Hardware Snapshots - clarification

[DanielG]

Hey guys,

It is my first experience with the storage snapshots, so please be gentle

My environment:
Veeam B&R V8 Patch1 - installed on a physical box (also target storage).
ESXi/vSphere V5.1
3PAR 7200 with snapshot license (source storage). Snapshot CPG is configured on a test Virtual Volume (LUN).

All 3 devices can see each other through FC and I can see the LUNs in Windows disk manager. I add 3PAR to the Veeam and can manually create storage snapshots, see VMs under the snapshots and run Veeam Explorer and restore data. This part works fine.

Now, I create a backup job and add a VM that is located on my test VV (LUN). "Use storage snapshot" is enabled on the job.
The job kicks out, performance are great, finishes without an error, but I think it is not using the storage snapshots and I can't figure it out.

This is what I see:

:: Getting VM info from vSphere
:: Preparing guest for hot backup
:: Creating snapshot
:: Releasing guest
:: Saving [3par01-SANDBOX1-FC] TEST-DC2008/TEST-DC2008.vmx
:: Saving [3par01-SANDBOX1-FC] TEST-DC2008/TEST-DC2008.vmxf
:: Saving [3par01-SANDBOX1-FC] TEST-DC2008/TEST-DC2008.nvram
:: Using backup proxy Veeam-Proxy.local for disk Hard disk 1 [san]
:: Hard disk 1 (40.0 GB) 38.0 GB read at 214 MB/s [CBT]
:: Removing VM snapshot
:: Finalizing
:: Truncating transaction logs
:: Processing finished at 2015-03-05 2:38:42 PM

My understanding that it should create a VMware snapshot, then create a hardware snapshot, then remove the VMware snapshot and continue using the hardware snapshot. Veeam will display something like "Using hardware snapshot" and I should see the hardware snapshot in the 3PAR console (I don't see it).

What am I missing here?

Thanks,
Daniel

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Daniel,

Do you see SAN snapshot being created (in the 3PAR management console) when backup job is running?

Thanks!

[DanielG]

Nope, I don't see SAN snapshots. If I manually create them through Veeam, then I see them on 3PAR as well.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, it seems like Direct SAN mode is used, instead of storage snapshots. Can you please tell me if you've added proxy server to the 3PAR access list?

The VMware backup proxy must have access to LUNS with VM data and must be able to read data from these LUNs. To allow access for a VMware backup proxy, you must create an initiator group on the 3PAR/NetApp storage system. The initiator group must contain WWN of the VMware backup proxy.

[DanielG]

Yes, the Veeam proxy is added to the 3PAR access list (Hosts list).

[Vitaliy S.]

In this case I would suggest contacting our technical team to verify your setup over the remote WebEx session, as everything seems to be properly configured.

[DanielG]

Thanks Vitaliy, I will open a ticket.