vSphere 6.7 U1 and Veeam Backup 9.5 U3a

Failed Backup Jobs after Update to vSphere 6.7 U1

On October 16th 2018 vSphere 6.7 Update 1 became available. An update we’ve been desperately waiting for. Finally vSphere-Client (HTML5) has become fully functional. Until that some tasks had to be done with the infamous flash client.

Unfortunately problems emerged soon after users updated their clusters to vSphere 6.7 U1 in combination with Veeam Backup jobs.

Workaround

VMware and Veeam worked hard to identify the root cause of the problem. It turned out that there was a change in the vSphere API which caused communication issues with Veeam Backup.

Latest API version is 6.7.1, but this one seems to be incompatible with Veeam Backup 9.5 U3a. According to Veeam sources, the issue will be settled with the soon to come Veeam Backup Update 4.

For all of those who have already updated their clusters to vSphere 6.7 U1 there’s a workaround. You need to enter a registry key to force Veeam Backup using the older API 6.7.

Warning! This solution is not recommended by Veeam Support. If you’re not yet on vSphere 6.7 U1 and you’re using Veeam Backup, you better wait until release of Veeam Backup 9.5 Update 4. Do not upgrade. Read this passage again!

The workaround outlined below has to be reverted as soon as Veeam 9.5 Update 4 is available.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication

You need to add a multi-string-value (REG_MULTI_SZ). Enter the Value below:

6.7.1 = 6.7

This registry key forces Veeam Backup to use API 6.7, but might lead to other yet unknown problems. But it enables to run your Veeam Backup jobs again.

The blind spot

Losing your mind over IT complexity

This is a rather non-technical post about life, the universe and… no, I think that has been written before. 😉

Seriously, it’s about how to deal with the overwhelming mass of information and the lack of knowledge of a single person in the field of virtualization.

In the old days

When I started my journey into virtualization, it was all about running a virtual machine within another operating system.  I can remember the day when I’ve first seen a Windows 2000 booting in a VM on my NT4 workstation. It has been sluggish like hell and animations looked like slideshows. But, hey! What a cool technology!

A bit later I had the opportunity to manage an ESX 2.5 cluster before virtualization became mainstream.

Over the years, many other products were added: HA, DRS, vDS, NIOC, SIOC, SRM, vRealize, View, Horizon, vCOPS, vROPS, NSX, vSAN, Cloud, Containers, IoT, Software-defined-whatever and so on.

Enter the vMatrix

It is that kind of technological evolution which makes my work so fascinating and kept me going over the years. Learning new stuff every day is the spice of life and the core reason why I’ve left my labcoat behind, took the red pill and entered the vMatrix. Continue reading “The blind spot”

vCenter Appliance Migration Upgrade

Relink VM MoRef IDs to Veeam Backup Restore-Points

In this post I will show how to use Veeam Migration Utility in cases when you have to migrate a whole cluster to a new vCenter, but you can’t afford to cut existing backup chains.

The Good

Upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) has become a commodity in recent times. All you have to do is to run an upgrade wizard and point to the old VCSA. Thanks to VMware developers it’s one of these “Next-Next-Finish” deployments. At the end you’ll have an upgraded vCenter with same settings, name, IP, and (if you like) historic data.  This is great! I can remember vCenter on Windows upgrades that were a PITA.

The Bad

In some rare (but ugly) occasions you simply can’t use the wizard and you have to migrate your hosts to a completely new VCSA without data migration. You’ll have to rebuild every setting, datacenter, cluster, folder, pool, group, rule, etc from scratch to match your old environment. Continue reading “vCenter Appliance Migration Upgrade”