Blogs and Podcasts

General Recommendations Platform Memory and CPU Over-commitmentFirst and foremost, memory over-commitment is not recommended in OpenShift. However, Red Hat recommends overall CPU over-commitment ratio must not exceed 1.8x of the number of physical cores and that memory usage may not exceed 0.9x of the physical memory available in a cluster. This rule is applicable to the ratio of CPU allocation to all of the pods to physical cores available in a cluster.NOTE: CPU over-commitment leads to throttling, so slowness of all workloads on the impacted node. Thereby workloads can be more or less sensitive to that.✅More Information about CPU Ready HereGeneral rules for the vCPU:pCPU ratio ⚙️🧠:✅ 1:1 to 1:3 → No problem 😌⚠️ 1:3 to 1:5 → Performance may start to degrade 🐢📉🚫 1:5 or higher → Likely CPU Ready issues 🔴🧯 Storage and Network LatencyVarious kinds of applications are more or less sensitive to latency on network and/or storage. In the context of an OCP instance the etcd as hosted on

In a previous blog, I introduced the HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 as the foundation of a resilient backup architecture, providing high-speed, application-consistent primary storage snapshots with end-to-end immutability. Now, we’re taking the next step in the series by exploring how Veeam Ready - Appliance Hardened storage servers further enhance security, reliability, and scalability in an HPE + Veeam data protection strategy.  These are secure, validated backup repositories that provide an immutable, tamper-proof foundation for backup data.  Public Service Announcement….Now, just to be clear—this is only a Veeam Hardened Repository. I know we keep getting asked about an all-in-one Linux solution (trust me, I’m just as interested as you are!), but that’s not the topic today. So take a deep breath, stay focused, and let’s talk about this simple, secure Veeam Hardened Repository setup! 😁 What Does the Veeam Ready - Appliance Hardened Validation Mean? The Veeam Ready Program helps cust

If you have worked with Hitachi Vantara recently, you know they have a new block storage platform, VSP One Block, that has not supported their V1 or V2 USAPI plugin.  The major new capability of the V2.1 plugin is support for Hitachi Thin Image Advanced (TIA) snapshots which is the snapshot type used by VSP One Block storage arrays.With the V2.1 plugin, all VSP and VSP One Block storage arrays are now supported for snapshot integration with Veeam Backup & Replication, including:VSP E series VSP F series VSP G series VSP 5100 and VSP 5500 VSP 5200 and VSP 5600 VSP One Block seriesFor more information about the V2.1 USAPI plugin, please check out Veeam KB4191

The latest version of Microsoft SQL Server is SQL Server 2022 and was released in November 2022. If you are currently using a lower version, you might want to upgrade to a more recent version. Below is an interesting question that gave rise to this topicTo date, Veeam recommends using Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) instead of PostgreSQL in the following scenarios;1: Large-Scale Deployments: When your Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure manages thousands of VMs. MSSQL provides better scalability and performance.2: Advanced MSSQL Features: Features like Always On Availability Groups etc are exclusive to MSSQL and can benefit large, high-availability environments: https://bp.veeam.com/vbr/2_Design_Structures/D_Veeam_Components/D_VBR_DB/database.html.3: Veeam ONE Integration: Veeam ONE currently requires an MSSQL database. This guide will be beneficial to upgrade the engine as well. Therefore, here is a guide for you if you wish to upgrade Microsoft SQL Server 2019 to 2022. Postgre

Everyone managing VMware understands what we mean when we talk about CPU Ready (%RDY) as a Performance Metric.In this explanation, I will define what it is and how it is measured in OpenShift Virtualization. What is CPU Ready?The term "CPU Ready" can be misleading. One might think that it represents the amount of CPU ready to be used and that a high value is a good thing. However, the higher the CPU Ready, the worse the performance of the vSphere infrastructure, and the more applications will suffer.Official VMware Definition:It is the percentage of time a "world" is ready to run and waiting for approval from the CPU Scheduler.In vSphere, a "world" is a process.The higher the CPU Ready, the more time VMs spend waiting instead of executing. In other words, a "world" (vCPU) is waiting to be scheduled on a physical CPU. CPU Ready measures the time a vCPU waits to be executed on a physical core.What Causes High CPU Ready?Identifying high CPU usage is easy, but determining the cause of CPU

After some time trying and playing around with the Nutanix CE in Nested mode in my lab,I finally put my hands into a little monster able to handle a Single Node Cluster, My Supermicro E300-9D!Im going to show you the process of Installation, cluster (Single node) creation, in future posts, we will continue seeing new stuff, step by step.Let’s get started:First of all, as we already know, lets download the Nutanix CE from the community portal, to do so, you must be registered, and after installation, you will need your restoration to make it work properly.after downloading the CE ISO, lets boot from the ISO and get started…Server SpecsNutanix CE BootNow is time to add some data, I havee 3 disks, Boot, CVM and Data, choose the ones you would like to use, and then,configure the IP Details as shown, You need 1 IP for the AHV Host, One for the CVM, gateway and subnet mask.EULA….after few minutes, done!Now, is time to remove the boot media, answer with a Y, and continue…Now, after the first

When managing backups with Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365, it’s crucial to keep track of the status and health of your backup sessions. Viewing backup logs provides valuable insights into backup policy statuses, error messages, warnings, and timestamps. Here's how to access and interpret backup logs to ensure your system is running smoothly.Steps to View Backup Logs in Veeam Data CloudTo get started with viewing backup logs, follow these steps:Navigate to the Backup Policies Section From the main menu, click on Backup Policies. Select a Specific Backup Policy If you have multiple backup policies, click on the name of the policy under the Name field in the table to view more details. Access the Backup Sessions On the Backup Policies page, Veeam Data Cloud will show a list of backup sessions in the Backup Sessions section, sorted in descending order (most recent to oldest). View the Backup Logs To view the logs for a specific session, click the View logs button (the eye symbol) in

Getting quick and accurate answers to technical questions can make all the difference. Have you used Veeam Intelligence, an AI-powered chatbot that helps users resolve common issues and answer questions related to Veeam products?Designed to simplify your experience with Veeam’s suite of tools, Veeam Intelligence offers quick, reliable responses based on Veeam’s comprehensive technical documentation. In this blog, we’ll walk you through what Veeam Intelligence is, how it works, its limitations, and how to use it effectively.What is Veeam Intelligence?Veeam Intelligence is a virtual assistant integrated directly into the Veeam Backup & Replication console. Using advanced machine learning and natural language processing, this chatbot provides real-time support for a variety of common Veeam-related queries. Whether you need help creating replication jobs, figuring out where your backup logs are stored, or ensuring your virtual machines (VMs) are properly backed up, Veeam Intelligence i

Hi Everyone, Capacity planning is always difficult when creating your Data Protection environment especially when it comes to trying to size with immutability. Object First has now made available our sizers to help out! Please take a look: https://objectfirst.com/backup-storage-calculator/ cheers

IntroductionV12 is launching (register here) on Valentine's day and one of the most anticipated feature is the ability to backup directly to object. As my Valentine's gift to you, I wanted to highlight what's required to get your first V12 backup Direct to AWS S3 going. What do we need?An S3 bucket, an IAM user with the proper policy and a VPC for the helper appliance. A quick note about the V12 direct to object "helper" applianceIn the context of direct backups to AWS S3, the helper Appliance is a temporary EC2 instance that Veeam leverages to perform backup file health-checks.The benefit is to avoid having to "pull-down" any of the backup data on-premises to perform that maintenance operation. You configure the helper appliance settings at the Mount Server step of declaring your Object Repository.Giving the proper permissions in your policy, Veeam gives you the option to auto-create the required VPC, Subnet, Security Group and Route table.I personally would rather set all of this up-

This blog is the first in a series exploring HPE storage platforms and their integrations with Veeam Backup & Replication. This series will cover how different HPE storage solutions fit into a resilient data protection strategy, starting with the HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000, where data is first created, and expanding across backup storage options.  Establishing a Multi-Layered Backup Architecture with HPE  When building a 3-2-1-1-0 backup infrastructure, immutability is critical at as many layers as possible. The 3-2-1-1-0 rule dictates that you should have three copies of your data, stored on two different media types, with one off-site copy, one immutable copy, and zero errors assured through backup verification. While having at least one immutable layer meets the rule, HPE storage solutions allow organizations to implement immutability at every layer of their backup architecture, significantly enhancing security and recovery capabilities. Now, let’s review all the storage opti

If you are not familiar with this topic and would like to follow these steps, you can purchase a mini PC from Amazon and install Proxmox VE or any other virtualization solution of your choice. Note: For test purposes, I will be installing VHR on a virtual machine (VM). Installing Veeam Hardened Repository on a Virtual Machine defeats the purpose of adequate data protection as the VM itself can be deleted. Therefore, installing the hardened repository on a physical box is advisable and ensures adequate physical security.Veeam Hardened Repository is a WORM storage solution that protects against unwanted changes to the backup files. It’s available since version 11. Veeam Hardened Repository passed an external audit for WORM storage and meets highest compliance standards. You can read more here, and pay attention to the external factors for adequate protection.There are different ways to deploy a Hardened Linux Repository, such as using Ubuntu Server or Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server. In

The Nutanix and Veeam best practices document has been posted on the Nutanix website. It does not require a partner account to access. It has been updated to include VDP v12 and VBN AHV v7. Please feel free to share with partners and customers. Please use link below to access😀.Veeam Nutanix Best PracticesNutanix Unified Storage ClustersVeeam Backup for Nutanix AHV Documentation 

I’m really happy to share with the Veeam Community this Open Source Project Called Veeam Decoys.  It is public knowledge that multiple threat actors use various tactics and techniques to identify services when they are already inside the internal networks of the organization they are attacking. In fact, the Mitre ATT&CK Enterprise matrix has two complete tactics, "Discovery" TA0007 and "Lateral Movement" TA0008, which list and explain multiple techniques and tools used by attackers. For example, the most sought-after services within the internal network are Remote Desktop Protocol and SSH. If we review Coveware's reports from this year, in the Q1-2024 report, we can observe that the "Lateral Movement" tactic ranks third among the most used tactics by threat actors according to the percentage of cases: https://www.coveware.com/blog/2024/4/17/raas-devs-hurt-their-credibility-by-cheating-affiliates-in-q1-2024If we review the same report, but for Q2-2024, we can see a significant rise

The Veeam QA team has validated NetApp ONTAP 9.1.6.1. It is now listed as supported in our storage integration guide link below.ONTAP Release notes information below. There are no new Veeam integrations in this release.Data protection enhancements• Support for SnapMirror cloud backups from a migrated volume• Support for encryption key migration between key managersMetroCluster configuration enhancements• SVM data mobility support for migrating MetroCluster configurations• MD5 authentication support for BGP peer groups• Fibrebridge firmware update using credentialsNetworking enhancements• MD5 authentication support for BGP peer groups• IPsec hardware offload supportS3 Object storage enhancement• S3 multiprotcol support for multipart upload• Enhanced ONTAP S3 API support with CORS integration• ONTAP supports taking snapshots of ONTAP S3 buckets (Still not Veeam Ready validated)SAN enhancements• NVMe space deallocation enabled by defaultSecurity enhancements• Eligible set of rule-protecte

Organizations worldwide use Microsoft Entra ID for identity and access management services. Microsoft Entra ID provides a solution to securely manage users, devices, applications, and data across cloud and on premises environments. Businesses rely on this service to manage and secure access to both internal and external resources, making it essential for their operations. With its integral function within organizations, it is also important that is protected.Universally, there is a common misconception when it comes to cloud applications, that there is no need for back up. Why do we think this? Because it resides in the cloud of course! However, despite this viewpoint, it is critical for organizations to protect cloud data for many reasons, I mean it is your data after all. 🤔The first reason we think of is security. It’s not only important to maintain the security of the environment but also its integrity.  Implementing a backup system that can detect changes and restore data to its o

Recently, I had an insightful discussion on cybersecurity, where we dived deep into VHR (Veeam Hardened Repository) and OOTBI (Out-of-the-Box Immutability) by ObjectFirst. Since, these technologies play a crucial role in strengthening data protection strategies, I decided to create a blog post on it. This led to us discussing the pros and cons of both storage solutions, etc. If you are interested in some of the information we discussed and some I could share online, please take a look at “Best Storage for Veeam: Comparing OOTBI by ObjectFirst to VHR”. Below are some articles relating to OOTBI that we have shared with the community  If you would like to learn how to overcome VHR Operational Challenges with OOTBI, please take a look at this article: https://objectfirst.com/blog/veeam-hardened-repository/. In the next guides, we will be discussing how to deploy and integrate VHR with VBR and also how to set up OOTBI VSA. 

The interest from the community and our customers in KVM based hypervisors recently led me to examine HPE’s VME offering. HPE provided an environment to examine its capabilities. Like many platforms, it runs on top of KVM/QEMU to schedule and manage virtual machines on the host. It’s built with HPE hardware and uses its own management plane to create clusters, provide a user interface and expose APIs. Veeam doesn’t have a hypervisor-integrated backup solution today for this platform as its management/API layer is different from other platforms we support such as oVirt and Proxmox. The management platform does have an existing CLI from Morpheus Data that can be paired with Veeam’s PowerShell modules to automate tasks such as building protection Groups for Veeam Agents.Veeam Agent for Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux are components of the Veeam Data Platform that can be used to protect Windows and Linux servers on most platforms. Due to this being an in-guest approach, they can be used

 Recently, I had a conversation with one of my service providers that gave me the chance to dive deeper into Veeam’s Incident API. They had some specific questions about what they could achieve with this API, and it sparked an idea for me to put together this blog to share my insights. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, especially if you've had any hands-on experience with the API. Personally, I’ve found it to be an incredibly useful integration for Veeam.In today’s fast-paced business world, protecting your data is more important than ever. For organizations using Veeam Backup & Replication—an essential tool for backup and disaster recovery—it’s crucial to ensure that backup processes are running smoothly and that any issues are addressed quickly. That’s where Veeam’s Incident API comes in.Veeam’s Incident API is all about helping you manage and automate responses to backup-related issues. In this blog, I’ll Walk through what the Veeam Incident API is, highlight its k

I recently wrote an entry about updating our OOTBI clusterNow, Object First has launched a new release of OOTBI, 1.6.63.10886These are the new features described in the release:The update process, as shown before, is super straightforward and allows you to update and reboot your cluster in a few clicks without any stress or «fancy» steps, guides, or troubleshooting. The feature I was looking forward to getting, and finally is here, is the user’s roles,I’m super excited about these:we will continue testing the new features, and describe them in the future.cheers.https://lfconsulting.org/ootbi-new-release-1-6

So you have a Veeam Backup for Azure (VBAZ) to protect your Azure resource, but wouldn’t it be great if you could truly see what’s happening under the hood? Basic monitoring is a start, but you should dive into the logs to understand your VBAZ environment better. And what better place to do that than with Azure Log Analytics, a feature of Azure Monitor?In this post, I’ll show you how to set up log monitoring for Veeam Backup for Azure using Azure Log Analytics, unlocking a wealth of insights into your backup operations.NOTE: Veeam does not support Azure monitor, however, it is a widely used tool for the monitoring of Production resources. Please consult your Azure technical resources before implementing. Why bother with Log Monitoring?Think of logs as the ‘black box’ recorder of your VBAZ environment. They capture everything from successful backups to insights into issues and things like failed logins and performance bottlenecks. By analysing these logs, you can:Identify and resolve is

As of the 12.3 release of VBR 11:11 Systems optimized AWS S3 product is directly integrated. This integration simplifies the setup and enhances efficiency by incorporating 11:11 Systems' storage directly into Veeam's UIs for Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE. Users can automate deployment, management, and monitoring through PowerShell modules or API calls. The post also provides a step-by-step guide for adding storage buckets using the AWS CLI.You can find more details on koolaid.info.

Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), is a comprehensive cloud-based identity and access management solution from Microsoft. It plays a pivotal role in securely managing users, devices, applications, and data across both cloud and on-premises environments. Due to its integral function within an organization's IT ecosystem, having a robust backup and disaster recovery strategy for Entra ID is essential. Below are several key reasons why backing up Entra ID is critical:1. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery2. Accidental Deletion or Misconfiguration3. Compliance and Auditing Requirements4. Protection Against Malicious Activity5. User and Group Management6. Migration and Transition7. Business or Organizational Changes8. Minimizing Human Error9. Enabling Seamless Rollback10. Integration with Third-Party ServicesVeeam Backup for Entra ID is a way to back up and protect data from Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory or Azure AD). This is

Hello everyone & @regnor @Rick Vanover @safiya @Madi.Cristil   I share with the community the guide to the installation of Splunk Enterprise 9.2.1 on the Windwos platform and the related installation and configuration of the powerful new Veeam Splunk App. Veeam App for Splunk key pointsStrategic Convergence: combines veeam's backup solutions with the powerful Splunk data analysis tool, offering an integrated approach to data analysis.Real-time Visibility: Allows users to monitor the status of jobs, provides real-time visibility into backup and restore operations.Performance Optimization: Through in-depth analysis, help identify performance bottlenecks and areas for optimization in backup operations.Enhanced Security:  Includes advanced features of real-time alerts of critical events and audit capabilities to ensure compliance with current industry rules.Empowered Business Continuity: It enables organizations to proactively identify possible risks, optimize pi resetting processes an

RequirementsTo install the update for the Proxmox Virtual Environment Plug-In for Veeam Backup & Replication, the following are required:Veeam Backup & Replication Build: 12.3.0.310(To check the build number, go to the Veeam Backup & Replication Console > Main Menu (≡) > Help > About.) Proxmox Virtual Environment Plug-In Build: 12.1.1.1024(The current build can be found in the installed applications list.)After the update, the Proxmox Virtual Environment Plug-In will be version 12.1.3.197. What's NewSupport for Non-Root User Access Proxmox VE integration with Veeam Backup & Replication now supports a sudo user, improving security without sacrificing functionality. For more details, see KB4701. Support for Open vSwitch (OVS) Open vSwitch is now supported, offering enhanced performance and flexibility for complex virtualized environments. Support for Smart Object Storage API (SOSAPI) The Smart Object Storage API enables advanced integrations with object storage v