Blogs and Podcasts

One of the things I enjoy about designing Veeam environments is that the best architecture on paper is not always the best architecture for the people who have to operate it every day.This project was a smaller Veeam Backup & Replication v13 environment. The system administrators were very comfortable with Windows Server. Linux was another story. They had limited Linux experience and were hesitant to own a Linux-based system after implementation.That became part of the architecture decision. We could have introduced Linux simply because it gives us attractive security options, but doing that would also introduce another operating system the team would need to patch, monitor, troubleshoot, and secure. In a larger organization with dedicated Linux resources, that conversation is different. Here, operational capability mattered.So the question became: how secure can we make a Windows-based Veeam v13 deployment while keeping it manageable for the administrators who will own it?Figure 1

I took advantage of my holidays to step away from screens for a while. Unfortunately, the contest has now come to an end but I still wanted to share my experience with the community.So, what will you find in my toolbox? Well, before answering that, I think it's essential to cover a few other points first because being ready for a disaster is about more than just technology. Experience Is Your Best AllyI fully agree with what others have already mentioned: experience is your ally. The more you dig into topics and use your tools on a regular basis, the more comfortable you become and the day a problem hits, you'll be far more confident in how you approach it.Take the different restore options Veeam provides as an example: it is absolutely essential to test each of them so you understand *when* to use them. Knowing how and when to leverage Instant Recovery, for instance, can save you precious minutes when every second counts.You Need a Big-Picture View of the InfrastructureYou need a holi

Hello everyone!This is my first contribution to the Veeam Community Hub!In the long term, I plan to start my own blog to share my thoughts and technical perspectives from my daily work, but while it is in the making, let's move on with my thoughts on the topic „how to structure jobs.“This post will cover Veeam Backup & Replication in the first place, but in the future I will also cover Veeam Microsoft 365.In my daily work, I have seen a lot of variations, like “naming schemes“ (please imagine this in very large quotation marks), like "Backup Job 1“ or „Server Backup x with Database.“Basically naming jobs like this, of course, works, but in the daily work you have to search for what this job is exactly, and when the description is the default one, you don't know anything.To prevent this situation, and because I really like to organize things:)Over time, I have developed a specific naming scheme for jobs in Veeam Backup and Replication, such as Backup to Disk or Backup Copy Jobs.This

Greetings everyone, as you know I have been working on Grafana Dashboards across all Veeam RESTful APIs (the only one pending is VBA GCP), but as the time has passed, the releases and core products I was using have evolved as well…I am talking about the time-series I am using to store all the recollected data from the APIs. I was using InfluxDB v1.x (latest stable release is v1.8), but InfluxData is about to deprecate it and consider it end-of-life at the end of 2021. That left all the Community using it with the only option to go to InfluxDB v2.x, and start leveraging Flux, the new query language, which is extremely versatile btw.Introducing the new Grafana Dashboard for Veeam Enterprise Manager for InfluxDB v2 using Flux, and Grafana 8.xBefore go any further, I just wanted to thank tigattack who contributed to the Script that pushes the data to InfluxDB v2.0.Now, there it has been ton of work, as I needed to craft all the queries again from scratch converting legacy InfluxQL things l

Veeam continues to add feature improvements to make Veeam plugin for Nutanix AHV a strong option for hypervisor migration. The features listed below are highlighted in our “What New VBR 13.1” document. Please see details below. One Web UI for Every HypervisorYou can now add Nutanix AHV from the Veeam Web GUI. This allows for quicker deployment and simplified operations. Additional enhancements will continue to be added to the Web GUI in future. Add Nutanix AHV in Web GUIRole-Based Access Control, Scoped Your WayDefining custom roles with scoped access to specific VMs, jobs, categories, or infrastructure objects. Role-based access control (RBAC) this granular option means people see exactly what their responsibilities require, and nothing else. That's a tighter security posture, fewer accidental changes, and audits that don't turn into archaeology. This has been a highly requested feature for large customers. Also, this is what Veeam Cloud Server Providers need to provide better managem

Managing user access through Microsoft Entra ID has become a standard requirement in many environments. With Veeam ONE 13.1, it is now possible to integrate SAML-based authentication and use Entra ID or any other SAML IDP as an external Identity Provider. This step-by-step guide shows the process on how to add Entra ID as an IDP in VeeamOne 13.1. First, we need to create an enterprise application in Entra IDNavigate to https://entra.microsoft.com/ --> Enterprise applications and add a new application  Select "create your own application" and specify a name, I chose "VeeamOne SAML"  Specify SAML as the single-sign on method  Now switch to VeeamOne and go to configuration --> access management and add an identity provider  In the Identity Provider Settings: Display name: specify some name for your IDPIDP URL: copy the "App Federation Metadata Url"Entity ID: copy the "Microsoft Entra Identifier"  In the Veeam ONE Settings, you need to specify a Client ID, for example "VeeamOne"The S

I have upgrade myLab with last v13.1 of Veeam ONE and I share the procedure to add VSA 13.1 and some issues or problems that may occur.  If you try to add the VSA to Veeam ONE you can receive this error message:  This happens because you need to enable ‘Data Collection’ in the VSA’s ‘Host Management Console’ (HMC is on port 10443) by clicking on ‘Submit Request’:Ref.: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/hmc_configure_infrastructure.html?ver=13#enabling-remote-data-collection    At this point, by logging into the HMC using the Security Officer’s credentials, we can approve the request:  Returning to Veeam ONE, I can continue with the process of adding the Veeam Backup & Replication Server; we have 60 minutes from the time of the request to complete the task:  Need use user with admin right credential on “Veeam Analytics Service”, not “Security Officier”:  VSA added:  Enjoy Veeam ONE monitoring !

 What is this about?Recently I ran into a subtle but classic Windows networking trap while wiring up an Ootbi appliance with two nodes and a common IP behind a corporate proxy. The symptom was familiar: everything looked correct in the Windows proxy dialog, yet the backup traffic originating from the Windows based gateway server still tried to crawl partly through the proxy instead of talking to the appliance directly. If you have ever set a proxy bypass in the GUI and wondered why a service ignores it completely, this one is for you.One note up front: I hit this with an Ootbi, but nothing here is Ootbi specific. This will bite you the same way with any S3 based / object storage target that you reach through an HTTP(S) endpoint behind a proxy, whether that is another on prem object appliance, a MinIO cluster, or a public S3 compatible service. The mechanism is Windows proxy handling, not the storage brand. The misleading symptom: it "connected", then the backup diedHere is the part tha

Hi everyone! This is my first post on Veeam Community Hub, and I’m really excited to share with you all a little bit about my summer. Since starting with Veeam this past June for my Product Strategy internship, I’ve been working through all Securiti AI’s public certifications including AI Security & Governance and Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) while also digging into Veeam’s products. One surprising part is how much those two things line up. But once I started looking at Veeam Intelligence through the perspective of what those certifications teach, I kept noticing a pattern showing up again and again.What My Certifications Actually Taught Me The AI Security and Governance certification covers how organizations manage the risk that follows when placing AI into real workflows, including data visibility, access control, and being able to build trust in your data that you can rely on what an AI system does with it. The core lesson is that an AI system is only as trustworthy a

  As part of recently announced initiatives to strengthen the partnership between HPE and Veeam for the year 2026, the Veeam Data Platform is integrating with the latest versions of HPE StoreOnce Catalyst to achieve amazing data storage reduction, remove incremental backup limits, boost restore speeds to new market levels, and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).One of the big news items in the Enterprise Backup Storage market is undoubtedly the launch of the HPE Alletra MP X10000 for Data Protection, which delivers Backup at AI speed.It is currently the world's fastest backup storage solution, numbers backed up by HPE's rigorous testing and real-world comparisons against publicly available performance metrics from other major enterprise backup storage vendors, as described in the official blog:HPE sets new data protection standard with world's fastest enterprise backup storageThe architecture's strength lies in the combination of HPE Alletra Storage MP X10000, HPE´s cutting-edge obje

Hello, Veeam Community! I am pretty late to the party with the June newsletter, but I´ve been on a long PTO and didn´t want this content being forgotten as there are so many great articles I wanted to share them with you rather later than never! 🤓 The June Vanguard Newsletter brings together a broad set of community-created content focused on Veeam v13 readiness, cyber resilience, immutable storage, AI-driven operations, service provider enablement, and practical recovery workflows. Across blogs and videos, Vanguards emphasize hands-on guidance: how to deploy and validate new capabilities, harden environments, troubleshoot upgrade issues, and modernize data protection strategies across virtual, cloud, Kubernetes, Microsoft 365, and service provider scenarios.A major theme of June´s edition was secure, immutable backup storage, especially around Object First / Ootbi integrations with Veeam. Several posts walk through deploying Object First appliances, creating S3 keys and buckets, enab

One of the things I enjoy most about every Veeam release is seeing how it continues to simplify day-to-day administration. While the headline features often get the most attention, it's usually the enhancements that streamline deployments, improve integrations, and reduce operational complexity that deliver the greatest value to customers.As someone who spends much of my time in the SHI Customer Innovation Center (CIC) building proof-of-concepts, validating solutions, and demonstrating real-world recovery scenarios, I wanted to take a closer look at two areas of the newly released Veeam Backup & Replication 13.1:The Veeam Software Appliance Storage integrations with enterprise backup repositoriesThese capabilities help organizations deploy Veeam more quickly, simplify ongoing management, and provide the flexibility to leverage the storage platform that best aligns with their performance, security, and business requirements. Throughout this article, I'll share what I found while tes

Honk Honk everyone! V13.1 is here, and with it the time-honoured sysadmin tradition: a lifecycle page in one tab, release notes in the next, then security advisories, upgrade documentation, and an ever-growing pile of KB articles. All fueled by copious amounts of coffee.I've spent more time on that routine than I care to admit, so I did the only reasonable thing and built a website.Upgrade Brief is an easy place to start researching a Veeam upgrade: https://upgradebrief.comI'm posting this one of a kind idea because I hope it makes upgrade research easier for everyone here. It exists to answer one question: "What do I need to know to upgrade?". It pulls from publicly available Veeam sources to help you find:Support and lifecycle information Documented upgrade routes, with links to the official instructions Relevant security advisories What changed in the version you're consideringIt can also generate a short PDF summary if you need something easier to share with a manager or change-app

Well, back this week with Blog #7 in the v13 series, and this one talks about Direct to Object Storage.Blog - Direct-to-Object Storage in v13: One Practical Lab Test Direct-to-Object Storage in v13: One Practical Lab Test Introduction Object storage has become a serious part of modern backup design because it changes how teams think about retention, off-site protection, and ransomware resilience. In Veeam v13, any direct-to-object workflow deserves a practical test that goes beyond whether the job can write data successfully.The production question is broader: can the environment store data efficiently, preserve it immutably where required, and still restore it inside acceptable recovery windows? A short lab test should answer all three before the design is promoted into daily use. Validate Ingest and Policy Behavior The first step is to confirm that the backup job writes to object storage consistently and that retention behaves the way the design expects. Production teams should pay a

VMs Living Inside Kubernetes: What Veeam v13.1's New KubeVirt Proxy Is and Why You Should CareIf you come from the traditional virtualization world, the first time you heard about "running virtual machines inside Kubernetes" it probably sounded like an architect's joke. Wasn't Kubernetes supposed to replace VMs? And now VMs run on top of Kubernetes?Well, yes. And not only does it work: it's becoming one of the most popular landing spots for organizations rethinking their virtualization platform. With the announcement of the KubeVirt Proxy in Veeam Backup & Replication v13.1, Veeam just made an important move on that board. In this post I'll walk you through what KubeVirt is, what exactly Veeam announced, and why it matters even if you don't have a single Kubernetes cluster in your data center today.First things first: what is KubeVirt?KubeVirt is an open source project (originally created by Red Hat and donated to the CNCF) that lets you run traditional virtual machines as first-cl

I believe database restoration is one of the worst types of restores to perform.Not because it is a difficult or complicated restore to carry on.But normally, there's a lot other things tagle with the business when this type of server are involved with. So, there's a lot of pressure to restore those servers. The SLA with this kind of appliation are agressive and its really common the necessitty to restore it as soon as possible. The ProblemVery often, databases servers are connected to different networks/VLANs than the backup server. Database restoration involves a specific set of ports used during the process. All of these are listed in the Help Center, but if you haven't yet mapped and opened these ports between the networks, you will likely hit connectivity error similar to this one: The SituationNow you need to hurry to open those TCP/UDP ports with the network team to finish and complete the backup restore. In the meantime, the bussiness needs to wait until everything is cleared s

As a Managed service provider BCDR offering mean you can provide via Cloud Connect offsite storage into your MSP Datacentre.  The lab design I build for reference.    The use caseBack up customer(s) workloads from VMware or other hypervisors and restore them to the MSP's Hyper-V environment.The Testing use case validity under Veeam Data Platform (VDP) Version 13.01.In V13.01  it was my understanding was that Instant Recovery is supported to a Hyper-V host.However, after doing some due diligence, it appears this is only supported with standard backup scenarios and not when leveraging Cloud Connect service as an MSP.After reviewing the Considerations and Limitations section of the documentation, I found that the following capabilities are not supported on the tenant side:Instant VM Recovery to Hyper-V Multi-OS file-level restore Restore to Proxmox VE / oVirt KVM Restore to Microsoft Azure and Amazon EC2 from cloud repository backupsTo validate this in practice, I set up a small POC in my

Short Look at what’s new in Veeam v13.1 for MorpheusPlugin is Already part of the installation so no separate add-ons needs to be installed. Moprheus backup got supported with v13.0 but lacked the guest processing for SQL, AD and so on. it’s back    as well as Guest indexing.  Automatic Driver injection of the Virtio driver during restore.So this is the mostly missing features from v13.0 that we missed, but as you can now see Veeam do have fully support for Morpheus and the Automatic driver injection will be a great add-on to assist us with migration from other Hypervisor-platforms.  

Why True Cyber Resilience Requires More Than One Immutable Repository  "You wouldn't protect your house with just one lock. So why protect your last line of defense with just one immutable technology?"For years, the 3-2-1-1-0 rule has been the benchmark for designing resilient backup environments. It has helped thousands of organizations improve their backup strategy and defend themselves against ransomware.But cyber threats continue to evolve.Attackers are no longer just encrypting production workloads—they are actively targeting backup infrastructures because they know that if they can destroy your backups, they control your recovery.That made me think...Is one immutable repository really enough?Or should we apply the same security principles that we use everywhere else? Protecting Your HomeImagine you're leaving your house for a two-week vacation.Before you leave, what do you do?Certainly not just this:✔ Close the front door.Instead, you probably do something like this: 🔐 Lock the

With the release of Veeam 13.1, I couldn't wait to upgrade my lab environment and see how the new update process worked firsthand. When a new Veeam release becomes available, one of the first things I do is upgrade my lab before recommending it to customers. Working in the SHI Customer Innovation Center (CIC), our lab is where we validate upgrades, test compatibility, and make sure everything performs as expected before customer demonstrations and proof-of-concepts.One of the biggest advantages of the Veeam Software Appliance is how simple it makes deployment and lifecycle management. Instead of manually mounting ISOs, upgrading Windows components, or worrying about operating system patching, much of the update process is integrated directly into the appliance.When Veeam Backup & Replication 13.1.0.411 became available, I wanted to see just how seamless the upgrade experience would be. Since I use the Software Appliance in my lab for customer demonstrations and testing, this was a

 In this article, we will discuss how to Leverage Azure Blob Storage as an Object Storage Repo in Veeam. Azure Storage Accounts provide the foundational management layer for storing cloud data in Microsoft Azure. For the entire blogpost, please see https://techdirectarchive.com/2026/05/16/leverage-azure-blob-storage-as-an-object-storage-repo-in-veeam/They create a unique, secure, highly scalable, and globally accessible namespace for your data. Azure Storage Account give you access to Azure’s core storage services. Such as the Blob Storage (object storage), Azure Files (SMB file shares), Queue Storage (messaging), and Table Storage (NoSQL key-value data).Types of storage accountsAs mentioned above, Azure Storage offers several types of storage accounts. Each type supports different features and has its own pricing model. To learn more about blob storage, please take a look at this Microsoft Learn article. This matrix below outlines the different Azure storage account tiers. It shows th

 This week, we received two interesting questions from a customer regarding backup scheduling and archive retention in Veeam. Since these topics may be useful for others as well, I decided to share the answers in this quick post. Q: Is it possible to configure RDS backups to run every 15 minutes?A: No. The minimum backup frequency supported for Amazon RDS backups is once per hour. Running RDS backups every 15 minutes is not supported.If you need more frequent recovery points, you can configure RDS snapshots with a higher frequency. In the schedule settings, select the "1 per hour" option and adjust the value to the desired number of snapshots per hour (for example, up to four snapshots per hour, resulting in a snapshot every 15 minutes).Specifying Daily Schedule - Veeam Backup for AWS User Guide   Q: Is it possible to run monthly and yearly backups without requiring a daily or weekly backup schedule, sending them directly to an archive bucket?A: No. It is not possible to configure mont

Hi Community, During the projects I have been working on, or in the VMCA classes I teach, I use drawio.com to make diagrams. It is a simple and free tool to use. However, the Veeam icons are not always up to date on it. So, to improve the quality, quantity and standard of the Veeam icons, I share many other formats with you.So, you can use drawio as a diagram tool and the Veeam icons in SVG format. Once drawio is open, you just need to copy and paste the desired icons into the drawio window.For those who use Visio, I’ll attach the visio stencils as well.  

With my colleague ​@zzsoka  we have developed a procedure the inject needed variables for initial configuration of the Veeam appliances and now we would like to share it with you. When you deploy Linux appliances at scale, cloud‑init is usually the go‑to mechanism for injecting instance‑specific configuration (IP, hostname, NTP, credentials, etc.) at boot time. However, the Veeam Software Appliance used here does not ship with cloud‑init currently, so we need another way to achieve the same result: build one customized ISO and then let vSphere guest variables drive per‑VM configuration.This post walks through how I achieved that using:- a customized Kickstart file,- a customized GRUB configuration,- VMware guestinfo / OVF properties as the source of truth for variables, and- a small shell script that dynamically extracts and uses `vmware-rpctool` (even though open‑vm‑tools is not installed in the installer environment), cleans up after itself, and hands configuration over to the post‑i

Veeam has officially introduced Veeam Data Cloud Vault Archive, a new capability designed for long-term backup retention (“cold data”) that helps organizations reduce storage costs while maintaining security and compliance.Key Highlights💰 Lower Storage CostsStores infrequently accessed backups in a cost-effective Archive storage tier. Ideal for long-term retention (5, 7, 10+ years).🔒 Enhanced SecurityImmutable backup storage. End-to-end encryption. Protection against ransomware and accidental or malicious deletion.📋 ComplianceHelps organizations meet regulatory and corporate retention requirements. Simplifies long-term data retention for audits and compliance.⚙️ Simplified ManagementFully managed by Veeam. No need to manually configure Azure Archive Storage or lifecycle policies. Seamlessly integrated with Veeam Data Cloud Vault.📦 Best Use CasesLong-term backup retention. Cold data that is rarely accessed but must be preserved. Organizations looking to reduce cloud storage costs wi