Hi,

Page 676 of the BE 2012 Admin Guide states that the VMs can be backed up using INCR/DIFF backup methods...no mention in the section relating to AVVI that the backup has to be a FULL backup only.

No mention of this requirement in the best practices either:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO74443

Also, check the requirements for GRT-based backups:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO73361#v53893353

Thanks!

But the combination of Differential and GRT is the Problem.

That doesn't work.

The differential backup job ends with an error.

Differential Backup without GRT works fine.

Full Backup with GRT works fine also.

That restriction is only in regards to Active Directory GRT with the VMware Agent.  SQL/Exchange/File System are able to give GRT selections for incremental / differential backups of virtual machines.

Thomas,

I have found a statement of a Symantec employee that an incremental Vmware GRT backup is only supported to disk (not to tape)

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-restore-single-mail-exchange-incrementals-appears-only-logs-backups

I make the backup to disk. This is not the problem.

I also don't wan't to backup any application.

Only Agent for windows servers and agent for VMware.

With this constellation I can not do a differential backup of a virtual server with GRT.

Only without GRT it works.

Why?

Without seeing the errors that you are getting or having any more information about the job configurations it will be very hard to say why GRT is not working.  If possible it might be a good idea to open a support ticket and have one of our engineers take a look at the issues you are having so we can provide a resolution.

When I run a differential backup job with GRT on, the following error appears:

0xe00095b4 - Incremental\\Differential backup methods are not supported for this VM. The backup job failed, since the option 'to fall back to a full backup' was not selected.

I found the following support article http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH188713   

I think, that's my problem.

When will it be solved???

There is an issue with VMWare differential backups to disk and to tape.

I've been working with symantec for the past 4 weeks on the issue.

Environment: vShere 4.1, Backup Exec 2012 SP1 with Hotfixes 189571, 180964,
Backups - VMware Agent, with file GRT, no application GRT. Weekly full, daily differential.

Symptoms

Weekly full completes

1st Daily differential completes and duplicates to tape successfully

All further differentials fail.

Restore of differential grt files backup crashes remote agent on media server.

Job error: Differential backup will fail with the error ;

Final error: 0xe00095b4 - Incremental\\Differential backup methods are not supported for this VM. The backup job failed, since the option 'to fall back to a full backup' was not selected.
Final error category: Resource Errors
 

Duplicate to tape will fail with the error;
Final error: 0xe0008105 - Invalid Physical Volume Library Media Identifier.
Final error category: Job Errors

Restore of Differential GRT data will fail with the error;

Final error: 0xe000fe30 - A communications failure has occurred.
Final error category: Server Errors
 

These are considered two different problems with symantec, although they are related.

Symantec have provided me orphans for differentials backing up to disk. This has resolved the problem for 2 out of the 3 jobs that are running. One differential is still exhibiting the same problem even though the orphans have been applied.

I'm still waiting on orphans for the duplicate to tape problems.
 

It's only this week we have tested restore of differential grt data after we applied orphans a week ago. Symantec are still assessing the log bundles on that issue.

this issue is fixed on

Backup Exec 2012 Revision 1798 Hotfix 180964

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?pag...

don't forget to mark it as solution if will help