iscsi target backup question
hi,
i have an sbs 2011 vm with an isci target attached (2tb synology nas).
the vm in question has 2 virtual disks attached currently which are being backed up automatically as they're part of the vm, but how do i ensure the data on the nas is being backed up too?
to summarise, my vm has 3 disks:
1. c:\ OS - virtual
2. d:\page - virtual
3. g:\data - physical nas
hope this makes sense. i'm using the latest version of vmprotect7 (5173) and esxi 5.0
when i try and backup my vm it fails since i attached the NAS, error below:
Error code: 103
Module: 83
LineInfo: a859dd78cc91de7b
Fields:
Message: Failed to open the virtual machine ([datastore1] vmname/vmname.vmx).
please help

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thanks for your reply.
how do you suggest I backup the data on my iscsi lun then? will i have to re-create it through esxi and therefore lose the data on my NAS?
can i not just detach the lun from windows and attach it in vm without having to format?
failing that, could i backup the data on the nas using ABR 11.5 and exclude the data on the nas in vmprotect?
please help.
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Hi,
For this iSCSI volume attached to VM you should use the agent-based solution such as ABR 11.5 installed inside the VM - in this case this volume can be backed up. The limitation is coming from agent-less backup approach, but the ABR agent inside the VM will be able to see the volume.
Typically the iSCSI LUNs hosted on NAS are attached to the ESXi host as datastores and the virtual disks are then created on these datastores. This approach makes it easier to support the infrastructure as opposed to attaching the iSCSI LUNs inside the VMs themselves. Though in your case switching to this method (if I correctly understood the current setup) means destroying the existing data, so I'd go with the ABR installation path.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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Thanks for your comments again.
How do I exclude my data drive from the vmprotect backup? It just looks like it's backing up the whole server to me?
What if I used ABR11 to backup the data partition to one of my other VM's partitions. Could that then be backed up using vmprotect 7?
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Hi,
The data drive can be excluded via Exclude files/folders feature available during the backup task creation (4th step->More Options). You can specify the "D:\*" to exclude the contents of the whole D: drive. Note that drive letters enumeration depends on the real partitions layout, i.e. it takes into account even partitions without drive letter assigned. For example if you have Windows 2008 with the default "system reserved partition" (100MB) then to exclude the real C: drive which goes after this partition you will have to specify "D:\*" in the exclusions settings (since the system reserved partition will be enumerated first and will be considered as C: drive by vmProtect).
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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thanks. do i need to add the drive to the exclusions in the snapshot too?
sorry i'm not 100% sure on the difference between a snapshot and a vmprotect7 backup :(
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Hi,
The unsupported drives are excluded from the snapshot automatically by VMware itself. In your case the drive seems to be included into the backup so this means that it can be snapshotted (so it must be not simple iSCSI LUN connection, but something different). In other words to exclude this drive from backup it's enough to just specify it in the exclusions list in the backup task properties.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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hang on.. i'm confused now. how do i find out if my drive is included in the backup?
All I know is i cant get my backup to run since i added my iscsi lun (through windows, not through vm).
So my thoughts were to exclude the drive and hope the backup would run successfully.
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Hi,
Let us proceed as follows: please attach here the log you get when trying to back up the VM + Windows system information outputs from inside the backed up VM (Start->Run->msinfo32) so that I can have an overview of the system. You can also send these details in private message and we'll go from there.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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Hi,
I'll leave this post here with the summary (just for reference):
Looks like my first assumption in the original thread was correct. The error appears on the snapshot stage: "An error occurred while quiescing the virtual machine. See the virtual machine's event log for details." - that's a standard VMware error and seems like that it's exactly the behavior described in http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cm… , i.e. such configurations with iSCSI LUNs attached inside the guest OS of the VM (Microsoft iSCSI initiator in this particular case) are not supported for agent-less backup based on snapshot (since VMware doesn't support snapshots of such VMs).
This means that the only way you can back up this VM is to install ABR 11.5 inside it and run backup (just like a physical machine) separately. Optionally you can exclude the iSCSI volume contents from such backup (using files/folders exclusion option in ABR).
The bottom line is that this VM cannot be backed up by vmProtect or ABR 11.5 Virtual Edition (or any other vStorage API-based backup solution) in agent-less mode, so only agent-based solution is applicable.
Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager
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Thanks for clarifying that. I was tinkering around and found out that the only option is agent-based mode.
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