Hi all!
So I was all excited when SP2 was released because my migration from my current backup solution to BE was on hold due to us moving towards Hyper-V 2012. So the day it was released, I installed it and thought "Alright! Let's start backing up Hyper-V VMs!" and then BAM! I had all VMs on a particular CSV become unresponsive because I was backing up one VM on that CSV. The only way out was to shut the host down completely and bring those VMs backup on the other node, not the best way to start.
Here's my environment and some more of my experience:
- Hyper-V Environment
- 2x Hyper-V 2012 hosts w/ BE 2012 SP2 RAWS agent installed.
- Hyper-V hosts are clustered and using CSVs.
- Storage provided by a 6 node P4500 cluster.
- HP Lefthand MPIO used for multipathing.
- Lefthand VSS provider not installed.
- SVCMM 2012 SP1 is used to manage the cluster.
- Backup Exec Environment
- Backup Exec 2012 SP2 installed
- Deduplication Disk Storage configured and is the current destination for Hyper-V backups.
- Guest VM Environment
- Server 2012 OS w/ latest Integration Services installed
- BE 2012 SP2 RAWS agent installed.
I started with just trying to backup one VM to see how the whole process worked before I start rolling this out to other VMs. The scenario above was what happened after performing the first GRT enabled backup of the VM. I've since moved the VM to its own CSV so I can test just this server without potentially bringing down the environment.
What I'm seeing is the backing up the VM's VHDXs is fine, every time. If BE just backs up the VHDXs, the job runs successfully and the VM stays responsive the whole time. I can make the BE backup just VHDXs by unchecking "Exclude virtual machines that must be put in a saved state to back up". If I check that box, BE first performs the VHDX backup successfully and then it attempts to perform GRT pass but the VM becomes unresponsive, more than likely from being put into a saved state.
I've checked everything I can possibly think of to allow for live backups for the guest VM to no avail. All disks on the VM are basic NTFS drives, each with their shadow copy storage pointed to their own drive. The correct Hyper-V Integration Services is installed and "backups" are enabled in the VMs Integration Services configuration.
I just for the life of me can't figure this out. It seems like it should be pretty straight forward. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
v/r,
Louis