Blogs and Podcasts

A Hands-On Look at the Next Generation of Cyber ResilienceEvery time I get access to a new Veeam BETA release, I have the same routine. I spin it up in the lab, build out a realistic customer environment, and start testing. While new platform support and performance improvements are always exciting, the first area I wanted to explore in Veeam Backup & Replication 13.1 BETA was security.Over the past few years, customer conversations have changed. We still talk about backup jobs, recovery times, and storage, but today almost every discussion includes ransomware, Zero Trust, immutability, and cyber resilience. Customers want to know one thing:"If we get attacked, can we recover?"After spending time with Veeam 13.1 BETA in our CIC lab, it's clear that security continues to be one of the biggest areas of investment. This release doesn't rely on a single feature to stop threats—it layers multiple technologies together to help organizations detect suspicious activity, protect backup data

In today’s digital world, data security is a top priority for organizations. Veeam Backup & Replication has evolved to meet these needs, and one of its key innovations is the Veeam Hardened Repository ISO—a solution designed to protect backup repositories from ransomware and other cyber threats.What Is the Veeam Hardened Repository ISO?The Veeam Hardened Repository ISO is a Linux-based solution that secures backup data by making it immutable. This ensures that data cannot be modified, deleted, or encrypted by unauthorized parties, even in the event of a ransomware attack. The repository allows organizations to set a retention period during which backups remain secure and unaltered.Key Features:Immutability and Retention Locks: Ensures backups are safe from external modifications. Ransomware Protection: Protects backups from being encrypted or deleted by ransomware. Linux-based Security: Utilizes Linux’s built-in security features for enhanced protection. Enhanced Data Availability:

I am back this week with blog #6 on the v13 series.  This one takes a look at RBAC in v13.  You can check it out below and on my blog site via the link.Blog - Veeam v13 RBAC: A Simple Operational View Veeam v13 RBAC: A Simple Operational View Introduction Role-based access control becomes more valuable as backup environments grow beyond one or two trusted administrators. In production, the purpose of RBAC is not just to reduce risk on paper. It is to let teams delegate routine work safely while preserving control over the settings that define recoverability.That distinction matters because backup access is often granted too broadly for convenience. When everyone can modify jobs, repositories, and restore actions, the environment becomes harder to audit and easier to disrupt by accident. Map Roles to Responsibilities An effective RBAC model starts with real work, not job titles. Backup operators may need to review failed jobs and rerun tasks, while restore administrators may need access

With the Veeam Software Appliance and the Veeam Infrastructure Appliance, update distribution is fundamentally changing. The Veeam Appliances automatically install certain updates to ensure security and operational continuity. This represents a massive increase in security and compliance. What is updated?Operating system and security updates are installed centrally and automatically, cannot be deselected, and are mandatory for both appliances. Security updates for Veeam Backup & Replication are also installed automatically and without user intervention to ensure security.Both appliances can also optionally install feature and bug fix updates automatically, provided this is enabled in the configuration. Major updates (e.g., V14.0), minor releases (e.g., 13.x), and private fixes are optional by default.Here is a simplified overview:Mandatory updatesVeeam cumulative & security updates (e.g., 13.0.x) Operating system security updatesOptional updatesMinor product updates (e.g., 13.x

Today was release the Veeam Backup & Replication. The process of upgrading or updating a Veeam Software Appliance (VSA) is straightforward and performed via the web interface. One of the advantages of using the VSA is that you do not need to manually manage packages and dependencies within the operating system, as the appliance itself handles the update lifecycle.Despite how easy it is, I will show you here how to perform the upgrade procedure. Navigation and Checking for Updates Access the Host Management Console interface of your Veeam Software Appliance. In the left-hand menu, click the Updates button.This screen will show available updates; you can select the Veeam Backup & Replication option and click the Install Updates Now button. Configuration Check and Details Now we need to check some details and look if it have any compatability issues:Installation Process The wizard will take over and automatically begin downloading and applying the packages. A progress bar displayi

I wanted to post this for everyone who uses VB365 and PGBouncer with Postgres with the recent upgrade 8.1.2.180.When trying to run this upgrade I ran in to an issue with the following error which was caused by connecting to Postgres via the PBBouncer 6432 port.  I had to stop services, modify the XML files back to 5432 (default PG port) and then run the upgrade.  Once complete I could then revert back to 6432 for PGBouncer and start up the services again.Error seen during upgrade -    

When managing backup environments, an error message does not always clearly indicate the actual cause of the problem.In this case, several backup jobs protecting Nutanix AHV virtual machines started failing during the same execution window. Although the failures affected different jobs and VMs, the sessions reported the same error:Failed to perform backup:boost::thread_resource_error: Resource temporarily unavailableFailed to upload disk '72f783a8-b305-481a-b4d7-52e3351ac6c0'Agent failed to process method {DataTransfer.SyncDisk}.At first, the messages related to the disk upload and the DataTransfer.SyncDisk method could suggest a storage, network, or data transfer issue.However, after reviewing the affected sessions and the worker configuration, we identified that the failures were associated with insufficient compute resources available to the workers during a period of high concurrency.In this article, I will explain the environment, the investigation process, the worker configuratio

At the beginning of the year, we faced a critical scenario with one of our clients: a ransomware attack directly compromised the company's main file server. The impact on operations was immediate, as multiple departments depended on these spreadsheets and shared files in real time to keep daily processes running.When a crisis of this magnitude happens, the initial instinct of any technical team is to start restoring data as quickly as possible. However, without organization, the work ends up being duplicated, files may become recontaminated, and the time until full recovery only increases. I have been through this before.In this specific scenario, we had two teams working together: our team and the client's internal team. To avoid conflicts in priorities or misaligned actions between the teams that could compromise the restoration window, incident governance was our first step before executing any command.Below, I share the practical workflow that we aligned on to organize the situatio

During a recent implementation, I ran into one of those problems that looks simple after you find the cause, but takes much longer to understand while you are still in the middle of it.The request was to configure Application-Aware Processing for a Linux VM running Oracle and protect its archived redo logs every five minutes.The VM backup was working.Oracle was detected by Veeam.The redo log job was showing success.The problem was that it was transferring exactly 0 B.In this article, I will share the full troubleshooting process, including a few parallel issues we found along the way. They were not all responsible for the 0 B behavior, but they still had to be corrected before the environment could be considered healthy. The environmentThe environment included:VBR 12.3; VMware vSphere; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Oracle Database; Application-Aware Processing; archived redo log backups every five minutes; key-based Linux authentication; an Oracle account with SYSDBA privileges; a VM wit

 With the July 2026 security updates, Microsoft will permanently disable the legacy RC4 encryption algorithm in Kerberos authentication, requiring the use of modern encryption standards such as AES128 and AES256.I do not anticipate any significant impact on systems that are properly maintained, but I strongly recommend carrying out a proactive assessment to identify any systems that still use the RC4 algorithm.Potential RisksLegacy applications, older servers, hardware appliances, or service accounts configured only for RC4 authentication may fail to authenticate after Domain Controllers are updated.How to Verify Your EnvironmentMicrosoft provides tools to detect accounts and services still using RC4:Microsoft Learn: Detect and remediate Kerberos RC4 usageDetect and Remediate RC4 Usage in Kerberos | Microsoft LearnHow to manage Kerberos KDC usage of RC4 for service account ticket issuance changes related to CVE-2026-20833 | Microsoft Support Audit RC4 usageDetail about RC4 usage is sto

After about 18 months of many XCP-ng users making their voices heard on the Veeam Forums requesting Veeam to add Backup support, Veeam listened and has finally granted our request!...at least from a preliminary standpoint.  As a member of the Veeam100 Community, I was one of several approached about a month ago to perform an early Veeam XCP-ng Plugin BETA test, so I'm quite thrilled Veeam took feedback from us early BETA testers and modified the Plugin code to create a viable working Backup product for Public BETA testing. I was given the ok by Veeam to share my testing and thoughts on this Public BETA, thus this article 👌🏻In this post I'll share with the Community how to get the XCP-ng Veeam Plugin installed and configured so you can start backing up your XCP-ng VMs. For those who aren't entirely familiar with XCP-ng, I created a couple of posts talking about the XCP-ng hypervisor and its history, how to install it, and then how to get your new XO/XCP-ng environment configured and r

It was a real pleasure to receive a copy of this new edition directly from the author, Chris Childerhose, who is joined this time by another well-known expert in the industry, Rick Vanover, Vice President of Product Strategy at Veeam.As regular visitors of the Veeam Community Hub well know, where Chris is an incredibly active figure always ready to support users, his dedication and expertise are fully reflected on every page of this manual.Although I haven't finished reading the book yet (I only have the last three chapters left) I can already say with confidence that it is an outstanding resource. From the first pages, the depth of the technical content, the practical approach, and the attention to detail clearly demonstrate the extensive experience of the authors.This book is designed to support system administrators, IT professionals, and consultants in mastering the platform through a balanced combination of solid technical foundations and a hands-on approach. With a clear structur

The StartThis series of blogs, which I will try update weekly, is about me getting to understand Kubernetes and is for someone like me coming from a level of zero dot 1, a true beginner. If you have been working with containers and know something about it, you will most probably be bored with these blogs although you might also learn something new. Luckily in this Veeam Community we have some very high-level resources that I am sure will deliver some interesting insights, and ​@Geoff Burke  has kindly agreed to moderate my journey before I take you down the wrong rabbit hole too far.Please comment and discuss freely so everybody can learn what seems to me at present a confusing technology, but don’t try proving your prowess - this is for us that do not know to learn by taking baby steps helped along the way by you.I will be writing down my understanding while doing some basic courses, reading what AI has to say about what I still don’t understand – and spending my evenings watching You

When designing a Hyper‑V backup architecture, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is how will backups be moved from a hypervisor and how are they processed. In Veeam Backup & Replication, Hyper‑V backups rely on backup proxies, and unlike vSphere, Hyper‑V proxy behavior comes with some unique considerations that require upfront planning.Hyper‑V supports two types of backup proxies:On‑host proxies Off‑host proxiesAt a high level, these operate similarly to VMware proxies—but the implementation details, limitations, and operational overhead are significantly different. Let’s break them down and discuss when (and when not) to use each. On‑Host Proxy: The Default and Recommended ChoiceFor most environments, the on‑host proxy is the simplest, most reliable, and recommended backup transport mode.When a Hyper‑V host is added as a managed server in Veeam Backup & Replication, the on‑host proxy is automatically deployed to it. Each Hyper‑V host runs its own proxy, leveraging

When disaster happens in my virtual environment, there is no one single tool I have implemented, configured, or created to help me get my environment back up and running. There are 3 must-have "tools" I want to help me during such crises → first and foremost my Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Plan (BCDR); second, Veeam's Instant VM Recovery (IR); and third, Veeam Immutability.When an unwanted or unwelcomed situation arises, each of the above listed tools provides me with the following:Having a BCDR Plan gives me a sense of direction and clarity I need to begin tackling the disruption When the recovery process starts, Veeam Instant VM Recovery provides me with speed and confidence to meet my Recoery Time Objective (RTO) Service Level Agreements (SLAs) And with Veeam Immutability configured, I have assurance and trust in knowing the data I'm recovering hasn't been tampered with; and I'd couple this with using Veeam's Scan Backup feature using Veeam Threat Hunter for added ease of m

In modern backup environments, the protection ecosystem must ALWAYS be designed assuming that the primary infrastructure will be compromised. This is done so we can guarantee operational continuity and the ability to respond to an isolated problem or an entire disaster in the production environment. With this in mind, I have separated three components that cannot be neglected when designing or reviewing your backup and data protection environment. 1. Immutability Nowadays, it is no longer enough to guarantee just a single layer of immutable backup. As soon as an attacker obtains administrative credentials for a backup system, the first thing they will try to do is delete local backups or force the expiration of retentions. After that, they will do the exact same thing to the second copies of your data or your cloud backups.In the past, it was very common to see backup environments with local disk backups and tape backups. In a scenario like that, only the tape backup could be considere

Back in 2020, long before AI assistants were writing PowerShell for us ;) — — — — ( ;) )I sat down and built a small script to solve a problem I kept running into in the field: setting up a dedicated vCenter server role with exactly the cumulative privileges Veeam Backup & Replication needs. Doing it by hand through the vSphere Client meant clicking through dozens of privileges, and it was far too easy to miss one.Six years and 36 commits later, the script is still alive and kicking and I'm happy to share that it has just been updated to support Veeam Backup & Replication v13.What's new The latest update brings the script fully up to date, thank you ​@haslund !VBR v13 cumulative permissions, based on the official Veeam Help Center recommendations PowerShell 5.1 and 7.x support with module-based PowerCLI loading Compatibility with the new VCF.PowerCLI meta-module as well as the legacy VMware.PowerCLI Hardened error handling and guaranteed vCenter session cleanup Resilient per-pr

 Original post: Veeam Plug-in for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Explained - CloudnRoll Veeam and HPE are further strengthening their partnership, with many new features and integrations expected in 2026.Veeam introduced a new native integration plug-in for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials (VME). It´s currently in beta version, with general availability anticipated shortly. This new plug-in provides hypervisor-based image-level backup for virtual machines (VMs) running on HPE Morpheus VM Essentials, ensuring secure and reliable protection for a wide range of workloads.Next, the architecture of the Veeam Plug-in for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials, the installation steps, and the backup/restore configuration process are presented. Architecture The architecture of the Veeam plug-in for HPE Morpheus VM Essentials (VME), shown in the previous figure, consists of two key componentsThe plug-in module deploys natively on the Veeam Backup & Replication server without requiring a separate virtual applianc

Around 2019 and 2020, there were many rumors suggesting that the Backup professional's role was nearing its end. I have to admit, that was somewhat concerning. The technology market was undergoing a rapid transformation driven by the expansion of cloud computing, and it seemed that everything would eventually be absorbed by the native services offered by major cloud providers.Despite those predictions, the demand never went away. The future appeared uncertain, but the following years revealed a very different reality. Many organizations migrated their environments to the cloud and later realized that bringing part of their infrastructure back on-premises made sense, whether to reduce costs, improve financial predictability, or gain greater control over their operations.In the past, backup professionals were closely associated with physical servers and traditional data centers. As cloud adoption accelerated, many believed that specialized data protection tools would gradually lose relev

Amazon S3 is so common today that it is easy to forget that, at one point, it was a fairly new idea. AWS launched the S3 service in 2006and essentially made modern cloud object storage mainstream. Not a traditional file system, not a block device, but a simple approach: store data as objects, access them via API, add metadata, and that’s it.That idea has since become a de facto standard.Today we talk about Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, and many other object storage solutions. Technically, these are not all identical systems, but the principle is similar: data is stored as objects, accessed through APIs and HTTPS, and designed for massive scalability.The big difference compared to the traditional on-premises world is this: in the public cloud, the service provider builds the platform for many customers, many workloads, and almost unlimited growth. As data volumes grow, the platform also grows in the background. Hardware, lifecycle management, scaling, redundancy,

We usually explain backup with dry slides — so I wanted to try something different.I built an interactive web experience that follows a single file: invoice_2026.pdf, living on an accounting server. We pull it out of production, carry it through 7 dimensions of the Veeam universe, and bring it back alive from a ransomware disaster.Every dimension is clickable and live:🖼️ Dimension 1 — Snapshot: watch Application-Aware Processing + the VSS steps play out in front of you 🛣️ Dimension 2 — Proxy & Transport: pick between Direct SAN / Hot-Add / NBD, and see block-by-block why CBT reads 1 TB in minutes ⛓️ Dimension 3 — Chain: build the VBK / VIB / VBM chain yourself and run a live forever-forward merge 📦 Dimension 4 — SOBR: drag the slider and watch a backup filter down from Performance → Capacity → Archive ☠️ Dimension 5 — Black Hole: launch a ransomware attack and see Hardened Repository immutability make the difference, live 🔄 Dimension 6 — Restore: try Instant / File-Level / Full

My answer to the contest :  The Incident Commander Challenge | Veeam Community Resource Hub Every SysAdmin has a toolbox.Some fill it with SSDs, bootable USB sticks, PowerShell scripts, recovery ISOs and enough adapters to connect almost anything to everything.Mine contains most of them too.But after more than two decades of experience in IT, more specifically in designing backup and recovery solutions, I've learned something surprising:The most valuable tool in my Veeam toolbox isn't something I can buy.It's the ability to stay calm.To be honest, being a senior and having experience, helps 🤣😎When a customer calls because production is down, backups are failing, storage has disappeared or ransomware has entered the environment, nobody cares how many certifications you have or how expensive your laptop was.They want one thing!Someone who brings order into chaos.That is what an Incident Commander really does.So what's inside my toolbox?🔹 A recovery-first mindsetI never start with "Wha

Veeam Data Cloud (VDC) is Veeam’s cloud-delivered backup platform designed to simplify how partners deliver backup services. It removes the need to manage the underlying infrastructure while providing protection for Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Microsoft Azure workloads, Salesforce, and secure storage through Veeam Data Cloud Vault.If you’re a VCSP partner looking to explore VDC, getting started is fairly straightforward.The primary license administrator of the VCSP partner account (with an active rental agreement) can register the business for Veeam Data Cloud through VCSP Pulse.Steps to access Veeam Data Cloud in VCSP Pulse Log in to the ProPartner Portal and navigate to VCSP Pulse. In the top menu, go to Licenses and Subscriptions. Click Veeam Data Cloud Subscriptions. If your organisation hasn’t yet accepted the updated VCSP Terms & Conditions for Veeam Data Cloud, you’ll see a banner message indicating that the terms must be accepted before proceeding.To resolve this: Click th

  Preface:A while ago I was asked by an enterprise customer from Europe to design a Veeam backup solution for their Microsoft Azure environment. The setup was a classic Hub-and-Spoke architecture, and the goal was clear: leave the on-premises vSphere platform behind and run all workloads in Azure instead. Before any of that would happen, the customer wanted a proper backup design in place — built on Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure (VBAzure) — so the new cloud workloads would be protected from day one.The migration itself was not part of my engagement. My job was the design and, more relevant for this post, a deployment checklist the team could work through step by step to stand up VBAzure in a private, hub-and-spoke Azure environment. I have done a fair number of on-prem Veeam designs over the years, but a “cloud-first, private-networking-only” VBAzure deployment has a few specifics that are easy to miss if you only know the classic VBR world — private endpoints, DNS zones, worker pla

Ever since I discovered the Magic Ports port-mapping tool, I've had the idea of creating a solution where you simply provide a list of systems (ESXi, vCenter, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Repository, etc.) and assign their roles. From that alone, the tool automatically generates both a graphical and textual representation of the relationships and TCP/IP communication between them. Those relationships are automatically scraped from the Veeam documentation and stored in a SQLite database.I also created an interactive explorer that lets you navigate and better understand the relationships between the many Veeam roles.Building on my previous experience generating Draw.io diagrams with Python, I started developing this tool. After overcoming quite a few setbacks, I finally decided to publish this proof of concept (PoC).The project is still incomplete and currently supports only Veeam Backup & Replication v12, so it isn't fully up to date yet. However, I think it's mature enough