago, since it became too time-consuming to compile this list from R&D records with a few hundreds of bugs fixed in every update. However, support has access to the internal R&D bug tracker and can advise whether the specific bug submitted through a support case was fixed.

That said, we do document full list of all new features and enhancements, as well as areas of major stability and reliability improvements which are important for customers to be aware of (here's a sample for level of details). We will have the same document ready in time for U1 GA in a few weeks, When It's Ready™

[Clayton Crain]

HI -

This is Great news.

In order to join the pilot and obtain pre-release version of update 1, am I correct in saying i just need to raise a support ticket (from My.Veeam) requesting this?

Is there anything additional I need to do? Itching to get working on this....

[Mike Resseler]

Correct. Contacting support is what you need to do to participate in the pilot.

[kylecpcs]

Just an update...I reached out to support via a My Veeam web ticket asking to pilot the RC. Within 5 minutes, they sent me a link to download the RC for Update 1. They did say, however, that I cannot post the link to the download here, as they need to be able to track downloads to tickets, etc. I'll be testing out in lab with vSphere 6.5 and Nimble, and will post results with latest VM hardware profiles, etc.

[kylecpcs]

Another update. The RC successfully installed and now allows me to add the 6.5 vCenter server, and access the 6.5 ESXi hosts. It immediately errored out before by saying the vcenter server version was not supported. I will say, however, that it took over 30 minutes to install on a Windows 2012 R2 based VM inside VMware Workstation, the VM having quad procs, 16gb ram, and running off SSDs. YMMV.

Will test further.

[Pagey]

Hi All,

I also reached out to support and got the early RC of U1 for 9.5. (Case 02025717) - Thanks Foggy/Veeam

I have had success with both backups and replication thus far.

Details below

Cheers - Pagey

I am running the following;
1 x vCenter 6.5 Appliance (Medium size, simple deployment)
1 x ESXi 6.5 (4564106), 83GHz, 1Tb RAM
6 x ESXi 5.5 (3248547), 31GHz, 384Gb RAM
Nimble Storage

Onsite Backups
Onsite Windows 2012R2 VM running veeam 9.5 with the RC for U1. (Using Direct SAN access)
Veeam is connecting to the vCenter 6.5 VM
Successfully backed up 30 x Windows 2012 R2 VM's, including Exchange, AD, SQL, RDS, IIS, and various app servers.
Backups go to a CIFS share (60tb running on a Synology NAS)
I have done a full VM Restore (inc registration) to an alternate ESXi 6.5 host in an isolated network, they were a DC, SQL and App server.
I have power on the restored VM's and Veeam successfully took AD out of safe mode and auto rebooted, SQL and APP servers were fine.

Offsite Replication
I have an offsite Windows 2012R2 VM running veeam 9.5 with the RC for U1. (this uses a separate local proxy running 9.5 with RC for U1 also) (Using NBD access)
Veeam is connecting to the vCenter 6.5 VM
I have successfully replicated 14 x Windows 2012R2 VM's Exchange, AD, SQL, IIS, and an IP PBX.
I am replicating from both ESX 5.5 and 6.5 hosts to only ESX5.5 hosts at offsite location
These were seeded by replicas that were originally replicated by Veeam 8.0.0.2084 connected to vCenter 5.5 U3
I have powered on the Replicas and Veeam successfully took AD out of safe mode and auto rebooted, SQL and APP servers were fine.

I will now move to backup and replicate all VM's and continue testing!

[Mike Resseler]

Kyle / Rowan,

Thanks for all this detailed information. It is appreciated. Keep it coming . Please do let us know if you encounter issues and work with support asap so we can get those fixed in the final U1 release.

Again, thanks!

Mike

[hyvokar]

Hi!

Yesterday I upgraded from veeam 9.0u2 to 9.5 and I can no longer backup a standalone esxi6.5 host (it was working fine before....). Any ideas, when the 9.5u1 will be releeased, or should I go for RC?

[kylecpcs]

So far so good. Nailing up the Nimble VM worked as expected, and storage snapshots on the initial full backup of a test VM were in the seconds instead of minutes. 48 seconds to be exact.

Again, keep in mind, this is a virtual ESX server, with virtual vcenter server, with a virtual Nimble, and a full initial backup, running on my personal desktop. 48 seconds. Pretty good.

I will be testing out Nimble to Nimble Veeam replications soon.

Some screenshots with VM hardware version 13 on vSphere 6.5 with Veeam 9.5 Update 1 RC:

[Mike Resseler]

Now you are just making other people jealous :p (just kidding)

[kylecpcs]

Hi!

Yesterday I upgraded from veeam 9.0u2 to 9.5 and I can no longer backup a standalone esxi6.5 host (it was working fine before....). Any ideas, when the 9.5u1 will be releeased, or should I go for RC?

It might be another few weeks. I would recommend testing before deploying in production next time. Either roll back, or contact support and request the RC and take your chances. There is no official ETA yet.

[Mike Resseler]

Hyvokar,

I agree with Kyle. You can contact support and get the RC but it is an RC and not a GA version. So testing out first is something I would do.

I'm a bit surprised though because in 9.0u2, ESXi 6.5 was NOT supported. Only 6. So I would even consider rolling back not an option

[kylecpcs]

You could backup older VMs on vSphere 6.5 with Veeam 9.0 if I recall, but not the latest VM hardware version, so rolling Veeam back might be an option.

[Mike Resseler]

Kyle,

Yes, in that case I would do that until U1 is officially out. But feel free to contact support already for U1 for your test environment (if you have one) to see already what it does and to be ready to upgrade when it is GA

[CorpWalca]

anyone tryed to perform a backup with BR9.0U2 to a ESXi 6.5 VM?

[Vitaliy S.]

Cristian, this configuration is not supported. You need to be running Veeam B&R 9.5 with U1 to have a supported solution.

[J1mbo]

Any estimate on timelines Veeam support for at least vCentre 6.5?

I only ask since with the latest Windows 10 updates (and a 4K screen) the c# vmrc is basically dead and the old web client doesn't work either....

[Vitaliy S.]

James, RC build of Update 1 is already available via our support team.

[J1mbo]

Awesome, thanks

[aarshe]

James, RC build of Update 1 is already available via our support team.

would the RC build of u1 be available to evaluators as well? i am looking to purchase but not without testing first. i started an eval a few weeks ago only to find out esxi 6.5 is not supported yet.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, support cases can be opened even when you're running on a trial key.

[muhfugen]

Just a FYI but 9.5 RC 1 wont necessarily work with 6.5. I receive the following error when trying to add a ESXi 6.5 host or VCSA 6.5. The host has data stores on a Areca 1883ix RAID card and a SATA DOM. I opened a support case (02025767) to report the bug, but just received a generic "6.5 is unsupported wait till 9.5 update 1" message, so I can only assume it is a known issue. I receive the same error for both the ESXi host and the VCSA.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Muh,

Are you running 9.5 Update 1 RC that is retrieved through support? I ask because ESXi 6.5 support is coming with this update and if you are running that, we should look at what is going wrong

Thanks
Mike