I have BackupExec 2012 attempting to backup a Windows Server 2003 VMWare instance.
I often get unable to quiesce error: "The virtual machine may be too busy to quiesce to take the snapshot."
I've tried looking through the event logs but it's painstaking, and I've not found anything of note at 5am. But not being a Windows native, I'm concerned that there is something I'm missing.
The backup is set to run at 5am - how can I get a good idea of what the server is doing at 5am?
If the VMware Tools Filesystem Sync Driver exists on the server it will cause this error because it will try to flush I/O at the same time the Remote Agent is trying to quiesce the file system and writers. This causes the VMware Tools service to hang, causing the WMI writer to fail, and the VSS service to crash.
To resolve this uninstall VMware Tools and allow the system to reboot. Then reinstall VMware Tools without VSS by choosing to perform a Custom Install. If the system does not have the Backup Exec Remote Agent installed on it, installing the Remote Agent should remove the Sync Driver automatically.
refer: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH146397
All free versions of ESXi (4i and 5) require a minimum license from VMware in order to be protected by Backup Exec. This is due to the lack of vStorage API forData Protection support in the free unlicensed versions of ESXi and is a current limitation of VMware
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH196047