VMware full image backup with san transport

[mirko]

Hi,

we recently upgraded our ESX cluster from 3.5 to ESX 5 - which unfortunately does not support VCB anymore. We tried vStorage-based backup with Tivoli Client 6.2 and it worked fine - as long as it was still ESX 3.5.

Since the Cluster was upgraded to 5 backup still works - but extremely slow since san transport does not work anymore, only nbdssl. I searched the internet and did a lot of try-and-error, this is what I think I found: SAN transport simply does not work with Tivoli Client 6.2 and ESXi 5 and VMFS 5, but it does work with 6.3. Unfortunately our TSM server is 5.5 which is not supported with client 6.3.

My questions:

Can somebody confirm that Client 6.2 does not support ESXi 5/VMFS 5 and SAN transport? I didn't find it mentioned in the docu...

Does somebody use Client 6.3 with server 5.5? Even if unsupported, it seems to work...

Thanks,
Mirko

 

[moon-buddy]

My questions:

Can somebody confirm that Client 6.2 does not support ESXi 5/VMFS 5 and SAN transport? I didn't find it mentioned in the docu...

This is confirmed - if you want ESXi 5, you need to be using TSM client 6.3 - the IBM Technical support confirmed this with me

Does somebody use Client 6.3 with server 5.5? Even if unsupported, it seems to work...

Thanks,
Mirko

Don't even try - there will be issues and if you need support - IBM will say: Good luck or upgrade to 6.2 or 6.3; believe me, I already tried.

 

[domino]

Yes, this is confirmed

http://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21426059
and
http://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21394300

 

[mirko]

Thanks for the info domino and moon-buddy.

Bad news, but good to know that we have to live with it until our server is upgraded.

Thanks,
Mirko