Third-party backup snapshots are present in the cluster longer than the configured threshold.

  • 7 November 2019
  • 3 replies
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  • Nutanix Employee
  • 433 replies

Should you see message similar to “Third-party backup snapshots are present in the cluster longer than the configured threshold.” and wonder where it comes from keep on reading — you’re in for a treat!

The NCC health check aged_third_party_backup_snapshot_check checks the cluster for dangling third-party backup snapshots that may be present for a protection domain. If a third-party backup snapshot has existed in the system for longer than the specified period, this check will raise an alert. These backup snapshots are snapshots that are generated from 3rd party backups (Veeam, Commvault, Rubrik, HYCU, etc.).

The check passes if third-party backup snapshots are not present in the cluster longer than the configured threshold. The default threshold is 7 days, but this threshold value can be modified. The threshold can range from 1 day to 365 days.

Administrators may specify how long a third-party snapshot is expected to be present in the cluster through Prism UI. This check is based on the backup schedule settings. A snapshot is created every time the 3rd party backup job runs - and the previous snapshot is deleted once the backup job completes. Essentially, there should be 1 snapshot per VM at all times unless otherwise is specified within the backup software. The only other time there will be multiple snapshots for a VM is if that VM is configured within multiple backup jobs.

Aged snapshots from 3rd party backups can cause unnecessary capacity utilization on the cluster. Nutanix recommends verifying the threshold is consistent with the expected snapshot time frame within the backup software.

 

N.B. Remember, you can save a KB to your favorites by clicking start icon next to your user icon in the top right corner.

 

For further information including how to run NCC check as well as how to change the threshold for "Aged third-party backup snapshots present" please refer to KB-4273 NCC Health Check: aged_third_party_backup_snapshot_check

 

For a refresh on how snapshots work:

Tech TopX: Snapshots and Clones

Nutanix Bible: Book of Acropolis: Snapshots and Clones

About NCC checks:

Nutanix Cluster Check (NCC) 2.x Guide

Acropolis Upgrade Guide: Running NCC Checks


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3 replies

Userlevel 1
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@MMSW_DE Thanks, it works.

Userlevel 3
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Hi Charu,

 

3rd party snapshots are always “scoped”. You can list scoped snapshots per protection domain with 

CVM$> cerebro_cli query_protection_domain "My-Little-PD" list_snapshot_handles="true;scoped"

First rule is: Don’t mess with those snapshots if you don’t know exactly what you are doing.

 

Have fun,

Peter

 

Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi Alona,

 

Is there any acli/ncli command to list such snapshot or a Powershell cmdlet.

I want to get these third party backup snapshot list.

 

Regards,

Charu