NetVault Plug-in for VMware 13.1.3

VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance (vSphere FT) becomes disabled during the snapshot process. If you use an ESXi host with an unsupported build, vSphere FT protection might become disabled during the snapshot process. This issue occurs because of an issue in earlier versions of the VMware ESXi host.

Solution

To back up virtual machines that are protected by vSphere FT with plug-in version 11.2 or later, your environment must use VMware ESXi 6.0 build number 4192238 or later. This issue occurs because of an issue in earlier versions of the VMware ESXi host. This issue is more likely to occur when the virtual machine uses Windows 2008 or later as the guest OS and it uses the VMware Tools VSS provider to take quiesced snapshots. For more information, see https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2145664.

Error using VVols with a storage array

If you use VMware Virtual Volumes (VVols) with a storage array that does not support thick-provisioned disks by default, you might receive the following error message: Error creating disk Error creating VVol Object. This may be due to insufficient available space on the datastore or the datastore’s inability to support the selected provisioning type.

Solution

To allow VVols to create thick-provisioned disks, enable thick provisioning on the storage array. For more information, see http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/horizon-6-view/horizon-62-view-release-notes.html.

Backup proxy opens in NBD mode instead of HotAdd transport mode

If you are using CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.x systems as the backup proxy, and the Primary Transport Mode is set to HotAdd or Auto and the Fallback Transport Mode is set to none, a VMware VDDK library prevents the backup proxy from opening the VM disk in HotAdd transport mode and causes it to open in NBD transport mode instead.

Diagnosing virtual machine issues

The Diagnose Virtual Machine method includes some predefined tests, which are used to identify issues in virtual machine setup that can cause failures when the plug-in performs the following activities:

•

Access the virtual machine disk (VMDK) files

•

Check CBT status and capabilities

•

Create quiesced snapshots

The plug-in reports the issues detected during these tests, and provides suggestions to correct the issues. You can run these tests at any time.

To run diagnostic tests:

Start the Backup Job Wizard, and click

next to the Selections list.

Open the NetVault Client on which plug-in is installed, and then open VMware Plugin.

Open the VMware ESXi or VMware vCenter Server and the other applicable container nodes — for example, Datacenter, Cluster, Resource Pool, and other nodes — to display the target virtual machine.

Click the virtual machine, and select Diagnose Virtual Machine from the context menu.

The plug-in performs the following tests:

•

Create a snapshot.


	NOTE: When performing diagnostic tests, the plug-in tries to create a quiesced snapshot. This operation may take some time to complete depending on how busy the virtual machine is.