Hi fellow Engineers.
I am currently investigating an annoying issue on a virtual (!) WFC (v2016) that is being used as a 4-node HA FileServer (2node HA in each datacenter). Storage (2x 5TB) is being replicated succesfully (synchronous/write-ordered) between the 2 datacenters.
The annoying issue, is that every 4 hours (randomized within a few minutes) all connected users experience a short freeze of a few seconds up to a minute when accessing the Fileserver. Looking at the logs and StorageReplica known issues, it is clear this is due something trying to create a VSS Snapshot of the Replica LOG volume (which you should not do !!!), and the culprit seems to be an internal mechanism trying to create a Cluster Config Backup - including VSS snapshot of all local volumes of the Role owner.
If I switch the Role to another node, the issue just follows so it is not tied to the Cluster owner, but the role owner !
There is no backup being scheduled at that time, and I have no idea what would create an automatic VSS of all connected volumes.
Before going into details ... I have troubleshooted the hell out of this thing and cannot find it ... I do have some ideas, but the timestamps do not match.
Environment:
Lenovo blades (x240) with VMWare 6.5u1 (was also present on 6.5)
Dell Compellent Storage
3x 1Gbit uplinks (VMXNET3) per Node
Veeam Backup & Replication (9.5u2) using the latest Veeam Agent so we are not using the VMWare API for backup. When the Veeam Agent Backup schedule runs, the issue is not present as only the datavolumes are being backed-up (using VSS).
Anyone else having the same issue or seen this issue ?