TSM for VE

[moon-buddy]

I wonder how many of you have encountered this problem.

Environment:

TSM server on AIX 6.1 running TSM server 5.5.5.2

TSM BA client version running on TSM Proxy server - 6.2.3.3
TSM for VE version: 6.2
ESXi 4.1
VM version 7

Problem:

When running full Image backup of a Guest server on the ESXi host (the guest server is the VCenter) even the White spaces are being backed up. On other Guest partitions, the white spaces are not backed up. Simply put, the VCenter image backup is based on the total disk space assigned even if 3/4 of the space is empty while the image backup for all others is just what is occupied.

The only difference is that the VCenter access the local disk on the host ESXi server while other guest partitions access the SAN disk assigned to the host ESXi server.

It seems that Change Block Tracking is not working as expected.

As far as I know there is no APAR opened or listed for this issue.

Has anyone seen or working on a similar issue?

 

[Mita201]

Vmware tools installed/up to date under virtual machine?

 

[moon-buddy]

Vmware tools installed/up to date under virtual machine?

Of course or nothing will work properly.

 

[yuki]

Hi,

Have you tried cbt reset?

dsmc backup vm 'myvm' -testflag=vmbackup_cbt_reset

Could be found:
https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21417529#vmware_probs

 

[moon-buddy]

Tried all - nothing works. As I said, does not happen to most guest partitions. It only happens to the VC.

 

[Mita201]

I've read on VMware that you should not have machine snapshots in moment when creating CBT.
Are there snapshost of your virtual center?

 

[thestorageagent]

Hey guys... I'm reviving an old thread here, but I have the same issue.. Has any solution been found?

Thanks.

 

[moon-buddy]

Hey guys... I'm reviving an old thread here, but I have the same issue.. Has any solution been found?

Thanks.

I don't think there is resolution for this. I believe what IBM said is that this is more than a TSM issue the last time I worked on this back in Canada. I haven't touched TSM for VE or backed any VM environment since February 2012. But, this was for version 6.2.x.

I don't know if TSM 6.3 has resolved this.

 

[thestorageagent]

We're running TSM for VE 6.3 on a TSM 6.2.3 server on Windows...

Issue is not resolved for us. We have a bunch of 500GB thin-provisioned virtual machines with only 40-50GB used in each.. It'll be unfeasible to back up the full drive...

 

[rowl]

Are all of the VMs running hardware version 7? If I remember right that was required for CBT.

 

[moon-buddy]

Are all of the VMs running hardware version 7? If I remember right that was required for CBT.

Yes - if you look at my original post, VM 7 was stated.

As I recall, even IBM R&D had no positive answer for this.

 

[smajl]

Is the vcenter running backup proxy? If yes, there are some issues while using backup vm issued against backup proxy server, i.e. backing up itself.

 

[thestorageagent]

All VMs are running version 7+.

The backup proxy is installed on the vCenter. I will try to install on another server and try again.

Thanks for the tip.