Video Screencast Help
Search Video Help Close Back
to help
New in the Rewards Catalog: Vouchers for "Symantec Technical Specialist" and "Symantec Certified Specialist" exams.

There is no snapshot deletion log: the VCB snapshots were created but there is no snapshot deletion attempt.

Updated: 21 May 2010 | 8 comments
Srikanth Gubbala's picture
0 0 Votes
Login to vote
This issue has been solved. See solution.

hi,

below is the RCA from VMware  tech support; they suggest us to check with symantec support.

""May 20 20:38:05.035: vmx| SnapshotVMX_TakeSnapshot start: '_VCB-BACKUP_', powerState=0, deviceState=0, logging=0, cb=82550E0, cbData=181059F0 [...] May 21 21:32:32.697: vmx| SnapshotVMX_TakeSnapshot start: '_VCB-BACKUP_', powerState=0, deviceState=0, logging=0, cb=82550E0, cbData=181059F0 [...] May 24 10:31:53.500: vmx| SnapshotVMX_TakeSnapshot start: '_VCB-BACKUP_', powerState=0, deviceState=0, logging=0, cb=82550E0, cbData=181059F0

There is no snapshot deletion log: the VCB snapshots were created but there is no snapshot deletion attempt.

When VCB is used by a third party tool to perfom a backup, first of all a VM snapshot is created then the VCB presents the VM files (depending on the backup kind) to the VCB proxy and the third party tool can perform the actual backup. After the backup completes the snapshots should be deleted.

It is likely that the 3rd party backup software, Veritas NetBackup 6.5.3, is trying to perform backups but it is not taking care of calling VCB in order to commit the snapshot after the backup job is possibly performed.
Probably there is an issue with the 3rd party integration modules not working properly. ""

i am not able to agree to that analysis; i would like to hear your comments on this. did you ever see this?

discussion Filed Under:

Comments

Sriram's picture
27
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

I do agree with you.  I too

I do agree with you.  I too will not agree with that analysis. 

I also have a VCB environment and face similar kind of issues that the snapshots created are not getting cleared off after the backup have completed resulting in other backups to fail if the snapshot already exists.

So whenever the snapshot is not cleared we used to check the bpfis and bpbkar logs and analysis where the problem is.

I suggest you to turn the verbosity of logs to 5 and see what you get in the logs and then conclude.

Normally in our setup the culprit would be the VMWARE tool which is not able to perform the snapshot cleanup and we will inform the VMWARE team to manuall clear off the snapshots.  So they have a script running daily to check any snapshot is present before backup window starts.  This really helped us

Try this and see how it helps you

Srikanth Gubbala's picture
27
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Script to check snapshot is present

can i have that script ; since our vmadmins were able to see only one snapshot on the GUI; whereas in the backend there are more than 5 stale snapshots. this would help us a lot

regards, Srikanth.

Sriram's picture
27
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Its just a bat script. 

Its just a bat script.  Difenetly your vmadmins would know that. Just ask them to have a script to delete the stale snapshots.

But let me also check with my vmadmins.

Sriram's picture
28
May
2009
2 Votes +2
Login to vote

I managed to get the script

I managed to get the script for you.  Actually i was wrong its not a bat script, its a POWER SHELL script.

so you have to download power shell, its a freeware.  Install it and schedule it in windows scheduler

The content of the script goes like this. The file extension of the script file is .PS

add-pssnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core;
Connect-VIServer –Server <esx host name> –Protocol https –User <domain/name> –Password <password>
$snap=get-snapshot -vm * -Name "_VCB-BACKUP_";
Remove-Snapshot -Snapshot $snap -confirm:$false;

We are running this script everyday morning at 8 AM when there are no VCB backups running.

Hope this helps

Srikanth Gubbala's picture
28
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Great

that was great and my google blaster has given one more thing; it seems it can use C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\vcbCleanup.bat; it works very well; it deletes the snapshots on both mount point as well as ESX server.

i am yet to hear more from support. shall update

regards, Srikanth.

Sriram's picture
28
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Thats great. If you found

Thats great.

If you found this helpful pls mark this thread as solved.

Thanks

Sriram's picture
30
May
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Heard something from support

Heard something from support yet ?

Sriram's picture
01
Jun
2009
0 Votes 0
Login to vote

Was you problem resolved? If

Was you problem resolved?

If yes pls vote and mark this as solved.

Thanks.