Blogs and Podcasts

Happy Friday Community!And an even better Friday for me after passing the VMware VCP-DCV this morning. Whew! What a challenge, but with some patient studying, practical experience, and hard work, it’s passable. ReviewAs I shared in my Study Guide post from a few weeks ago, the exam has 70 questions and is 135 minutes long, which is 5 minutes more allotted time than the prior version. Unlike previous exams, I really needed most of the time to finish the questions and review my answers. I still had about 45-50 minutes left after my review. But on the last 2 VCP exam versions I’ve taken, I was able to finish and review in a little over an hour.I think part of the reason for the extra time it took me to finish was the question format. They were normal questions but several sentences long (long for sure, but not book-length). As such, those took a little time to read, and verify whatever requirements were asked for. Thankfully there was also what I call ‘standard’ questions consisting of ju

FolksOnalytica just came out with their who is who in the cloud: I seem to see a familiar beard :)  https://onalytica.com/blog/posts/whos-who-in-cloud-top-50-influencers-to-follow/

Hello everyone! @HangTen416 & I are delighted to introduce to you all the latest ‘thematic’ Veeam User Group: Cloud City. What is Cloud City? Cloud City is a Veeam User Group focused on Veeam’s Public Cloud and SaaS Product Offerings. We wanted to create a dedicated space in the community for people to share their knowledge and ask questions related to these products, or the relevant services that provide the platform these products interact with. Where can I find out more? Firstly, you can check out the group here: https://community.veeam.com/groups/cloud-city-107This page has more information on the purpose of the Veeam User Group, and you can join the group via this page. @HangTen416 and I are also going to be hosting an introduction meeting on the 9th May, be sure to register and check it out if you’re interested: During this session we’ll talk more about the purpose, some community guidance on what content we intend to focus on and encourage, and our plans for (virtual) meetin

An incremental update has been released for Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV. Version 4a has a few new enhancements and some issues that were resolved. The download link is in the KB link below.  Note: Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV 4a only supports integration with Veeam Backup & Replication version 12. What's NewUpgraded OpenSSL to version 1.0.2zg Configuration restore now assigns a default start time to a restored job that used an active full schedule but did not have a start time configured Configuration restore now assigns proper value and proceeds if BackupUID is found to be an empty string during configuration restore Default settings for Active Full and Synthetic Full job settings in the web UI have been adjusted to be consistent with Veeam Backup & Replication.Resolved IssuesA backup job continues to retry when the session ends with a warning.Now, after the first session completes with only a warning, no further retries will occur. Notification emails sent to Enterprise Micr

Veeam Recovery Orchestrator (VRO) V6 can provide orchestration of recoveries to different locations (original location, a secondary site, or Azure) from backups or secondary backups. VRO   The feature that I love the most about VRO (well, really one of the many features) is the ability to easily have VRO scan multiple backup restore points of a server (virtual or physical) for malware infections that may have been missed before a backup so bad backups don’t get put back in production!  VRO will use a the update AV software installed on the mount server to perform iterative scans of multiple restores to find a “clean” restore point to recover from. This can be performed in a few easy steps. First, launch the orchestration plan for the server(s) you want to restore, right-click on it and select run.  Step through the wizard until you reach the “Ransomware scan” page. If you want to limit the number of restore points scanned, you can set it here by checking the checkbox and entering a val

This is part four of the blogpost. If you want to read it from the beginning, head here: SOBR Archive Tier – Explained and Configured – Part 1 of 4 | Veeam Community Resource HubIn this last part, we will cover the free section of our feat and put things together in VBR.Setup within VBRNow it’s time to create the new object storage inside your VBR console. Add a backup repository of the type “Object storage”.Add new object repository to be used as archive tier. Choose the appropriate hyperscaler. For the archive tier currently only AWS and Azure are supported. We’ve used Azure in the example.Only Amazon S3 (AWS) and Azure can leverage the archive tier.Now the differentiation from capacity tier is made by selecting “Azure Blob Storage Archive Tier” instead of just “Azure Blob Storage”.Make sure to select the special option for the archive tier.Give the new repository a nice name and description within VBR.Very inventive name, isn’t it?And provide your storage account name and the shared

Hi allAfter working already for more than 2 months with the new version of VBR, I must say it’s great with all new features and changes.But I must being honest, there is a feature that I’m missing that is not available anymore after the upgrade…What am I missing after the upgrade?For a new backup copy-job (not the existing after upgrading) it is not possible to define certain static VMs in a backup copy-job anymore. You have to select an existing primary backup job or repository.I must be honoust, it’s better than before, now we can change between immediately and periodically backup-copy jobs without the need to create a new backup-copy job.All good and even better than before, but…. Why I need this frequently?Normally I always create 1-to-1 backup copy jobs to primary backup jobs, so normally everything is OK and not needed, but there is 1 exception to the rule!Normally we always used periodically backup copy jobs with statically defined VMs in the job for backup copy jobs connected t

ReFS (Resilient File System) is a file system by Microsoft that provides - since Windows Server 2016 - a feature named Block cloning. Basically it uses pointers to already existing blocks instead of copying or re-creating them. This saves time and disk space. Veeam uses this feature for synthetic operations like merging incremental backups with full or synthetic full.In my opinion Microsoft does not offer a proper utility to analyse ReFS space savings with Block cloning. I think there are at least three ways to show the space benefit of Block cloning:Windows explorer Application that makes use of Block cloning Timothy Dewin's blockstat.exeWindows explorerThe native way to calculate saved space is to simply compare the sum of all files in a partition to the used space of the same partition. Because the partition view includes the space savings and file view does not, the difference shows saved space.As you can see, there are about 44,4 GB space savings. Keep in mind, the properties of t

I am old enough to remember the intense wars between Windows and Linux users in the late 90’s.I actually had a dream that I woke up many many years in the future, circa 2100 where both OS’s had merged and life was wonderful. Well it is 2023, the world is still crazy BUT… today I got Terminator and Remmina running on Windows 11 via WSL2, and what's more with a shortcut!!! I am back on a windows laptop due to corporate stuff. I don’t miss the MAC to be honest, It felt like it was a half Windows half Linux (or BSD) Frankenstein but hey that is just personal taste so to each their own.How far has the world come though!!Terminator is my favorite terminal program and Remmina for RDP well, I just like it (don’t save your passwords in there though). In your Ubuntu shell type sudo apt install terminator -ysudo apt install remmina -yFirst see if it can run (some complaints about the config but I will figure those out later) Terminator is backand now for Remmina:RemminaSome verbose anger there ba

Quite a cool new feature is the ability to enable Multi-factor authentication (MFA) for the VBR console login. With this a user has to enter username, password and an additional confirmation code that comes from a Authenticator app like Google Authenticator.At first login, User can add VBR to his Authenticator app.It is really simple to use.BUT: 2FA works only for VBR console, NOT for PowerShell!Another security improvement is the option for Automatic Session logoff: 

Another interesting case from the field today. I had a customer that had historically cloned the disk of their AIX platform, without any further modification. This had suited them fine for years until the Veeam Agent for AIX came along and wanted to utilise some supposedly unique attributes of the installation as the basis of its UUID.This manifested in a bizarre scenario that didn’t appear during testing, but started when the agents were deployed out to all the relevant servers. Instead of seeing a long list of hosts with the Veeam Agent for AIX deployed, I saw no more than four.As the Veeam Agents were being manually rolled out, I didn’t know yet that this was actually an issue I was seeing, but instead my first assumption was a slow rollout was being performed.It wasn’t long however before I was alerted to an issue by the AIX team. Some installations were failing, with the following error:cli | Thread [Establish connect to VBR <VBR.FQDN.TLD>:10006; <VBRHOSTNAME>:10006

This is the Veeam case of Marfrig from Brazil.Marfrig is a big company of a food sector that is attended by BS4IT, the partner that I work for.You can see all case on link below:https://www.veeam.com/success-stories/marfrig.html 

Hi Team, i want to share my latest best practice article about VB365. It is more a “understanding best practices” (the official titel is a bit missleading) and why there is not only one best practice for all installations. https://www.veeam.com/blog/veeam-backup-for-microsoft-365-best-practices.html If you have questions or feedback feel free to contact me. 

Go to VeeamONMake your Backup policy StrongAnd remember Miami Beach is real LongDon't go wrongJoin the ThrongSinging the defeat ransomware songDuring the famous last night party at VeeamONLeave your boss with no doubtBecause you will gain the expert's cloutAnd your company's profits will mountLet the cyber criminals poutWhen you punch ransomware in the snoutDon't be a loutGet the heck outTurn up the volume and shoutBecause at VeeamON your knowledge will sproutAnd then there's the swagToo much to fit in a single bagCompetitor's merch left behind in the lagSo make the right choiceAnd prepare to rejoiceVeeamON is where its atCome dressed in a hatStep up to bat Be cool like Alfred the Veeam Legend catOr take in the Vanguard viewsWhile getting all the latest technology newsLeft with no regretGet those travel plans setAnd your backup targets will be metVeeamON is coming up fastIt is going to be a blastSo get on board and climb up to the top of the mastBecause when it comes Data protectionYou

Hi All,Mastering Veeam APIs with Grafana banner;the Automation Desk is back with a new event; Mastering Veeam APIs with Grafana. This will be a virtual event, in English so anyone can attend!Our one and only Senior Analyst at Veeam @jorge.delacruz will join the Automation Desk Leaders @k00laidIT, @JMeixner and @mkevenaar.In this online session, you will learn the fundamentals of using RESTful APIs for automation and observability with Grafana, specifically in the context of Veeam APIs. We will cover the basics of REST architecture, including the key principles and how it can be used to create efficient and scalable web services. You will also learn how to use Grafana to automate repetitive tasks and visualize performance metrics, allowing you to monitor and optimize your Veeam infrastructure.• Learn the fundamentals of RESTful APIs and how to use them for automation and observability with Grafana• Explore Veeam APIs and how to interact with them using RESTful requests• Discover how to

I speak to people often about ransomware and Veeam ONE has a helping hand here that can do more than many people think. What is important however is that the alarms and reports that matter get to the right persona are made visible. In this post I want to cover the 4 alarms and 1 report that matter the most AND how to handle the conditions that make these happen. Let’s get into it, these simple steps will make a different in getting Veeam ONE’s ransomware or malicious activity detected quickly.Possible Ransomware Activity AlarmThis alarm is in the Alarm Management section for both VMware and Hyper-V and looks at two sets of rules: sustained high CPU and disk writes; but also looks at sustained network transfer (exfiltration). At a minimum, this alarm should have an email sent to two or more persons (backup admins, security team, etc.) via email and separate the emails with a space: I also recommend going into the actions section, and put in a script that does something relevant to your

THERE IS NOW NATIVE FUNCTIONALITY TO DO THIS EASILYGreetings friends, some time ago I wrote about how to enable these notifications for Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, it was a success, and very simple until Microsoft, and Google, disabled the normal SMTP on TLS, so many people ended with these notifications broken due the force of OAuth.Since Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v7, you can configure OAuth on the Console, for regular email notifications. But the Audit Email Settings configuration API wasn’t that trivial andeasy to setup, until today. We will go step by step, so you can have those Audit operations working again. Let’s go.Recommended – All Automated!Please come here to find everything automated:https://community.veeam.com/blogs-and-podcasts-57/scripts-veeam-backup-for-microsoft-365-audit-email-audit-users-5351You will find there two scripts to make your life easier with this.Audit Diagram in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365Before we start with the subject, I think a diagram abo

Hi Folks, I wasted a lot of time in my life doing dumb things. Luckily a remain young in spirit and continue to do dumb things even now. Like troubleshooting an ignition process on Flatcar when the issue was staring me in the face. When dealing with failures and errors be it in backup or anything else try the “metaphor” method in order to help you solve the problem. For me it was that services were not starting when booting the immutable OS. Permission denied came up in the journalctl output but it made no sense since that part of the filesystem was chmod with the right access. Then I checked the location and the files were there with the correct names but… there size was zero. I checked the ignition file creation and all looked fine. I struggled until it hit me when on my walk and passing by a location that I used to frequent quite often.. the beer store. If you are in line up to buy beer and you have brought your empty bottles to cash in on the recycling refund.. you can’t just take

 I have been a Veeam Vanguard for six years and Veeam Legend for just over a year and was fortunate enough to have attended the VeeamON 2017 event in New Orleans and VeeamON 2022 in Las Vegas, and it was fantastic.  Great sessions, lots of networking and meeting more of the Veeam folks and Vanguards/Legends.Being a Vanguard is a real honour, and many people ask me when they see my Veeam Vanguard jacket or shirt - What is Veeam?  My answer is a typical one - it is backup software for your infrastructure for now and the future which then leads to a conversation around technology, backups, and many other things.This year's event in Miami looks to build on previous events like New Orleans, Chicago, and Las Vegas.Attending VeeamON is one of the best events if you want to learn more about backup and what Veeam is all about. From user sessions, networking and training this event is packed with something for everyone.  I was lucky to be able to attend VeeamON 2022 in Las Vegas last year and th

Oracle Block Change Tracking (BCT) is a feature in Oracle databases that helps improve the performance of incremental backups by tracking the changes made to database blocks.When Block Change Tracking (BCT) is enabled, the database keeps track of all the blocks that have been modified since the last backup. This information is stored in a bitmap file, which is used by backup software to determine which blocks to backup. By only backing up the changed blocks, incremental backups can be performed more quickly and efficiently.BCT is particularly useful in environments with large databases or where backups need to be performed frequently. It can also be used in conjunction with other backup technologies, such as snapshot-based backups or replication.BCT can be enabled at the database or tablespace level and is compatible with both physical and logical backups. To enable BCT, the database must be running in ARCHIVELOG mode and the appropriate initialization parameters must be set. Oracle BC

We had some problems with restoring VMs in the last time.After some research we found that the Proxy on Linux has a problem with the assignments of physical volumes. It seems that there are PVs of target machines are preserved in the LVM archive files of the proxy… This is causing problems at restore time – leaving the restored VMs unbootable.I have double checked the Veeam documentation about prerequisites (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_proxy_requirements.html?ver=110) and found no hint that LVM is a problem with Linux proxy.The problem occurred with Suse Linux only, we are in the process to check if there is the same problem with RedHat Linux. To visualize the problem, I will show it from the Veeam Proxy perspective and from the target VMs perspective. Veeam ProxyList the physical volumes with pvs. One device is not found…Grep for the UUID of the missing volume in the directory /etc/lvm/archiveIn this case the UUID is found in three files. At these three occ

I know this is not Veeam related but I am also part of the vExpert program with VMware and had the chance to get some Intel Optane drives through the program, so I wrote a blog on how I got them set up and some initial testing done.  You can find it here- https://justvirtualization.blog/2023/03/31/intel-optane-vexpert-awesome/  Intel Optane + vExpert = Awesome!  Thank you to @Intel and @vExpert for the opportunity to test some unique technology in the Intel Optane drives.I have been part of the VMware vExpert program for four years now, and in 2023, there was a webinar done by Intel on their Optane drives. After the webinar, there was the chance to be chosen to receive a gift from Intel of some Optane drives for HomeLab testing. I decided to submit for the chance to receive the Optane drives and was lucky enough to be selected. At the time of selection, you had to choose your drive choice, which was PCIe or U2 format. My HomeLab consists of four Intel Skull Canyon NUCs, so using PCIe w

Recently we had a vulnerability on Veeam Backup & Replication called CVE-2023-27532.So today, I’m going to show how easy is update VBR and install the patch to correct this threat. According with KB4424, we need to download the patch correctly to v11 or v12. In my case I going to update a v12 environment. So, the first thing is download patch: After that we only to unzip the downloaded file: The installation is really simple.  We only need next, next, finish: I prefer to do not check box to update components automatically. We can do that as a final step after installation: Just click finish: Now we can open our VBR console and update the last component: At the end we can check that Veeam Backup & Replication is on 12.0.0.1420 P20230223: 

 Hi,I had a really strange error that was causing myself some issues recently, so I thought I would share the results.I was protecting a few NetApp ONTAP systems, integrated with Veeam as NAS Filers. And when I was trying to protect one of the NAS Filers, all the SMB shares were working successfully, but the NFS shares were not.What was worse though, I would always get an error that made no sense. If I reviewed the error message for my NFS logs I’d get the error that ‘All backup proxies are offline or outdated’, and then if I browsed into the Veeam logs, there were no tasks logs even being created for the failing shares. If I dug into the logs for the parent job, I could see this error I mentioned above, plus that no scale-out repository extents were available. This struck me as very confusing, as the SVMs contained both NFS shares, and SMB shares, all SMB shares were protected fine.I checked firstly that I had configured the NAS element of the NetApp integration to support NFS and tha

Hi Folks, I don’t often forward blog post stuff but these ones are great and very important in relation to Veeam 12 and Object Storage.Apologies if someone has already posted. It explained a lot for me about how Veeam now works with S3!check out Luca’s blogs here: https://www.virtualtothecore.com/a-first-look-at-the-new-veeam-sosapi/