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Hidden snapshots creation ?
Hi,
my eq is PS6210E model 70-0425. An hyper-v cluster (4 hosts) connects through iSCSI.
On SAN, I configured 4 snaphots and to overwrite if needed.
However, I can see a lot more snapshots for each volume that empty volume space .. and I can see that are requested from the hyper-v hosts through VSS HW provider. So, I opened Auto Snapshot Manager on each host but there is NO schedule. I also took a look under task scheduler .. but no jobs are configured.
Where can I look to find this "ghost" snapshot scheduling ?
Thanks.
Anonymous
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September 22nd, 2014 08:00
Hello,
Some application is calling the Volume Shadow Service. (VSS). Are you running DPM? VEEAM? When you use ASM to create a snapshot it puts a comment in the snapshot description, are there any comments on those "ghost" snapshots?
Regards,
joker197cinque
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September 23rd, 2014 03:00
Hi Donald,
you are right, it seems that Veeam is creating these snapshots. However I don't know why.
Thanks I'll dig into it.
Anonymous
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September 23rd, 2014 06:00
You are welcome. VEEAM is calling VSS to create a snapshot, if the HW provider for the storage is there it will create a H/W snapshot automatically.
I haven't worked much with VEEAM, but if you are able to run a command before VEEAM starts, you can unregister the EQL HW provider, run VEEAM then re-register it afterwards.
Solution Title HOWTO: Temporarily disable the EqualLogic VSS provider?
Solution Details Under some circumstances, you may need to disable the EqualLogic VSS hardware provider module, but be able to re-enable it later.
Please note that the content of this solution is not officially documented or supported. This has been observed to work in the past, but is not guaranteed to be stable or functional in the future. Until this is documented, we should not provide it to customers.
This can be done with the "eqlvss" command under Windows:
C:\Program Files\EqualLogic\bin>eqlvss /unregserver
You can confirm it has been removed with the following command:
C:\Program Files\EqualLogic\bin>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
To add it, do the following:
C:\Program Files\EqualLogic\bin>eqlvss /regserver
C:\Program Files\EqualLogic\bin>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
Provider name: 'DELL EqualLogic VSS HW Provider'
Provider type: Hardware
Provider Id: {d4689bdf-7b60-4f6e-9afb-2d13c01b12ea}
Version: 3.1.1.0
joker197cinque
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September 24th, 2014 05:00
Thanks Donald your help is much much appreciated.
I tried your suggestion and it works very well.
I can add that Veeam settings permit to choose another VSS provider and I selected the Microsoft one, working around the problem that to me was caused from the inability of Veeam to delete the snapshot after the creation.
Best regards.
Anonymous
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September 24th, 2014 07:00
What version of the HIT/ME software are you using? With EQL FW v7.x firmware, a change in snapshot handling was changed after many requests from customer. Prior to v7, you could just delete a snapshot, whether it was online or not. Some customers were using those snapshots, in some cases as live production volumes. So now you have to put it offline first, it won't auto delete on a schedule.