commvault.com commvault.com
Solved

VSA and VM on different host

  • 20 April 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 339 views
S
Rank
Badge +1

Hi. In a VMware environment, I have VSA on virtual machine. Running HotAdd backup, if the VM backing up is on the same host of VSA, the final “remove snapshot” is very fast (few seconds). If the VM backing up is on a different host of VSA, the final “remove snapshot” is very slow (some minutes) and in the meanwhile the VM is unresponsive.

Someone can explain to me why this happens?

Thanks

icon

Best answer by Damian Andre 21 April 2021, 18:07

View original

4 replies

S
Rank
Badge +1

http://kb.commvault.com/article/VMW0002

 

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2010953

Damian Andre
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Yup - have you tried NFS transport at all?

RubeckDK
Rank
Userlevel 3
Badge +10

So when doing a manual snap and removal using native VMware tools (ie GUI, PowerCLI etc) the same issue shows, or? (If doing it manual, please let it run off the snap for approx. the same time as the backup would take so the delta *00000x.vmdks will have a reasonable amount of data that needs to be merged back into the org. vmdks) 

 

/Rubeck  

Damian Andre
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +23

So when doing a manual snap and removal using native VMware tools (ie GUI, PowerCLI etc) the same issue shows, or? (If doing it manual, please let it run off the snap for approx. the same time as the backup would take so the delta *00000x.vmdks will have a reasonable amount of data that needs to be merged back into the org. vmdks) 

 

/Rubeck  

Good suggestion! - Also ensure not to snapshot VM memory but enable quiesce to simulate the same type of snap a backup takes. You are 100% right that you should wait between create and remove that the typical backup operation takes to accumulate a similar type of snapshot change delta.

 

Sometimes it's not possible to simulate as the same load conditions could vary at different times of the day - this issue is usually pretty consistent, however. It’s a shame VMware has been unable to fix it for such a long time. Here are all the possible solutions I can think of:

  • Change to NFS or NBD transport
  • Deploy a VSA on each host (this avoiding cross-host snapshot mounts)
    • Linux VSA is a good option if you want to avoid windows licensing
    • It can also help with load balancing. Commvault will auto-select a VM proxy on the same host where possible
  • Use NFSv4 to mount the NFS datastores if your storage supports it
  • Filesystem agent in-guest, or perhaps use selectively where the stun causes operational issues

 

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings