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1125 Topics
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Securing Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure: Password/Certificate Auth & Other Hardening Tips

Password Authentication & Certificate Authentications both have their pros and cons, but one undisputed stance is that certificates are more secure than passwords when used properly. To that end, I prefer to deploy certificate authentication when working with SSH, and when deploying Linux VMs, Azure prefers to as well.However, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure also signs you in with your Ubuntu user account, but doesn't support certificate authentication. Does this mean you're stuck with password authentication? Nope! Is it complex to configure? Also, nope! How does this work?Simply, we'll ensure that SSH is configured to only support certificate authentication, whilst configuring a password for authentication against the Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure portal. For good measure, we'll also go through how to secure this platform further to reduce your attack risk. Getting set up with Certificate AuthenticationWhilst typically the more difficult part, Azure has done a great job of ma

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MicoolPaul
2 years ago
Link State
Link StateVeeam Legend
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
VBR-VCC Storage migration data backup SEAL mode

Switching to Seal Mode - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com) Hello I wanted to bring to your attention a really interesting and useful feature.Create new Veeam  backup repository on new storage   Insert new exent on existing SOBRSet seal mode extent to be decommissioned After the extent is sealed, no further data is saved to the extent, and only read operations such as restore, merge and remove are allowed.Wait for the chains of all your jobs to reach the set restore points.Then verify that no Veeamzip \ export backups or oneshot backups without schedules are allocated on the old extent to be decommissioned.Such data will not be migrated needs a manual operation of moving veeamzip \export backup files etc.I love this feature allows me painless storage migrations for both standalone VBR environments and Veeam Cloud Connect platform .thanks for your attention

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Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
Iams3le
Iams3leVeeam Legend
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
VMSA-2021-0025.2 - VMware vCenter Server updates address a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2021-22048)

VMware vCenter Server is advanced server management software that provides a centralised platform for controlling your VMware vSphere environments, allowing you to automate and deliver a virtual infrastructure across the hybrid cloud with confidence.This privilege escalation vulnerability in VMware Center Server was reported to VMware by  Yaron Zinar and Sagi Sheinfeld of Crowdstrike for reporting.Present IssueThe vCenter Server contains a privilege escalation vulnerability in the IWA (Integrated Windows Authentication) authentication mechanism. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the Important severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 7.1. Impacted ProductsThe following products are impacted. Workarounds are available to remediate this vulnerability in the affected VMware products.VMware vCenter Server (vCenter Server) VMware Cloud Foundation (Cloud Foundation).Known Attack VectorsA malicious actor with non-administrative access to vCenter Server may expl

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Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
regnor
regnorVeeam MVP
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
VBO365 - Microsoft is already disabling Basic Authentication (Legacy Protocol)

It’s not big news that Microsoft is going to disable Basic Authentication in October 2022. Thanks to @Mildur we already know that What I didn’t get at that time, Microsoft is already randomly disabling Basic Authentication for customers/tenants; of course only if Basic Authentication isn’t used at all.The process is: We’ll randomly select customers with no usage in any, or all affected protocols, send them a Message Center post informing them that in 30 days we’re going to turn off Basic Auth. 30 days later, we’ll turn it off and send another Message Center post to confirm it was done. Customer protected... check!→ https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-authentication-and-exchange-online-june-2021-update/ba-p/2454827The StoryNot that bad if you don’t use Basic Authentication, but I did run into a problem with that. I was able to successfully setup Veeam Backup for Office365 with Legacy protocols (Publicfolders )and after a week it suddenly stopped working; all

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Mildur
2 years ago
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
VMware vSphere+ & vSAN+ Announced

Today, VMware have announced vSphere+ & vSAN+, VMware’s attempt at providing cloud benefits to traditional ‘on-premises’ virtualisation environments.Let’s dive in! What is vSphere+?VMware vSphere+ is a subscription service for vSphere licensing, complimented by the addition of cloud-based services bundled into the subscription pricing. Subscription pricing being the most predictable element in my opinion as this is how the model most tech companies are using to license their products. Cloud ConsoleVMware will be providing a cloud console for centralised ‘single pane of glass’ management for all your VMware vSphere deployments, globally.It will be possible to view global inventory, security posture, resource capacity, and even offer the capabilities to tackle configuration drifts between instances vis Desired State Configuration.Alerts will be centrally collated within the Cloud Console, with VMware enabling simplified workflows for sysadmin tasks such as centralised updating of vCe

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regnor
2 years ago
Iams3le
Iams3leVeeam Legend
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Moderate. VMware ESXi addresses Return-Stack-Buffer-Underflow and Branch Type Confusion vulnerabilities

VMware ESXi contains Return-Stack-Buffer-Underflow (CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693) and Branch Type Confusion (CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825) vulnerabilities due to the Intel and AMD processors it utilizes.There is a resolution to this issue, and as such there is no workaround discussed in this guide. VMware has evaluated the severity of these issues to be in the Moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.6. VMware ESXi enables you to:Consolidate hardware for higher capacity utilization. Increase performance for a competitive edge. Streamline IT administration through centralized management. Reduce CapEx and OpEx. Minimize hardware resources needed to run the hypervisor, meaning greater efficiency.Multiple side-channel vulnerabilities in Intel (CVE-2022-29901, CVE-2022-28693) and AMD (CVE-2022-23816, CVE-2022-23825) CPUs have been disclosed. Patches are available to mitigate these vulnerabilities in affected VMware products. Below are the impacted products.VMware ES

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Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v6a - Teams Export API Previewed

Today I want to share a sneak peek at the next release of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, v6a. Like traditional minor/interim releases, this release will mainly include bug fixes. However, there’s an interesting feature being released that I’ll be sharing some details on. Goodbye Exchange, Hello Teams Export APITo understand what’s changing, we need to understand what is going, and why this change is necessary. Currently, Veeam are protecting Teams channel ‘chat’ data via Exchange Online. Notice I say Teams channel, currently Veeam doesn’t protect any ‘Direct Messages’, either 1:1 or group chats, so chat in this context refers to posts and comments within a Teams channel. How does Veeam currently process my Teams data?To achieve the protection of this Teams data, Veeam reads a hidden folder within Exchange Online, called ‘TeamsMessagesData’. This is true whether you use Basic or Modern Authentication.If you weren’t already aware, Microsoft are completing removing Basic Authentication S

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Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
Chris.Childerhose
Chris.ChilderhoseVeeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Veeam Certified Architect 2022 - Course Review

This week I was able to sit the VMCA2022 course on Thursday and Friday.  The course was taken through HPE Learning and is a two day course.  The course is the entire day for the duration and is jam packed with great content and labs.  My instructor was George Vish II and he was extremely great with the course teaching. Overview: The course takes you through the new “Design Methodology” of Veeam and covers the following topics -Discovery Conceptual Design Logical Design Physical/Tangible Design Implementation & Governance Validation and IterationThe course is mix of both lecture and lab work using the Veeam Activity Guide document which lays out the methodology, Architecture principles, the Scenario you work on and all the required details including questions with answers and charts that you fill in.You are taught in the Discovery phase how to get things like -Requirements Security Requirements Constraints Assumptions Risks Other Information pertinent to the projectLabs - Group Work

106122
coolsport00
2 years ago
kirststoner12
kirststoner12Product Strategy
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
5 Steps to Getting Started with Veeam ONE

Veeam ONE is an important part of Veeam Availability Suite. If you are new to Veeam, or currently running Veeam Availability Suite, you may not know that you have a powerful monitoring solution not only for your data protection environment but also your virtual environment. Veeam ONE provides visibility into your environment by monitoring and analyzing data trends that identify resource usage, helping plan for capacity, ensuring applications are performing efficiently and confirming backup operations are completing successfully. Veeam ONE does all of this, and if you are first getting started with Veeam ONE, this blog post is for you.Monitoring your environmentOnce you have added your environment into Veeam ONE, it immediately starts collecting data on how resources are being consumed, finds any problem areas and identifies bottlenecks. By switching through the different Veeam ONE Client views, you can monitor different environments, get more granular based on infrastructure components

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vNote42
2 years ago
anthonyspiteri79
anthonyspiteri79Product Strategy
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
GTwGT Episode 48 with MinIO

Hear the problem statement that led to the founding of ⁦@Minio from COO and Co-Founder ⁦@garimakap⁩ … Episode 48 looks at the state of Object Storage and how the data profile of what’s stored is shifting!

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anthonyspiteri79
2 years ago
regnor
regnorVeeam MVP
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Broadcom acquires VMware

Probably you’ve heard the rumors or news already, but today Broadcom announced that it’s going to acquire VMware.https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/broadcom-acquire-vmware-approximately-61-billion-cash-and-stockI personally don’t know what to think about this, but I don’t have any positive feelings about the future of VMware. After they were split of from Dell I was hoping that things would get better, especially their quality. But now being merged with Broadcom (they’re going to rebrand as “VMware”) I’m not sure what we can expect from them.What do you say about this? Anything positive or negative about this?Update 26.06.2022:Broadcom did publish a new blog post. It doesn't contain much information, and rather feels like an answer to all the negative comments: https://www.broadcom.com/blog/broadcom-vmwareAnd the EU is going to do an antitrust investigation and could probably block the acquisition: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/broadcom-take

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regnor
2 years ago
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Veeam & SQL Server 2012, The Approaching End of Life & How to Migrate

 It’s that time of the IT lifecycle again, where we talk upgrades and decommissioning.On the 12th July 2022, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 will go End of Life. Not just to extended/security patch support, but completely out of support.So, why am I talking about Veeam? If you’ve got an installation of Veeam that utilised a SQL Server Express database, and you installed Veeam prior to 9.5 Update 4, odds are you’ve got a SQL Server 2012 Express database. This creates a security risk as of the next Microsoft patch cycle, scheduled for the 12th July 2022.I would also like to state that whilst this isn’t the focus of the article, if you’ve got a Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam ONE environment that’s not running v11 yet, you really need to upgrade, as everything prior is at end of fix. Which version of SQL Server should I migrate to?Unless you are limited by the operating system support for SQL Server 2019, I don’t recommend going for anything older. This is because SQL Server 2017, whils

426614
regnor
2 years ago
Geoff Burke
Geoff BurkeVeeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
The Kasten Tsunami Pre-Show from the Lake. Today Local Openshift

If I survive the Tsunami, Sea Monsters, or hordes of American fishermen I will return later to talk about RedHat’s Kubernetes distribution for testing: Local Openshift!  

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Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
[What (else) is new in v12 - III] PowerShell news

There are a lot of new PowerShell cmdlets for VBR alone - without agents and explorers. in v11 we have 1178, in v12 1334 cmdlets. So the list is too long to show here. Categories I could see:GFS scheduling options Hyper-V Surebackup/Instant Recovery CDP Tape … I have to check separately :) Application Groups OracleAnother nice feature is that we now can see PowerShell commands at the end of wizards.In older versions we saw parameters for Veeam.Backup.Manager.exe. 

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vNote42
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Do we need a new tape standard?

The question may sound provoking. I asked myself during reading an article about Quantums concern about the LTO roadmap:https://blocksandfiles.com/2022/06/17/quantum-thinks-lto-tape-falls-short/For short: Capacity of tape media fall behind capacity of single disks. Also therefore tape does not fit for hyperscale that good. They need huge volumes of cheap storage. Best solution would be to use tape as very slow disk drives.  And because hyperscaler use tapes within their own environment, they do not care about standards. And because they are the biggest customers for tapes, it could happen that we see a new tape technology arise. At least this is my option.What do the community think about this?

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JMeixner
2 years ago
bene
beneComes here often
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365: An object storage decision guide

Its getting hot … and cheap !Welcome back after a longer break since the last blogpost.Meanwhile I`m one of the main responsible german counterparts for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. Over the last month I saw a lot of different environments with various challenges, while there is a big transformation from on-premise repositories to object storage as well.Today I want to share my experience with the community.Whenever I`m involved in bigger projects, at some point in time we have a price discussion about repository costs with the customer. With the flexibility in Veeam you can choose whatever you want as a repository. There is no „vendor lock-in“ or any risk in loosing data if you want to change f.e the backup software in future.For sure there are some pros & cons when you are choosing your object storage repository. So let me start what you need to consider and why:ConsiderationsSize (always matters...): Your very first step to start your decision journey: Please use our c

299223
Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago
regnor
regnorVeeam MVP
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
VB365: Changes necessary for Teams backup in version 6a (New API)

For me this has been quite surprising news. With beginning of version 6a of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, a different API will be used for backup of public Teams channel messages. The current way with EWS is getting deprecated by Microsoft and in the future “Microsoft Graph Export API for Teams” has to be used.What does this mean for VB365 users?With version 6a VB365 will no longer by default protect Teams data. In order to still being able to backup public Teams channel messages, you will have register for the “Graph Export API”. This process can take up to two weeks and in addition the usage of the Graph Export API can cause additional costs (by Microsoft).How do you register for the Graph Export API?The registration process is described in detail in the following KB article: https://www.veeam.com/kb4322What costs will be expected?Unfortunately I can’t really say what costs will be generated by Teams backup. There’s a dedicated page from Microsoft on the licensing/payment but still

128114
johan.h
2 years ago
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
Microsoft Exchange Server vNext Delayed - New Details Available

In 2020, Microsoft announced the vNext editions of their popular SharePoint, Skype for Business, Project, and Exchange Server applications, due for release in the second half of 2021. However, as of the time of publication, only SharePoint and Project Server Subscription Editions are available.The other products have had their delays greeted with a wall of silence from Microsoft, until now. Whilst there’s still no word on if/when we’ll see Skype for Business Subscription Edition, the Microsoft Exchange team have provided an in-depth breakdown of what’s going on with Exchange Server Subscription Edition, and honestly, I’m impressed with their transparency. The Exchange Team Recommend Exchange Online, and 2019?It should come as no surprise that Microsoft recommend Exchange Online, after all, who knows Exchange better than Microsoft? But in Microsoft’s latest Exchange blog post, we see Microsoft also endorsing Exchange Server 2019 where there is a requirement to not utilise Exchange Onlin

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dips
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
[What (else) is new in v12 - II] Global VM exclusion list

With v12 you can add VMs to a global exclusion list. These VMs will not be backed up. Even if explicitly added to a job.  Nice new feature for all those VMs that aren't worth backing up.

1619
Link State
2 years ago
olivier.rossi
olivier.rossiVeeam MVP
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
SOBR: Veeam Archive Tier – Calculations and Considerations (in v11)

IntroductionIn a previous post, I covered the SOBR Capacity tier Calculations and Considerations. Today, I will be exploring the Archive tier and discuss how to estimate Archive storage requirements, expected API calls and Proxy Appliance uptime. Before we jump into more details, remember that the Archive tier only works with “Amazon S3 Glacier”, “Amazon S3 Glacier Deep Archive” and “Microsoft Azure Archive Storage” in Veeam v11. In the SOBR configuration, under Archive Tier, you define after how many days (1) you want to free up space from your more expensive capacity tier by offloading to the typically** less expensive Archive Tier.**Keep in mind that the Archive tier is meant to store data for a long time (i.e. more than 1 year, up to 7 or more years). It is not meant for active day-to-day restore operations.You will find that storing data in the Archive Tier for less than 1 year won’t make much economic sense (at least at the time of this write-up!). It is also very important to re

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olivier.rossi
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
[What (else) is new in v12 - I] New Hardened Repository integration

I would like to revive my old “what else is new” series I did for VBR v11 some time ago. This time, it is about v12 - what else?First part is about the new integration of Linux Hardened Repository. This was one of the greatest new features in v11. To bring the repository to VBR it was necessary to create a Linux repository and enable immutability. With v12, Hardened Repository is added by a new option: But there is more! With this, you can just add the repository with single-use credential. That was highly recommended in v11 recommended. Furthermore, after adding a Hardened Repository, immutability is enabled and cannot be disabled.  … even with PowerShell. I like it! Also because this increases security. If a hacker enters the VBR server, it is not possible to disable immutability any more. Check my post about how to monitor these settings with Veeam ONE.

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Iams3le
2 years ago
MicoolPaul
MicoolPaulOn the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
SQL Server 2019 – TDE DB Recovery Errors, Log Shipping & CU16

Microsoft have recently released SQL Server 2019 CU16, and in this blog post I’m calling out a very specific bug that Microsoft have addressed, and the implications this has to business-as-usual operations. Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) & Compressed BackupsMicrosoft have been tracking a bug related to using TDE and compressing backups, impacting both database, and log backup types. Should you attempt to restore a compressed backup of a TDE database, you’ll likely receive a message similar to the below:Msg 3241, Level 16, State 18, LineThe media family on device 'BackupFileName' is incorrectly formed. SQL Server cannot process this media family.Oh dear. This isn’t good! Prior to CU16, Microsoft’s workaround was to simply not compress your backups. Before we proceed any further, I also want to call out that I’ve not yet heard of any examples of Microsoft retrospectively fixing these backups, so if you’re currently in this dangerous scenario, mitigate ASAP. SQL Server 2019 CU16 Re

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vNote42
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
[Quicktip] "Error in the application" during VM backup

Yesterday I saw the error a second time, so I thought it would be helpful to others to share.Error happens when VBR tries to read vSphere information for the VM to back up. Error says "Error in the application" like you see in the screenshot.After some troubleshooting we found the reason for this. It was because TCP-port 902 was not allowed (in all firewalls) from the Veeam proxy server to the ESXi host that was hosting the VM to back up. After the port was enabled in the firewall(s), backup ran without further issues. Notes:Used ports for VBR see here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/used_ports.html?ver=110 Vanguard @Cragdoo also shared this error some time ago. In his case the error was caused by a name-resolution problem on a new Linux Veeam proxy server.I hope this post safe others some time when this error appears.  

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vNote42
2 years ago
vNote42
vNote42On the path to Greatness
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
3-2-1 rule for VBR Configuration Backup

By default, VBR does a configuration backup every day at 10:00.It is obvious that this backup should also follow the 3-2-1(-1-0) rule. A easy way to do this is to copy these restore points to a machine that is already backed up be Veeam and therefore covered by the 3-2-1(-1-0) rule. This can be done with a Veeam File Copy job. This job can copy files between systems part of Managed Servers.Lets do it and create a File Copy job:and select the path to the configuration backup as sourceFor destination select the server system you want to copy files to. As mentioned, this system should be part of backup job. Finally select your preferred time schedule. I would recommend to run this job just after the configuration backup.Done? Almost! It is important to know, File Copy job copies files respectively a directory, but is does not synchronize. Therefore the amount of files at the destination will increase. So they should also get deleted after some time otherwise partition runs full. A easy wa

33816
vNote42
2 years ago
anthonyspiteri79
anthonyspiteri79Product Strategy
posted in Blogs and Podcasts
DRaaS for the Masses! CDP for VCCR

Opening up CDP for DRaaS…enabling tenants to replicate Tier 1 workloads at ultra low RPOs from on premises locations to one of thousands of Service Provider Clouds efficiently and cost effectively.Veeam is bringing #DRaaS to the masses in v12 and here is a preview of what is in store when it is released.

1001
Chris.Childerhose
2 years ago

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