How do I troubleshoot common errors for VMware backups that are failing in AWS Backup?

Resolution

The following are the most common errors that you might receive when running VMware backup jobs:

• "Failed to process backup data. Aborted backup job." -or- "Error opening disk on the virtual machine"
• "Failed to upload backup during data ingestion. Aborted backup job." -or- "Cloud network request timed out during data ingestion"
• "Failed to create backup during snapshot creation. Aborted backup job."
• "No gateways available to work on job."

Error: Failed to process backup data. Aborted backup job -or- Error opening disk on the virtual machine

These errors might occur because of the following configuration issues:

Network or port configuration issues

To use an AWS Backup gateway, you must configure your infrastructure to use a gateway. Make sure that all required ports are open.

To test the connectivity, use the ncport tool in the command prompt of the gateway's local console.

Complete the following steps:

1.    Access the gateway's local console.

2.    On the Backup gateway configuration page, enter 3 to test the network connectivity.

3.    If the network test passes, then enter X, and then return to the AWS Backup gateway configuration page.

4.    Enter 7 to access the command prompt. Then, run the following commands to verify the network connectivity.

ncport -d <ESXi Host>-p 902  
ncport -d <ESXi Host>-p 443

The VMware version or disk isn't supported

To back up and restore VMs, you must use a supported VMware for AWS Backup. If you use an unsupported VM version, then upgrade to a supported version.

AWS Backup doesn't support VM backups that have independent persistent and independent non-persistent disk modes. AWS Backup also doesn't support raw disk mapping (RDM) disks of NVMe controllers and their disks.

To back up and restore VMs with independent persistent or independent non-persistent disk mode, change the disk mode to dependent.

The gateway appliance has incorrect DNS servers

If the gateway appliance is configured with incorrect DNS servers, then the backup fails. To verify the DNS configuration, complete the following steps:

1. Access the gateway's local console.
   Note: The default username is admin and password is password.
2. On the Backup gateway configuration page, enter 2 to see the network configuration.
3. In Network Configuration, enter 7 to view the DNS configuration.
4. Review the DNS server IP addresses. If the DNS server IP addresses are incorrect, then exit the prompt and return to Network Configuration.
5. In Network Configuration, enter 6 to edit the DNS configuration.
6. Enter the correct DNS server IP addresses. Then, enter X to complete your network configuration.

To test the network connectivity, use the preceding instructions for Network or port configuration issues. To get information about your hypervisor, such as errors and network configuration and connection, configure the hypervisor to integrate with Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Error: Failed to upload backup during data ingestion. Aborted backup job. -or- Cloud network request timed out during data ingestion

This error might occur if the network connection isn't sufficient to handle the data uploads of larger VMs. If the network bandwidth is slow, then the link can be congested and cause backup jobs to fail.

The required network bandwidth depends on the following factors:

• The VMware VMs that you want to protect
• The size of each VM
• The incremental data that are generated for each VM
• Your backup window and restore requirements

It's a best practice to have at least 100 Mbps bandwidth to back up on-premises VMware VMs that use AWS Backup.

Note: The VMware feature uploads only modified chunks. Because of the differences in the amount of uploaded data, some backups might succeed and others might fail.

Error: Failed to create backup during snapshot creation. Aborted backup job.

This error might occur when the VMware host where the gateway appliance resides has issues. To resolve this error, check the configuration of your VMware host and review the VMware host for issues.

To get information about your hypervisor, such as errors and network configuration and connection, configure the hypervisor to integrate with Amazon CloudWatch Logs.

Error: No gateways available to work on job

This error might occur when all gateways are busy. Each gateway has a limit of four backup or restore jobs, and you can't increase this limit. For more information, see AWS Backup quotas.

To resolve this error, increase the Backup window start time to a longer period of time. Or, create more gateways and connect them to your hypervisor.

Related information

Back up and restore on-premises VMware virtual machines using AWS Backup