Overlapping Backup Plans, Only One Runs

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We're using the virtual appliance to backup our VMs.  We have several backup plans that run every day.  We have one plan for each VM we're backing up.

All of our plans are set to start as scheduled.  They are not set to limit the number of simultaneous VM backup operations, and they are not set to stagger the backups.  They are set to "Start all backups exactly as scheduled".

If the first plan is still running when the second plan is scheduled to start, the second plan will "start", but it just sits at 0% and does absolutely nothing.  As soon as the first plan finishes, the second plan actually starts performing its task.

This continues on if the second plan is running when the third plan is scheduled to start, and so on.

All of our tasks finish sometime in the morning, and we don't really care when they finish.  But we're getting alert messages stating that the backup isn't responding and that it may be frozen.

I found a thread with a similar question, but it seems as if the multiple simultaneous backups are working for this person:

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-backup-125/simultaneous-vm-back…

Is there some configuration I have to do on the agent itself (we're using the virtual appliance) to get it to run multiple backups simultaneously?

 

Our backups take a long time because we're copying them to a second location and we're validating them.  While the backup may finish fairly quickly, the copy extends that time and the validation (in two locations) extends that time a lot more.  We're fine with the overall amount of time this takes - the benefit of validating is worth it to us.

But I was wondering if there was a faster way to run the validation tasks.  As I mentioned, we're backing up with the virtual appliance.  It lives on one ESXi host and most of our VMs live on that same host.  Some other VMs may live on another host in the same rack.  The backups are stored on an external Windows device over the network.  The secondary location is also over the network, attached to that same Windows device.

With the proper licensing, would it be possible to install an agent onto the Windows device directly, and have that agent perform the validation of the backup and secondary copy itself?  If so, what would we need to do this?  Would the agent that lives on the Windows device be integrated in any way into the existing web console for the virtual appliance?

 

Thanks

 

mar 05/06/2018 - 16:39
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So after re-reading the documentation, I've found:

 

  • Start all backups exactly as scheduled

    Backups of physical machines will start exactly as scheduled. Virtual machines will be backed up one by one.

  • Distribute start times within a time window

    Backups of physical machines will start with a delay from the scheduled time. The delay value for each machine is selected randomly and ranges from zero to the maximum value you specify. You may want to use this setting when backing up multiple machines to a network location, to avoid excessive network load. The delay value for each machine is determined when the backup plan is applied to the machine and remains the same until you edit the backup plan and change the maximum delay value.

    Virtual machines will be backed up one by one.

  • Limit the number of simultaneously running backups by

    This option is available only when a backup plan is applied to multiple virtual machines. This option defines how many virtual machines an agent can back up simultaneously when executing the given backup plan.

    If, according to the backup plan, an agent has to start backing up multiple machines at once, it will choose two machines. (To optimize the backup performance, the agent tries to match machines stored on different storages.) Once any of the two backups is completed, the agent chooses the third machine and so on.

    You can change the number of virtual machines for an agent to simultaneously back up. The maximum value is 10.

    Backups of physical machines will start exactly as scheduled.

http://dl.managed-protection.com/u/backup/help/12.5/user/en-US/index.ht…

 

So, I'm going to try changing them all to Limit the number of simultaneously running backups by 2, which I believe was the default.

However, there's the still the issue of the "BACKUP IS NOT RESPONDING" alerts.  If backups are simply held up by a lack of agents with available slots to run the backup, the scheduler / monitor that sends out alerts should know this.

The "BACKUP IS NOT RESPONDING" notification should be changed to "BACKUP IS WAITING TO START" or something similar, with a detailed message relating to the agent it was assigned to and the other tasks that agent is busy with.

The bigger problem is that once a backup task triggers the "BACKUP IS NOT RESPONDING" notification, it doesn't trigger the "BACKUP SUCCEEDED" notification.  I'm backing up 13 VMs nightly and checking this morning, I only have 13 notifications.  11 are "BACKUP SUCCEEDED", 2 are "BACKUP IS NOT RESPONDING".  The 2 that had "BACKUP IS NOT RESPONDING" did finish successfully, but no notification about that was sent.

 

I'd still like to know if there was a way to perform the verification portion locally.  If possible, I'd like to be able to install a Windows agent on the machine that is the target location for the backups, and have that agent perform the verification locally.  I know you can schedule verification tasks with the Advanced licensing, but I don't know if you can integrate an outside agent into the virtual appliance or if you can trigger the verification task to run (with a local agent) after the backup task runs.

Would an alternative would be to install Acronis ONLY as a Windows agent?  Is that supported for backing up an ESXi environment?  It would have to go over the network to access our ESXi stack.  We do use VM replication as well as ESXi configuration backups in addition to our regular VM backups.

ven 08/06/2018 - 16:40
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Hello Brian,

thank you for such a detailed feedback!

Indeed, that would be a correct configuration to backup VMs. You can set up the max. value from 2 to 4, but increase RAM or the appliance, so that the agent could handle the tasks properly.

We are about to change the logic for sending alerts in such scenarios, the ID reference is ABR-127449. We plan to release the update in future versions, but there is no firm ETA for now. Anyway, that is a good suggestion, thank you! I have added your comment to the developers´task.

As far as validation is concerned, you are right, in the Advanced version you can define a specific agent to run separate validation tasks (so called mini-plans). With mini-plans you can delegate some functions to other agents, leaving the most important part – backup – to the appliance. The agent can be installed on a separate Windows machine. Please make sure that the agent you choose has full access to the backup location. You can find out more under this link.

A good alternative to a Linux-based appliance is agent for VMware (Windows). 

I would suggest you to connect the Agent to the host, not to the vCenter.

I hope I could answer your questions. If you have any other concerns, please let me know.

mer 27/06/2018 - 15:44
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