topic Re: using SMVI instead of SMSQL to backup SQL Server - will clients disconnect from SQL server? in VMware Solutions Discussions

using SMVI instead of SMSQL to backup SQL Server - will clients disconnect from SQL server?

lacerte — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:14:22 GMT

My customer is trying to use SMVI to backup a VMWare volume which hosts an SQL Server, if a vmware snapshot is executed, there are not problems, but when SMVI is used the various SQL Server client systems disconnect and timeout.. is this expected behavior? Can SMVI be used to non-disruptively backup SQL Server in a vmware environment? what causes the difference in client behavior between SMVI and a plain old vmware snapshot?

Re: using SMVI instead of SMSQL to backup SQL Server - will clients disconnect from SQL server?

luker — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:18:45 GMT

How did you take the VMware snapshot?

If you take it using the VI / vSphere client, then it will not quiesce the guest file systems (which SMVI does when it takes a VMware snapshot).

So if a snapshot via the client worked fine, but an SMVI created VMware snapshot caused a timeout, then that suggests to me that there was a problem during the quiesce process.

Have you got the VMware tools VSS components installed inside the VM?

Re: using SMVI instead of SMSQL to backup SQL Server - will clients disconnect from SQL server?

radek_kubka — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:56:40 GMT

Hi,

This thread is worth reading plus the TR-3737 mentioned there:

http://communities.netapp.com/message/21113#21113

Regards,
Radek

Re: using SMVI instead of SMSQL to backup SQL Server - will clients disconnect from SQL server?

amritad — Tue, 25 May 2010 07:18:44 GMT

In addition can you also check if the latest VMware tools are installed? Also are the VMs aligned? We have seen that these 2 issues can also cause issues with VMware snapshots.

Regards

Amrita