topic Re: SMVI backup - duplicated datasores? in VMware Solutions Discussions

SMVI backup - duplicated datasores?

kubaericsson — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:20:34 GMT

Hi All,

In our environment we have two NetApp storages (let say st1-a, st1-b, st2-a, st2-b)

I have multiple schedules with different retention for volumes through SMVI. One is for daily and separate for weekly backups.

One schedule consists of datastores (vols) from only one controller (for example: st1-a: have 4 d1,d2,d3,d4, st1-b: have d5,d6,d7,d8).

backups : backup_daily_st1-a,

backup_weekly_st1-a,

backup_daily_st1-b,

backup_weekly_st1-b,

backup_daily_st2-a,

backup_weekly_st2-a,

backup_daily_st2-b,

backup_weekly_st2-b

According to SMVI GUI all backups were successful and I can do a restore ( I can see datastores with correct time stamps in "restore" tab SMVI GUI).

Now, when I try to check snapshot copies in OnCommand System Manager for particular vol (which belongs to st1-a and according to schedule only once should be backed up),

I can see snapshots like:

backup_daily_st2-a_20120820222001_xxx_st1-a:d1

backup_daily_st1-b_20120820222001_xxx_st1-a:d1

backup_daily_st1-a_20120820222001_xxx_st1-a:d1 <---- this one I can understand

The question is why there are 3 daily backups? I would expect only one.

Why controller B from st1 was involved as well as another storage (st2-a)?

Was this vol backed up three times?

Thanks for any input!

Re: SMVI backup - duplicated datasores?

CCOLEMAN_ — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:00:37 GMT

You should double check if snapshots are running on the volume itself which would cause multiple snapshots to show up, as well as if you use snapmirror (which will also take snapshots).

Re: SMVI backup - duplicated datasores?

NetApp_SEAL — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:09:01 GMT

I had a similar issue.

To expand further on Chris' suggestion, double check the SMVI jobs for spanned datastores. If you know this is not the problem (i.e. no spanned datastores are checked for the backup job itself), dig deeper into the VMDK's on the datastore. There might be a config file or another VMDK configured on a VM from a separate job pointing to the datastore in question.

Re: SMVI backup - duplicated datasores?

kubaericsson — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:28:23 GMT

Hi again,

sorry for long delay,

as for spanned datastores, we have them. Swap drives for Windows machines are on different datastores to not take a backup of them.

I suspect more data can be on spanned datastores as well.

Is there any chance to exclude those from backup?

Right now we are on SMVI 1.2, not VSC.

Kuba

Re: SMVI backup - duplicated datasores?

tom_taelman — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:25:47 GMT

Is there any reason why you still using SMVI 1.2?

Why not upgrading / migrating to VSC 4

You have more integration with ESX