VMware snapshots not working 11.2

MikeyG

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I noticed my vmware snapshots are not working correctly. In vcenter, no snapshots of the VMs are taken when the zvol snapshot is created. I can't recall if this was working correctly in 11.1. Settings seem to go through ok when i put in the server, username, password, and fetch/select the datastore.

I have a VMUG license for esxi/vcenter so all that should be fine.

I manage a Truenas system for someone, and on that system there is an option when creating manual snapshots for "VMware Sync." I see no such option for me in FreeNas.

Truenas
Capture.JPG


Freenas:
Capture1.JPG


New Interface:
Capture2.JPG



Any suggestions? Is this working differently/correctly for others?
 

MikeyG

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Yes @dlavigne, those steps are working correctly.
 

MikeyG

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Maybe I should clarify @dlavigne that the steps work, in that it fetches the datastore, saves the vmware snapshot settings, and seems to be set up correctly, but that the quiesced snapshot through vmware does not actually happen.
 

MikeyG

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Never mind, I figured it out. Apparently the vmware snapshot for zfs filesystem must specify the actual zvol for the datastore, and not the parent Dataset that the zvol is in. I guess this makes sense.
 
D

dlavigne

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If the UI does not make that clear, it is probably worth reporting at bugs.freenas.org. If you make a report, post the issue number here.
 

MikeyG

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seedz

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Never mind, I figured it out. Apparently the vmware snapshot for zfs filesystem must specify the actual zvol for the datastore, and not the parent Dataset that the zvol is in. I guess this makes sense.

let me hijack this :
wait, to be able to do vmware snapshots, does the datastore need to be in your ZFS pool to start with ?
(i was hoping to be able to use freenas as a saving / backup mecanism for ESX VMs that are hosted on "proper" SAN hardware)
 

jgreco

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let me hijack this :
wait, to be able to do vmware snapshots, does the datastore need to be in your ZFS pool to start with ?
(i was hoping to be able to use freenas as a saving / backup mecanism for ESX VMs that are hosted on "proper" SAN hardware)

Well, yes, how else would FreeNAS have a copy of the data?
 

seedz

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Well, yes, how else would FreeNAS have a copy of the data?

Well, i had hoped freenas could pull the data from the vcenter, like Arkeia did or Unitrends does
 

jgreco

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Well, i had hoped freenas could pull the data from the vcenter, like Arkeia did or Unitrends does

Arkeia and Unitrends are backup products. They are designed to worm their way into vSphere and ferret out the data for virtual machines, often using the vSphere Data Protection API's or whatever it's called these days, Changed Block Tracking, and all that.

FreeNAS is a NAS and SAN platform. Its job is storage. Like many other NAS/SAN platforms, it is able to coordinate some higher level storage activities such as snapshots, or other array operations, with vSphere.

VMware implements snapshots by creating a delta file in the VM's datastore directory. FreeNAS implements snapshots by using ZFS snapshots. I've never heard of an actual snapshot technology that puts snapshots on a completely different storage system, because generally that makes no sense to do. Snapshots are deltas from a particular state.

There are backup products that do near-realtime backups, some of which muddle terms and might refer to them as "snapshots", and these may put your data elsewhere, even a different data center, or in the cloud, but that's really replication. It's really a different class of problem than what true snapshots are trying to address. If you want data replication features, you will need a software package that does that. It is likely to be able to work with FreeNAS as a source or target backend.

FreeNAS will only do the storage part of the job.
 
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