SMVI, one job with VMWare consistency snapshot, one without, ??

[HendersonD]

The example I give below simplifies my setup a bit, but will explain the essence of my question

I have a volume on my filer called VMWare

I have an NFS share based on this volume and it is also called VMWare

This NFS share has been added to all of my ESXi 4.1 hosts

I have VSC 2.0.1 installed on my vCenter Server

I have four VMs called A, B, C, and D that are stored on the NFS share called VMWare

I have two backup jobs created:

- One job includes VM A and B and the checkbox "Perform VMware Consistency Snapshot" is checked. This job kicks off at 11pm and also inlcudes a Snapmirror to my disaster recovery (DR) site

- The other job includes VM C and D and the checkbox "Perform VMware Consistency Snapshot" is unchecked. This job kicks off at 11:30pm and also inlcudes a Snapmirror to my DR site

My question is, do I need this second job at all? Let me explain

When the first job runs:

- A VMWare snapshot is taken of VM A and VM B

- A filer snapshot is taken of the volume VMWare

- The two VMWare snapshots are deleted

- Snapmirror of volume VMWare to my DR site happens

When the filer snapshot is taken of volume VMWare in the first job, it is snapshotting a volume that contains all 4 of my VMs, A, B, C, and D. The second job that does not take the VMWare snapshots just takes another filer snapshot of volume VMWare. It appears that I only need one backup job since I am really getting backup for VMs C and D in this first job. Is this correct or am I missing something?

[HendersonD]

I hate to answer my own question but I started thinking about this some more. Even though the filer snapshot is capturing all the data in VMs A, B, C, and D, I still think I need a second job due to restore. Without explicitly listing VM C and D in an SMVI backup job, I am not sure they can be restored either fully or a file level restore. Anybody from Netapp care to chime in?

[ogra]

Well, you can have consistent backup at VMware layer for all the VM's you have. With this you can perform Restore at any level.

SMVI will ask VC to take Snapshot for all the VM's residing on the specific volume you like to take backup of. It then simply takes a quick NetApp Snapshot and removes the VMware SnapShot in the end.

Hope it helps !

[marcjasonfriedman]

Hello,

I am facing the same issue.....however in my datastore i have a few 2008 hosts that are mounting ISCSI LUNS on the filer - and I am getting the error in this KB article:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009073

Do I have to move these such hosts to another Datastore and perform a backup without the consistency snapshot?