SQL Clones Backup Issue

Robb_Keller

We have noticed that our Veem backups have failed since putting a SQL Clone on a VM.  Is this a known issue and is there any way around getting Veem backups for our VMs that might contain a SQL Clone database?

Thanks a bunch,
Robb

ChrisHurley

Hi Robb,

Does this occur on a machine where you are creating images from live databases? Since SQL Clone uses the Volume Shadow Copy Service to do this, there can be conflicts with other software which is trying to use the same service at the same time (we've heard of Veeam preventing SQL Clone from creating images because of this). If you're creating images from backup, this service isn't used.

It would also be interesting to hear the error message that you're getting from Veeam to see whether it's likely to be this issue or something else.

Chris

Robb_Keller

I'm not sure the messages that Veem is giving.  I think it is just failing to create a VM server backup image.
I also had issues with SQL Server on my local that keeps placing clones in a restoring state until I restart SQL Server services.  This might be caused by our backup of our drives using BackBlaze.

The clone issue on our VMs is critical and we cannot use clones if this will continue to be a problem with Veem server backups.

Thanks,
Robb

ChrisHurley

Is this a machine on which you're creating images from live databases (as opposed to from backups)? If the conflict is occurring during image creation from live databases then it might be because both SQL Clone and Veeam are trying to simultaneously create Volume Shadow Copy snapshots, as Windows doesn't permit this to happen. This could be prevented by scheduling these operations to happen at different times, or by creating images from backup, which doesn't use the Volume Shadow Copy service.

If the machine has clone databases on it, then depending on how your backups are performed, it's possible that it's attempting to back up the entirety of the database, including unchanged data. Excluding clone mount locations (by default, inside the SQL Server default data directory) from the VM backup could help if that's the case.

SQL Clone works through disk virtualization. If there's an interruption in the network connection between the clone and its image while the database is being accessed, the resulting disk errors can cause the database can get stuck in an error state which requires restarting SQL Server to fix because of https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4094893. The best way of preventing this is to ensure that this connection is reliable and low-latency - it's usually beneficial for images and clones to be on the same LAN.