Search <book_title>...

NetBackup™ for Microsoft SharePoint Server Administrator's Guide

Last Published: 2024-09-30

Product(s): NetBackup & Alta Data Protection (10.5)

Troubleshooting VMware backups

Note the following when you perform a VMware backup that protects an application:

The Application State Capture (ASC) job contacts the NetBackup client on the guest virtual machine and catalogs the application data for recovery.
One ASC job is created per VM, regardless of which applications are selected in the policy.
ASC messages are filtered based on the ASC job details in the Activity monitor.
The ASC job can result in status 1 (partially success). For example, if SharePoint was protected, but it was the SQL Server that failed to be protected.
Failure results in the discovery job or parent job exiting with Status 1.
If you enable recovery for a particular application but that application does not exist on the VM, the ASC job returns Status 0.
bpfis is run and simulates a VSS snapshot backup. This simulation is required to gain logical information of the application.

Table: Issues with using a VMware policy to protect databases

Issue	Explanation
A database backup fails.	Databases are cataloged and protected only if the configuration is supported for VMware backups. See Limitations of VMware application backups.
A database backup fails.	NetBackup is installed on an excluded Windows boot disk. The ASC job detects this type of disk and treats it like an independent disk. Do not select the Exclude boot disk option if NetBackup is installed on the boot drive (typically C:).
ASC job produces a status 1 (partially successful).	You selected databases for backup that exist on both supported and on unsupported disks. See "A database backup fails" for unsupported disk information.
The Application State Capture (ASC) job fails and the databases are not protected.	When the ASC job fails, the VMware snapshot or backup continues. Application-specific data cannot be restored.
	You disabled the Enable virtual Machine quiesce option.
	Database objects are on a VHD disk. No objects in the backup are not cataloged, including those that do not exist on the VHD.
	You excluded any data disks from the VMware policy, on the Exclude disks tab. Be sure that any disks that you exclude do not contain database data.
	The VMware disk layout has changed since the last discovery. In this situation, you must force NetBackup to rediscover virtual machines by lowering the value of the Reuse VM selection query results for option. See the NetBackup for VMware Administrator's Guide.
	You cannot use a VMware incremental policy to protect SharePoint Server. However, the VMware backup job is successful.
	There is a Content database with no site collections present. To avoid this issue, remove the empty Content database or create a site collection in the Content database. The policy included SQL Servers that host multiple SharePoint farms.

You can recover the entire virtual machine from the backup, but you cannot recover the databases individually.	You did not select the Application protection option SharePoint Server on the VMware tab in the policy, which allows recovery of the databases from the virtual machine backups.
VMware job fails with error 2804.	No media server was added in the Additional Servers list.
GRT live browse error for a VMware image that supports the restore of application data.	The Primary VM identifier is not a NetBIOS name (for example, display name or UUID). For example, a client name like `client SP2016` becomes `client%20SP2016`. The live browse fails with a database system error because the client name is not recognized as a valid client name. Add an entry to the Distributed application restore mapping settings. The Primary VM identifier is the name of the application host. The front-end client name is the name of the component host. Alternatively for UNIX primary servers, add the `SPS_REDIRECT_ALLOWED` entry to the `bp.conf file`. Or for Windows primary servers, add a `SPS_REDIRECT_ALLOWED` registry entry.
The SQL snapshot preparation fails.	In the VMware policy, you select both Enable SharePoint Recovery and Enable SQL Recovery. Only select one of these recovery options.