V-79-57344-38727 - VMware or Hyper-V Agent backups complete with exception while backing up application servers with SQL or Exchange installed

Problem

VMware or Hyper-V Agent backups complete with exception while backing up a VM which has SQL or Exchange installed.  

Error Message

V-79-57344-38727 - Backup Exec failed to snap virtual machine 'VIRTUAL MACHINE' and was unable to collect the necessary metadata to restore individual application items. You cannot perform GRT-enabled restores of application data from this backup.

Cause

This will occur if application Granular Recovery Technology (GRT) is enabled, and the individual applications (Exchange / SQL) are not in a state where they can respond to the VSS request.  

1. Ensure that the application services are started for each of the Microsoft SQL Server instances and/or Microsoft Exchange Server.

2. Check the event logs at the time that the exception occurs to see if the application (Exchange and/or SQL) lists an error during the backup.

3. Ensure that the application has no offline databases or storage groups for Microsoft SQL or Microsoft Exchange Server.

Solution

All the following conditions will need to be remedied before the GRT process will be able to collect the necessary meta data to restore individual application items for Exchange and/or SQL.

1. If the application services are stopped they will need to be started. If SQL server service for one instance is not running application GRT will not work even for the other SQL instances which have the services running!

2. If the application services fails to start then this needs to be root caused and corrected.

3. Bring offline resources for Exchange and/or SQL back online.

Note: If Application GRT is not needed for the backup of the virtual machine listed in the error message, Application GRT can be disabled in the VMware or Hyper-V section of the backup job properties.  

If everything seems to be in order and the error continues, the following steps can be performed:

1. Reboot the virtual machine and then retry the backup.

2. Make sure that the Backup Exec server has been fully patched.

3. Make sure that the Remote Agent on the virtual machine is at the latest version by push installing it from the Backup Exec server, especially if any updates were installed as suggested in step #2, and/or uninstall and then reinstall the Remote Agent and reboot.

4. Perform a Remote Agent (RAWS) backup of the machine through Windows selections to see if it succeeds or also fails on the SQL or Exchange data. Resolve any failure with the RAWS backup and then try again to back up through the virtual agent.