We're doing some testing of the self-contained application protection features of TSM for VE 7.1 and have come across a troubling problem that I would appreciate your thoughts on.
The application protection features are disabled if the VMware Tools on the guest are not 'current'. Fair enough if the Tools are years out-of-date, but the TSM client software seems to use a strange way to check. We have seen clients happily running application protection only to have it switched off because a newer version of the VMware tools have been made available to the client by an update to the ESX host. At least I'm assuming that's what happens based on the following message in the logs: ANS9499W VMware tools on virtual machine 'XXXXXXXXXX' need to be updated. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager application protection will not be used. Never mind that the guest continues to run the same version of the tools which were previously working without issue - if there is an even slightly newer version of the Tools available to the client then application protection will be disabled until the guest is updated. Just think about that for a minute. You update your vSphere hosts to the latest patch levels with a view to updating the guests at your leisure and all of a sudden your guests no longer have application protection. You're exposed. Am I alone in thinking that disabling application protection in this scenario is a bug, or at the least a very poor design choice? I'm guessing most shops will have a lag between making the latest VMware Tools available and completing the update on all their guests? Regards Neil Schofield Tivoli Storage Manager SME Backup & Recovery | Storage & Middleware | Central Infrastructure Services | Infrastructure & Service Delivery | Group IT LLOYDS BANKING GROUP Lloyds Banking Group plc. Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC95000. Telephone: 0131 225 4555. Lloyds Bank plc. Registered Office: 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN. Registered in England and Wales no. 2065. Telephone 0207626 1500. Bank of Scotland plc. Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC327000. Telephone: 03457 801 801. Cheltenham & Gloucester plc. Registered Office: Barnett Way, Gloucester GL4 3RL. Registered in England and Wales 2299428. Telephone: 0345 603 1637 Lloyds Bank plc, Bank of Scotland plc are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority. Cheltenham & Gloucester plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Halifax is a division of Bank of Scotland plc. Cheltenham & Gloucester Savings is a division of Lloyds Bank plc. HBOS plc. Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC218813. This e-mail (including any attachments) is private and confidential and may contain privileged material. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete it (including any attachments) immediately. You must not copy, distribute, disclose or use any of the information in it or any attachments. Telephone calls may be monitored or recorded.
