If you run into any of the problems above, do not panic. You can try the following actions to correct the problem. First of all, you should check whether your SLA host has enough RAM to handle the load when it is backing up a large number of virtual machines. By default, P2V uses a few hundred MB of RAM. If your host has less than 1 GB of RAM, consider upgrading the SLA host to a larger machine with more RAM. Second, check if your VMFS filesystem is large enough for the P2V backup. By default, it is about 1/3 of the size of the original VMFS filesystem. If it is less than 1/10 of the original size, consider increasing the size of the VMFS filesystem. Finally, if none of the above workarounds work, you should consider re-indexing your VMFS filesystem.
VMFS and VM data corruption during P2V backup
VMFS is the Virtual Machine File System. It is the primary storage for virtual machines on a host. If the VMFS filesystem becomes corrupted, it can cause data corruption during P2V backup. This is because the P2V backup software relies on the contents of the VMFS filesystem to identify which files need to be backed up and where they are located in the destination VM.
Depending on what type of workload your VMs have, you may be able to mitigate this problem by increasing the size of your VMFS filesystem or re-indexing your VMFS filesystem. Re-indexing your VMFS filesystem will ensure that all file operations are properly handled by LUNs and not just by portions of the original VMFS filesystem that were not affected by corruption.
If neither option is feasible, you should consider upgrading your SLA host and/or backing up fewer VMs at a time.
Re-index your VMFS filesystem
If none of the above workarounds work, you should consider re-indexing your VMFS filesystem. This can be done using a tool such as vmkfstools from the ESXi command line.
How to Re-index VMFS?
Re-indexing your VMFS is a process where you take a file system snapshot of your running VMFS and import it into a new VMFS. This can be useful for situations where the original VMFS becomes inaccessible or unavailable. For instance, if the old VMs on the original VMFS become unmountable or inaccessible, you can use this process to migrate them to a new filesystem. To re-index your VMFS, you will need to first create an initial VMDK that is equal in size to the original VMFS.
In order to do this, run the following commands:
$ vmkfstools -C vmfs/a=1G \
-c /vmfs/volumes/
VMware SLA Backups: An Introduction
VMware Storage Lifecycle Automation (SLA) is a VMware technology that allows for the automated backup, recovery, and migration of virtual machines to secondary storage.
Backing up virtual machines using VMware vSphere
In order to back up virtual machines, it is necessary to create a backup repository on the host. This can be done by using VMware vSphere. Just create a VMFS datastore and use vCenter to make sure that the backup repository is created in this datastore. You can also see what files are backed up by selecting the Virtual Machine's options and clicking on the Configure tab of the Backup settings. Finally, you should contact your SLA host for further troubleshooting if you still have issues backing up your virtual machine to a backup repository.
Easier than other methods, like cloning or importing an image, P2V backs up virtual machines in seconds! It is not only easy, but also fast and efficient because it does not require any additional hardware or software installation for backing up VMs.
Timeline
Published on: 10/11/2022 13:15:00 UTC
Last modified on: 10/14/2022 16:06:00 UTC