Comments on: VMware Consolidated Backup

By: Jhoan

Jhoan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:53:51 +0000

I have one issue and don’t know if anyone has experience this, when the VCB starts on the proxy which is also my Netbackup Master/Media server, the disk I/O is so bad that my other backup jobs start to fail. I am using the local disk to mount the files into it.

By: Wes

Wes — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:26:12 +0000

Scott, I’ve used your article as a reference point numerous times. Thanks!

I have 15 VM’s that I run a weekly FULLVM snapshot against. The problem I have is that the VCB snapshot takes HOURS! I ran create a snapshot thru VIC and it’s completed in a few minutes or less. I’ve copied the syntax I use to snapshot the servers below.

Is there a better/faster way?

“C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbmounter” -h wscadm01 -u XXXXXXX -p XXXXXXXX -a name:NWWSQL2 -r f:\mnt\NWWSQL2-FullVM -t fullvm -m san -M 1

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:05:57 +0000

Hi Umer,

I run the same environment: Dell MD3000i, 5 ESX servers 3.5. Four LUNs appear in the device manager. but what is your problem? In the storage folder of my ESX servers the partitons appear only once and in case you loose one connection between server and MD3000 it will automatically detect a new way to keep the connection

By: umer

umer — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:00:20 +0000

I need help with this please!!

I have a DELL MD3000i iSCSI SAN.
Three ESX 3.5 Servers Update 2.
Proxy server with VCB installed.

I have disabled the automount feature on my proxy server running W2k3 Enterprise.

Installed iSCSI Initiator on the VCB Proxy, and can connect to the MD3000i.
When the connection is established my four LUNs appear in the device manager.

I am really scared to damage the data on the LUNs.
This is our production environment and EVERYTHING is on the four LUNs.

What do i need to do next? What precautions should i take?

If i run the backup, what is going to happen?

Please help.

By: Kuo

Kuo — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:56:23 +0000

Francisco:
I meet the same problem like u. And Finally I found my problem. When I use file mode it work fine.
And use raw mode it fails. I find the space about C drive less 15G, So all VM larger the 15G will not backup successful.(because the software default backup use the C drive under the CA software directory named C:\Program Files\CA\ARCserve Backup Client Agent for Windows\VmwareVcbMountDir) and the message appear like u.
So u can run vcbmounter yourself and mount to another drive which has more spase. then every thing will work.It’s my experience about Arcserver 12.

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:18:33 +0000

Francisco, is: beja018.edia.pt a VC or an actual ESX server? either can be used in the “-esxServer” var.
make sure that the esxUser that you are using has appropriate rights/roles on the actual ESX.
I’m also running R12 in a very similar setup that you describe.
I created a specific user on EACH of my ESX machines & assigned appropriate roles for this user on EACH machine.
a simple TEST…try using ‘root’ for a quick run. If this works, then it is definitely related to the user.

One note (I spent somewhere around 25 hours w/ CA on phone)…if you intend to use MUX, you MUST define EACH ESX server in Arcserve. You CANNOT use the VC to populate the DB. This is the main reason to have that user defined on each ESX.

Hope this helps.

By: Francisco Batista

Francisco Batista — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:20:02 +0000

Hi guys, i hope someone can help me out…
I have a ESX 3.5 Cluster up and running without problems with VCenter, i have installed VCB in another server where i also have Arcserve r12 installed, i’m trying to mount my VMachines into ArcServe and for that ArcServe has a tool that integrates with VCBMount, just a simply gui that triggers VCBMounter.exe (see generated command below):

ca_vcbpopulatedb.exe -Primary 192.168.2.232 -carootUser caroot -carootPass **** -esxServer beja018.edia.pt -esxUser edia\adm -esxUserPass **** -Proto https -debug -vcbMountableVM

Everything wents fine, but for some reason i have two VM’s that i cannot import into arcserve find below the result of the command:

Getting data from beja018.edia.pt, this process might take some time …

No. of VMs in Server: 15

VM mvdata is not Mountable, skipping this VM.

VM 192.168.2.17 is not Mountable, skipping this VM.

SUMMARY

=======

Number of running VMs in the Server: 13

Number of VMs already existing in the database: 22

Number of VMs deleted from the database: 0

No Changes made in the database.

End of database update operation.

Can someone please give me some help? In which cases VM’s are unmountable?

Best regards

Francisco Batista

msn: f_batista69@hotmail.com

By: slowe

slowe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:40:42 +0000

Gert,

You are right–sorry about that! I’ve corrected the article.

By: gert

gert — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:54:04 +0000

Hi,

Nice document, but I think there is a little type in all your examples. you used -u for suer and also -u for password, this should be -p

Greetings.

By: Christer Sundqvist

Christer Sundqvist — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:10:48 +0000

im running ESX 3.5 with the same versions of VC and VCB

today i was about to test a restore of a VCB image only to find that in only has saved the c:\ not d: or other vms with more then one disk

i have 33 VM´s that only get c:\ backed up any solutions ???

Christer S