This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Requirements and Limitations for EMC VNX/VNXe

In this article

    If you plan to perform backup and restore from EMC VNX/VNXe storage snapshots, consider the following limitations:

    EMC VNX Block

    • Veeam Backup & Replication supports LUNs that reside on Storage Pools.
    • To take LUN snapshots, Veeam Backup & Replication uses the VNX snapshot technology. Make sure that you have a license that covers this technology. The SnapView snapshot technology is not supported.

    EMC VNX File

    • A read-only checkpoint can have only 1 writable snapshot. If a read-ony checkpoint already has a writable snapshot, Veeam Backup & Replication uses this writable snapshot for restore.
    • Writable snapshots are not detected by the storage rescan process and are not displayed in the storage system hierarchy.

    EMC VNXe

    • Veeam Backup & Replication does not support EMC VNXe Gen 1 OS (2.x.x). EMC VNXe Gen 2 OS (3.x.x) is supported.
    • In EMC VNXe, you cannot export more than 1 storage snapshot for a LUN or LUN group concurrently. For this reason, Veeam Backup & Replication can perform only one task that uses storage snapshots at the same time.

    In Veeam Backup & Replication, tasks have the following priority levels (starting with the highest priority): restore task > backup job > rescan task. If you start several jobs or tasks that use storage snapshots, Veeam Backup & Replication will check what priority tasks have and perform the following actions:

    • If a LUN snapshot is exported for storage rescan and you start a backup job or restore task at the same time, the rescan process will fail.
    • If a LUN snapshot is exported for a backup job and you start another backup job at the same time, the second backup job will be waiting until the first backup job is finished.
    • If a LUN snapshot is exported for a restore task and you start a backup job at the same time, the backup job will fail (or failover to the regular processing mode if corresponding settings are enabled in the backup job).
    • If a LUN snapshot is exported for a backup job and you start a restore task at the same time, the restore task will be waiting until the backup job is finished.

    EMC VNX(e) Working over NFS

    • VMs that you plan to back up or replicate must not have VMware vSphere snapshots. VMs with VMware vSphere snapshots will be skipped from Backup from Storage Snapshots.
    • If you enable the Enable VMware tools quiescence option in the backup job settings, Veeam Backup & Replication will not use Backup from Storage Snapshots to process running Microsoft Windows VMs that have VMware Tools installed.