General Requirements and Limitations
The following limitations apply to all storage systems supported by Veeam Backup & Replication.
Backup Infrastructure (VMware, Veeam Agent integration)
Backup infrastructure for storage snapshots has the following requirements and limitations:
- Before you add a storage system to Veeam Backup & Replication, make sure SAN initiator groups for production ESXi hosts and for proxy hosts are isolated and snapshot clones will not be exported to production environment. Otherwise, you may encounter production infrastructure issues such as doubling of the root RGK4IT_VMware_Cluster_Boot Volume to ESXi.
- [For IBM Spectrum Virtualize 8.4.2 and later with iSCSI connectivity] During Backup from Storage Snapshots and storage rescan, storage snapshot export to a proxy is required. If the default proxy is used, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a service host with the "VeeamAUX" prefix in the default portset of the storage system. If you want to send traffic using a custom portset, you can manually specify the required portset in the service host settings. If another proxy is used, check that the host that performs the proxy role has the required portset in the host settings.
- CHAP authentication is not supported for storage systems working over iSCSI.
- SAS connections are not supported.
- Veeam Backup & Replication does not display volumes and snapshots with the '"VeeamAUX'" prefix in the storage hierarchy. Such volumes are used for service purposes and are filtered out.
IPv6 is supported for the following storage systems:
- NetApp (except 7-mode)
- Dell Unity XT/Unity, VNXe
- HPE Primera, HPE Alletra 9000
- HPE 3PAR StoreServ (management connections only)
- IBM (all supported systems, management connections only)
- Pure Storage FlashArray
- Fujitsu ETERNUS HX/AX (management connections only)
- NEC Storage M Series (management connections only)
If only management IPv6 connection is supported for a storage system, you can add this storage system to backup infrastructure using IPv6 address. However, all data traffic will be transferred over IPv4.
Note |
Temporary IPv6 addresses are not supported for backup infrastructure components and backed-up machines. For more information about using temporary addresses, see this RFC section. |
To use IPv6 addresses and resolve names using IPv6, configure IPv6 communication as described in IPv6 Support.
For Kerberos requirements and limitations, see Kerberos Authentication Requirements and Limitations.
Backup from Storage Snapshots (VMware integration)
Backup from storage snapshots has the following limitations:
- Backup from storage snapshots does not support vRDM disks. vRDM disks are skipped from processing.
- Backup from storage snapshots cannot be used for VMs whose disks are located on VVol datastores.
- Backup from storage snapshots cannot be used to back up VM templates.
- Backup from storage snapshots cannot be used to back up encrypted VMs.
- Processing of VMs with VMware vSphere snapshots may take much longer to start compared to using the Direct SAN Access transport mode with iSCSI/FC SAN. In case these delays are unacceptable, we recommend to either delete the VMware vSphere snapshots or avoid using storage snapshots integration to protect such VMs.
- [For HPE Nimble] To backup from Nimble Group secondary arrays, you must configure Nimble Connection Manager on Microsoft Windows-based backup proxies.
- For storage systems working over NFS:
- VMs that you plan to back up or replicate must not have VMware vSphere snapshots. VMs with snapshots are processed during regular backup job.
- If you enable the Enable VMware tools quiescence option in the job settings, Veeam Backup & Replication will not use Backup from Storage Snapshots to process running Microsoft Windows VMs that have VMware Tools installed.
- Backup from Storage Snapshots is not supported for SLES operating systems working over IPv6.
- [For HPE 3PAR StoreServ] Export types such as 'Hosts and port' and 'Port' are not supported. If you create such export types for a proxy or ESXi host, Veeam Backup & Replication will automatically create exports with the 'Host' or 'Host set' types instead.
Snapshot Orchestration and Backup from Storage Snapshots with Snapshot Retention (VMware integration)
Snapshot jobs (snapshot-only jobs and backup jobs with storage snapshot retention) have the following requirements and limitations:
- If you remove or re-add a storage array that is already associated with a snapshot job, Veeam Backup & Replication will restart the retention cycle. You will need to manually remove old snapshots that are no longer needed.
- If you use replication or archiving features and plan to create a snapshot chain on the secondary storage array, check that all VMs that you add to the job reside on volumes with the configured feature. If any VM resides on a volume without the configured feature, snapshot on the secondary storage will not be created for this VM and all other VMs in the job that reside on at least one of the same volumes as this VM.
- You cannot configure a job to create storage snapshots on arrays of different storage vendors.
- For IBM Spectrum Virtualize:
- Before you add this storage system to the backup infrastructure, make sure that a license for the IBM Spectrum Virtualize storage system supports IBM FlashCopy.
- When you add IBM Spectrum Virtualize storage systems with HyperSwap function to the backup infrastructure, Veeam Backup & Replication, by default, works with primary storage volumes.
- Enable HPE 3PAR Web Services API server. Veeam Backup & Replication uses the HPE 3PAR Web Services API server to work with the HPE StoreServ storage system.
- A license for the HPE 3PAR StoreServ storage system must support HPE 3PAR Virtual Copy.
- You can use backup jobs to create a snapshot chain either on a primary or on a secondary storage array, but you cannot configure snapshot creation on both storage arrays at the same time.
- For snapshot-only jobs:
- If a VM added to the job has several disks that reside on the same volume, you cannot exclude specific VM disks from the backup as Veeam Backup & Replication creates snapshots at the volume level.
- Veeam Backup & Replication does not support guest file indexing for snapshot-only jobs.
- You cannot perform backup of VMs residing on a VMware datastore that comprises several extents (usually due to the use of several LUNs).
Data Recovery from Storage Snapshots (VMware integration)
Data Recovery from Storage Snapshots has the following limitations:
- During restore of VM guest OS files from storage snapshots, data is transferred over LAN through the Network Block Device protocol (NBD). Therefore, restore performance may not be optimal.
- You cannot perform any kind of restore operation (Instant VM Recovery, VM guest OS files restore and application items restore) if a VMware datastore comprises several extents (usually due to the use of several LUNs).
- Veeam Explorer for Storage Snapshots does not support VMs whose disks are located on VVol datastores.
- You can restore data of a VM whose disks are hosted on different VMware datastores (multi-home restore). This is true for storage snapshots created both as snapshot-only jobs and backup jobs with storage snapshot retention. However, if you restore from native storage snapshots or snapshots that were created with earlier versions of Veeam Backup & Replication (up to version 9.5 Update 4), mind the following:
- The restored VM will have only those VM disks that are hosted on the same datastore as the VMX file.
- You will be able to restore VM guest OS files or application items only from those VM disks that are hosted on the same datastore as the VMX file.
- You will not be able to restore VM disks that contain the absolute path in the VMX file.
- [For HPE Nimble and NetApp ONTAP] You will not be able to perform Instant Recovery and restore VM guest OS files to the original location from snapshots on secondary storage arrays.
To overcome these limitations, you must restore from storage snapshots created with the current version of Veeam Backup & Replication.
- If you remove or re-add a storage array to the backup infrastructure, you will be able to restore data only from those VM disks that are hosted on the same datastore as the VMX file.
- You cannot restore data of a VM whose disks are hosted on storage systems of different storage vendors.
- If you plan to restore data from archived snapshots, you must first retrieve the snapshot as described in Retrieving Data from Achived Snapshots. If VM disks are stored on multiple archived volume snapshots (multi-home VM), you need to retrieve all the snapshots from archives.
- You cannot restore files directly to the original location from backups of BSD, Mac and Solaris VMs. You cannot restore files directly to the original location from NSS filesystems. Use the Copy to option instead.
- If the original VM is removed from vSphere infrastructure or migrated to another datastore, you will not be able to perform VM guest OS files restore to the original location.
- [For HPE 3PAR StoreServ] Export types such as "Hosts and port" and "Port" are not supported. If you create such export types for a proxy or ESXi host, Veeam Backup & Replication will automatically create exports with the "Host" or "Host set" types instead.