vSphere 5.5 tests done?

[dellock6]

That can also be translated as: from today to the day when support for vSphere 5.5 will be available, use this time to review your backup infrastructure, and if any of your Veeam proxies run on a 32bit Windows OS, change them with a 64bit Windows OS. In this way you'll be ready to update to vSphere 5.5 and be at the same time supported by Veeam for your backups

Luca.

[saxie]

I've upgraded my lab environment to vSphere 5.5 and I've been able to do backups and full VM restores so far. Still need to test FLR and Surebackup though. Does anyone know which part/component of VBR 7 will not work in vSpehre 5.5 ?

[veremin]

Hi, Werner.

At least, one customer reported about the issues related to using VB&R server in conjunction with vCenter 5.5. Therefore, it’s typically not recommended to use software on unsupported platforms, since many of the unexpected/previously undiscovered issues might show up.

Thanks.

[axelklos]

If I understand correctly I have to wait to Upgrade to VCenter 5.5 and also no Upgrade for VEEAM 7 with ESX 5.5 Support, correct?

[Vitaliy S.]

Correct.

[axelklos]

Correct.

thank you .. then I will first install 5.1 latest patchset and will do upgrade to 5.5 on the fly if new veeam release is available

[Gostev]

Does anyone know which part/component of VBR 7 will not work in vSphere 5.5 ?

#1 issue is that full vSphere 5.5 support requires using VDDK 5.5, which only became available along with vSphere 5.5. Thus, we were only able to integrate VDDK 5.5 into our code, and start stress testing one week ago.

Part of the reason why we need time before announcing the date of vSphere 5.5 support patch, is because we need a few weeks of stress testing to uncover potential newly introduced VDDK 5.5 issues. This is a brand new code for us, and yet this code is arguably the most critical part of any VMware backup solution. Even a minor new issue with VDDK may have catastrophic effects on the backup application.

We did try the older VDDK version (one that B&R 7.0 ships with) against vSphere 5.5, and observed issues with some backup modes (e.g. hot add), so it was clear that support of vSphere 5.5 with the current code is not an option. As such, we did not perform more comprehensive testing of advanced functionality - there is no point, as we will need to re-test everything with VDDK 5.5 anyway.

[mysidia]

Please alert us, as soon as there is any progress. We have finished our vSphere5.5 testing and are very anxious to get it deployed into production, and Veeam support seems to be the piece holding us back; it's a bummer, because it seems to be a recurrent theme.

After every major release of vSphere; Veeam backup is the very last piece of software to be ready, and it always seems to get broken by new releases of vSphere.

Perhaps Veeam needs to have some discussions with VMware about getting new library versions earlier in the release process, and making sure the backup software is good to go immediately with the release of new major platform versions!

[veremin]

Please alert us, as soon as there is any progress.

Hi, James. As long as you’re subscribed to the forum digests (as every newly registered forum member), you’ll be notified about any product fixes, improvements, etc. Thanks.

[Gostev]

Veeam support seems to be the piece holding us back; it's a bummer, because it seems to be a recurrent theme.

Another recurrent theme is that historically, Veeam has always been the first among all backup vendors to support the new vSphere releases... this tells a lot, so at least we deserve some credit for this

After every major release of vSphere; Veeam backup is the very last piece of software to be ready, and it always seems to get broken by new releases of vSphere.

I feel your pain, but there is little we can do here, as we are not the ones who are "breaking" stuff however, I also wanted to give a credit to VMware here, because historically they have been fairly careful, and the "collateral damage" for their changes is usually minimal. vSphere 5.5 is arguably the most disruptive release for us only due to 64-bit VDDK change.

Perhaps Veeam needs to have some discussions with VMware about getting new library versions earlier in the release process

Been there, done that. From what I gather, in VMware RTM and GA happen so close to each other, that they simply have no chance to provide ISVs with RTM code in advance. Microsoft has a different approach, with RTM and GA being almost 2 months away. Needless to say, I prefer Microsoft's approach better, as it is much more ISV-friendly.

[Joris85]

Hello,

We are currently creating the software list for a new big project that is integrated januari 2014.
As the vCenter Appliance supports up to 1000 VM's in version 5.5, we would like to go for vSphere 5.5.
Only thing is that we were going to use VEEAM B&R for the backups, but will it be supported by the end of the year?
If we order VEAAM B&R today, will we be able to download the latest version in a few months or will we be stuck with a license of version 7?
We can see that there is also a new VMware Data Protection appliance 5.5 so we also consider this if VEEAM has no support...
I understand everything needs to be tested but is it likely that we have support for vSphere 5.5 this year or not?

Joris

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Joris,

Only thing is that we were going to use VEEAM B&R for the backups, but will it be supported by the end of the year?

Here is the answer from earlier in this thread:

We have just prepared the vSphere 5.5 environment. We will need 2 weeks to complete the full testing cycle, and plan the release. Things are looking good so far, and we should be able to deliver vSphere 5.5 support in 2013.

If we order VEAAM B&R today, will we be able to download the latest version in a few months or will we be stuck with a license of version 7?

You will be able to use our latest version. All upgrades are free if you're on active maintenance/support contract.

Thank you!

[Gostev]

I understand everything needs to be tested but is it likely that we have support for vSphere 5.5 this year or not?

Yes, most certainly. We are currently looking at providing support for vSphere 5.5 in November, unless our testing uncovers some awful newly introduced issues in VDDK 5.5.

[Maphew]

Kudos should be given to Veeam for their product and im pretty sure they ARE working on this FLAT OUT and as their product B&R is "THE" backup solution for vsphere it's as much in our interests and investments that Veeam get the 5.5 compatibility correct or else another long ranting thread would be composed.

But as an end user can we get a confirmed 2014 release ?

[Gostev]

Yes

[jamerson]

i am hoping the compatibility will be fix in the end of this year, we have a big project to go with because vSphere support till 1k VM's ,
the vSphere 5.5 test is succcesuffy finished and we are waiting for the Veeam to release a solution for this.
thank you

[scott.anderson]

Always amazing how fast some people want to upgrade with VMWare.

I know that there is usually a list of great new feature that become available, but there are usually a LOT of third party issues.

Anyone using any VA's will know this pain. Cisco for example have only in the last couple of months certified their UC VA's on ESXi 5.1u1!!!!!

So it will be sometime in the middle of next year at best before UC users will be even considering upgrade to vSphere 5.5

[flakrat]

Interested in vSphere 5.5 support in VB7 as well, sounds like you are making good progress!

[emk23]

Question, if we leave our hosts at 5.1 - BUT we upgrade vCenter to 5.5 does that work?

I remember when 5.1 came out, people upgraded vCenter and left their hosts at 5.0 until Veeam 6.5 came out, then upgraded their hosts.

Just wondering if anyone has tried upgrading only vCenter to 5.5 and using Veeam 7?

[foggy]

Eric, would you be 100% sure in this kind of [officially unsupported] setup if someone out there tells you he did try and had no issues so far?

Btw, out of curiosity, what is the reason of upgrading vCenter but leaving hosts running the previous version?

[emk23]

Haha. We just like living on the (bleeding) edge Just curious more than anything I guess.

We have enough projects right now to keep us busy with other things.

We also have virtualized Cisco CUCM/Unity/UCCX which is not officially supported by 5.5 yet. So we're waiting on Cisco too. :-/

[mysidia]

Btw, out of curiosity, what is the reason of upgrading vCenter but leaving hosts running the previous version?

Staggered upgrade policy. vCenter can be managing hundreds of hosts, in several clusters, running various different versions of ESXi.

You may have a cluster for mission critical stuff running vSphere ESXi 5.0 or 5.1; all the VMs that require VM-aware backup in the environment may be on those 1 or 2 hosts;

While vCenter manages a few dozen other hosts, that you want to ESXi 5.5 code on.
There's no reason the test lab ESXi hosts shouldn't be vSphere 5.5.

Except where you are managing them all through 1 shared vCenter; vCenter 5.1 is not
able to manage any vSphere 5.5 hosts.

VMware's interoperability guide shows you must update vCenter to 5.5 first,
before you can manage even 1 updated host on the shared vCenter.

[jamerson]

Question, if we leave our hosts at 5.1 - BUT we upgrade vCenter to 5.5 does that work?

I remember when 5.1 came out, people upgraded vCenter and left their hosts at 5.0 until Veeam 6.5 came out, then upgraded their hosts.

Just wondering if anyone has tried upgrading only vCenter to 5.5 and using Veeam 7?

it will works without any issues
my vCenter is 5.5 and vSphere is 5.1

[ggillette]

Will Veeam [or any other VM backup software for that matter] support backing up VM's with 32-bit operating systems on hosts running ESXi 5.5? Or is that no longer possible because of the new version of VDDK?

[tsightler]

The backup of 32-bit guest VMs will still be supported. The only issue is that the proxies themselves must now be run on a 64-bit OS so that they can use the VDDK code.

[cgrebing]

Hello to all who think that Veeam is not fast enough to support new Versions of VMware vSphere. Just look at the competition who needed more than 1 year to get ready for vSphere 5.1!

I think the Veeam-Guys are doing a great Job and will release the software just when it is finished and tested.

[Gostev]

As we are making progress with our vSphere 5.5 support code testing, I am now able to provide slightly more precise release date than vague "Q4". We are currently looking at November for releasing support for vSphere 5.5, if nothing unexpected happens. Thank you for your patience!

[donativo]

I've upgraded my lab environment to vSphere 5.5 and I've been able to do backups and full VM restores so far. Still need to test FLR and Surebackup though. Does anyone know which part/component of VBR 7 will not work in vSpehre 5.5 ?

HI I highly recommend not to do so in productive environment. I did an upgrade to VSphere 5.5 with VCenter and ESX. Then I also installed a new Proxy on Server 2012 R2. Veeam tried to backup my VMs first with disk hot add. It canceled and failed over to network mode. In exactly this second the whole ESX gives me a purple screen of death! I thought it was just an error. Tried again, and it happened again just in this second wehre it failed over to network mode. So something is really not working there. I have now to wait until patch 2 is out wehre Server 2012 R2 AND ESX5.5 is supported. In the meantime I have to switch over to Windows Backup ....

[jamerson]

As we are making progress with our vSphere 5.5 support code testing, I am now able to provide slightly more precise release date than vague "Q4". We are currently looking at November for releasing support for vSphere 5.5, if nothing unexpected happens. Thank you for your patience!

this is a incredibly good new Gostev!
i will be waiting for this release
i havn't updated my production yet to 5.5 but my Lab is 5.5 so far all is working but 2012r2/ 2008r2/ Win 8.1 are not !

[mysidia]

HI I highly recommend not to do so in productive environment. I did an upgrade to VSphere 5.5 with VCenter and ESX. Then I also installed a new Proxy on Server 2012 R2. Veeam tried to backup my VMs first with disk hot add. It canceled and failed over to network mode. In exactly this second the whole ESX gives me a purple screen of death! I thought it was just an error. Tried again, and it happened again just in this second wehre it failed over to network mode.

If you can reproduce that condition on separate hardware, it seems you stumbled upon a nasty ESXi bug -- Even if Veeam is utterly broken, it should not be capable of crashing ESXi with API calls.

I do think the vSphere community could potentially benefit if you can get more info on the purple screen condition and report the purple screen issue to VMware, as you may have exposed a bug that also has security ramifications for ESXi.