veeamSometimes I still run into customer who don’t use direct SAN access mode for backing up there VM’s

taking this from the veeam website (here) you still need to add iSCSI targets and disable automount in windows

Requirements for the Direct SAN Access Mode

To use the Direct SAN access transport mode, make sure that the following requirements are met:

  • A backup proxy working in the Direct SAN Access transport mode can be deployed on a physical or virtual machine.
  • A backup proxy using the Direct SAN access transport mode must have a direct access to the production storage via a hardware or software HBA. If a direct SAN connection is not configured or not available when a job or task starts, the job or task will fail.
  • SAN storage volumes presented as VMware datastores must be exposed to the OS of the backup proxy that works in the Direct SAN access transport mode.

The volumes must be visible in Disk Management but must not be initialized by the OS. Otherwise, the VMFS filesystem will be overwritten with NTFS, and volumes will become unrecognizable by ESX(i) hosts. To prevent volumes initialization,Veeam Backup & Replication automatically sets the SAN Policy within each proxy to Offline Shared.

  • [For restore operations] A backup proxy must have write access to LUNs where VM disks are located.

Disable automount in windows:

start a elevated command prompt. type in “diskpart” and then use “automount disable”
check in the registry to make sure it’s turned off.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MountMgr\NoAutoMount. if its set to ‘1’ then it’s turned off.

It still applies for Veeam 8.x and 9.x also as far i been reading on the veeam website

after its disabled you just add your iSCSI targets in windows. check at disk management if the disk show up but don’t initialize them !!