Update Release of VMware VDR Available

I don’t know how many of you out there have been using VDR to backup your VMware estate. VDR is one of the options available for a deduplicated backup solution – albeit there have been a few issues. We’ve had VDR running in our own infrastructure, and occasionally received the well documented 3902 error which would stop the backup jobs from running. A sample of this error is below.

11/23/2009 5:33:11 AM: Normal backup using Xtravirt Daily backup

11/23/2009 5:33:48 AM: Failed to create snapshot for XenCenterServer, error -3902 ( file access error)

11/23/2009 5:33:57 AM: Task incomplete

The issue seemed to be resolved by rebooting the VDR virtual appliance, although this brought with it, its own problems (not counting the annoyance of rebooting it every other day). VMware have now released an updated version that resolves the issue.

The upgrade path is documented here. Basically, uninstall your existing VDR plug-in from your machine, import the new OVF appliance and connect it to the backup destination (existing VMDK\CIFS share\RDM).  If you are using VDR or are looking at testing it, ensure you use the updated version. Make sure you review the release notes before getting your hands dirty. Although it does not mention the ‘fix’ that is mentioned on the forums here, other information worthy of note included:

Enhancements

The enhancements have been made for this release of Data Recovery.

• File Level Restore Functionality is Officially Supported File Level Restore (FLR) provides a way to access individual files within restore points for Windows virtual machines. In previous versions of Data Recovery, FLR was provided as an experimental feature. File Level Restore feature is now officially supported.
• Integrity Check Stability and Performance Improved The integrity check process is faster and more stable. Note that integrity checks are computationally intensive processes and can take significant periods of time. The exact amount of time integrity checks take varies based on of the size of the deduplication store. Even with these enhancements, integrity checks that take several hours are not unexpected.
• Integrity Checks Provides Improved Progress Information When an integrity check is running, a progress indicator is displayed. This progress indicator has been improved, although it does not provide the optimal level of detail.

Enhanced CIFS Shares Support

Perhaps ‘Enhanced CIFS Shares Support’ is code for ‘now works.’