I am implementing a new backup infrastructure based on BackupExec 2012 for one of our clients and am facing an issue.
I am testing various backup methods and options and one of those is the complete restore of a VM, just like after a catastrophic san failure for example.
To do so I configured a test lun, created a datastore on this lun and created a test VM on this LUN.
I configured this VM with specific settings, such as a manual configured MAC address, 4vCPUs and in the VM bios I configured a management bios password and enabled a serial port. Finally I made some tweaks in the advanced settings options. For example I used the parameter cpuid.coresPerSocket to create a 1vCPU 4 core VM.
After this a full backup of the VM was made and with this successfully completed I deleted the VM completely and then I restored it on the original location.
When I examined the VM it seemed a good restored VM. It booted and everything seemed ok, but after some closer inspection I noticed it was not 100% the same as the original. The VM settings like the MAC address and the number of vCPUs seemed right, but the alterations of the BIOS and the advanced settings are gone.
This means a full backup is really not a full backup.
Compatitive products like Veeam Backup & Replication don't seem to suffer from the same problem, so it is not a VMware API issue that is preventing the complete configuration of a VM to be backuped.
Since we have many VMs to protect with some of them containing specific settings we want to be able to TRUST the backup application. A restore of a FULL VM backup must be EXACTLY 100% the same as the backup and not 99%!
Can someone confirm this is a BackupExec 2012 (SP1) "feature" or is it a bug that will be solved with a hotfix soon?