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Why SAN transport mode is only supported for proxies on physical computers ?

  • 29 September 2021
  • 5 replies
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K
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Hi,

We are planning to change the setting of our current Commvault Server transport mode from Network to SAN based.

However, when I check the manual, it says the SAN transport mode must a physical Server as the Proxy Server to back VMs

The fact is, we have been using Netbackup environments at somewhere else for years where the master / Media Servers doing VM backups are Virtual Machines but with HBA cards directly presented to them, so that all the datastores are visible to them.

 

So, I’m just wondering why many backup software vendors (like Commvault) don’t support the configuration of using a Virtual Machine as the backup host for SAN (transport mode) backup VMs ?

 

Thanks,

Kelvin

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Best answer by Aplynx 29 September 2021, 20:54

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Aplynx
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CommVault is using VMware’s VDDK to run the backups. These are VMware requirements, which is why CommVault, Veritas, Veem, etc all say the same thing.

If you need to use a virtual machine, then HotAdd would be the available option. Both physical and virtual can use NBD, but that would typically be the slowest option as it would be over the network.

Liam
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Hi Aplynx,

I’m just wondering, for this VDDK, which I know is the most common reason to fail SAN transport,

  1. Why it works on a physical Server then ?
  2. Can we just download the VDDK from VMware and install it on a Virtual VMware host ?

 

Cheers,

Kelvin

L
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https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100030882

Veritas also mentions for san mode physical server is needed.

 

https://vdc-repo.vmware.com/vmwb-repository/dcr-public/17aee92f-6920-4675-b03c-8c85de455bb3/eb0d4676-c916-484a-b7e8-138a867db8a6/doc/vddkDataStruct.5.5.html

VMware also mentions it.

 

Why do you want to install the VDDK in a guest machine? If you want to use CommVault, install the VSA agent on a physical or virtual proxy and VDDK is embedded already.

 

 

 

 

Aplynx
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These are VMware requirements.

Liam
K
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Does anybody know why VMware doesn’t support VMware backup host on a Virtual Machine ?

 

The reason why I ask this is, we have been using a VM Netbackup Server with HBA directly passing through to it, to SAN backup our VMs for many years, which seems to be fine. And now, we want to deploy the same design to US Commvault environment…

 

Regards,

Kelvin

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