Blogs and Podcasts

I know that a lot of new features will be implemented and possible to use in the next major release of Veeam Backup & Replication, but we may not forget that are already a lot of features in the current and previous versions of the Veeam flagship!In this post I just want to hightlight some powerful features in Veeam Backup & Replication.Those features are in my opinion a bit unterrated and hidden, but I use them often in my job as being a backup engineer, consultant and architect.Quick BackupWhat does it do : It lets you perform an on-demand incremental backup for one or more VMs.I just takes an extra restore point for the selected VM. When to use : I use this often when I will make drastic changes on a VM like upgrading the application running in the VM, installing Windows updates or/and other updates in this VM, ...Often people take a snapshot before - I uses instead mostly a Veeam Quick Backup.Why? In this way I can never forget to delete the taken snapshot which is not reco

I finished my VMCA journey this week and passed the exam 😎🎉🎉🎉.So, I would like to write down some of my experiences and difficulties on this trip for others. 1. What is the VMCA? The Veeam certified Architect (VMCA) is the second and highest Veeam certification after the Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE).The VMCA is all about developing a backup solution and understanding the "Veeam Architecture Methodology", whereas the VMCE is more concentrated on technical aspects. 2. The courseThe "Veeam Architecture Method" is the overarching theme of the course.It refers to the steps a Veeam Architect takes when creating a Veeam backup solution:Discovery - conceptual design - logical design - physical design - implementation and governance - validation and iteration. You will gain knowledge of how to:identify all stakeholders, capture the current environment, requirements, and risks - and analyze them by applying best practices. make the right requests to the correct persons to extract needed i

This week I was able to attend to a Veeam VMCA training (Veeam Backup & Replication V11: Architecture and Design) held by @poulpreben.VMCA IntroductionSome words on the VMCA: The VMCA is the Veeam Certificied Architect, the second and highest Veeam certification after the VMCE. While the VMCE is more focused on technical topics, the VMCA is all about designing the backup solution and learning the "Veeam Architecture Methodology".We already have great posts about the VMCA, both the course and the exam, here in the community, so I'll won't go too deep and link to the corresponding posts:VMCA2022 anouncment from @MicoolPaul:VMCA2022 review from @Chris.Childerhose:VMCA2022 EXAM review from @Michael Melter : VMCA CourseDirectly from the beginning of the course, we could notice how different this training is going to be compared to others.Preben explained to us, that there's no lab part and that we won't work with a Veeam console. Instead there were team exercises, where we work together

The Veeam Vanguard program is one of the best influencer/evangelist programs out there, and one reason you need to nominate yourself or someone else that deserves to be in this program.  You will gain access to cutting-edge technology as well as resources.  With 2023 just around the corner, now is the time to consider nominating yourself or someone you know who should be considered.  Also, at this time, for the existing Veeam Vanguards like myself, it is renewal time to ensure I am selected for another year in this exciting program.Being a Veeam Vanguard means being part of an exclusive community of top IT professionals and thought leaders worldwide. As a member, you’ll have access to a wide range of exclusive resources and opportunities, including:Early access to new Veeam products and features Invitations to Veeam-sponsored events and webinars Opportunities to provide feedback and input on Veeam product development Access to the Veeam Vanguard private community, where you can connect

Network throttling is not used in every environment. Mostly in connection with branch offices. Here it is essential to not overload the connection to the head quarter. To throttle network before, you had to configure source and destination network and time windows to limit bandwidth for backup traffic.With v12 there are new features:Generally use public addresses for target range. Option to never throttle restore activities. Select a time frame to higher the limit.

Hello everybody! Say hello to Veeam Help Center v12: https://www.veeam.com/documentation-guides-datasheets.html   

Another new feature when restoring (Windows) files is the possibility to restore only the permissions. This can be helpful if you accidentally activate inheritance for a directory.You can select single files or a directory. As usual, a summary is displayed when the job is completed. The error shown in the screenshot is due to a file that has already been deleted and for which the permissions cannot be restored.For this to work, network connection must be established. VIX does not work here.

A feature that was already available in Veeam Explorer for Active Directory now finds its way into the Windows File Level Restore: Compare with Production. This gives you the option to view the differences between the files in the restore point and the current files in production.After pressing the button, you will be asked for the user with the required permissions.Then you see state for files and directories. What you not see are new files in production that are not in the selected restore point.You can also show differences in file attributes.At least in tested version, this feature (and the following) does not work for Linux.

When auditors come knocking—or worse, when bad actors strike—not having accurate and complete event logs can make all the difference in how your organization survives the encounter.However, users are often understandably more focused on day-to-day operations and only think to look for this information once it’s needed (and when time is of the essence).The good news is that all the information you need—including where to find changes in Veeam server user access permissions, failed login attempts, and failed RDP connections—is available in several different locations, including:Windows Event Viewer Veeam Backup and Replication Audit logs for performed restores Veeam One Audit log The individual application log(s) Windows Event ViewerMany Veeam activities (success, warning, and failures) get logged to the Windows Event viewer by default. To see these events from within the Veeam Backup and Replication (VBR) server, open the Windows Event Viewer console and Migrate to the Veeam Backup node

I want to continue my post series about little new features in the new v12 realease. Here are 3 little things that will make administrators live a little easier.Modern Authentication for mail notificationsPrior to v12 it was just possible to set SMTP server settings for basic authentication. With v12 you can add Microsoft 365 and Google Gmail for mail notification too.  More intuitive Add Storage dialogIn older version, it was necessary to press Show more vendors when adding a storage product that is not listed. With v12, all vendors are listed in a scroll-able list. New default with new repositoriesWith v12 Use per-machine backup files is the new default option when adding a new backup repository. 

After the initial setup of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure I’ve had two different issues.The backup jobs finished with following warning:Crash-consistent snapshot of XYZ has been created. Cannot download VSS agent binaries from the storage account: The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.ServiceBus'. See https://aka.ms/rps-not-found for how to register subscriptions. Also FLR restores failed:Preparing worker for restore failed. Error: Cannot find any worker. Worker deployment failed, see logs for details Both of these messages had the same root cause and especially the first one already points to the right direction, the “Microsoft.ServiceBus” Resource Provider wasn’t registered in Microsoft Azure.The solution is really simple, just register this Resource Provider via the Azure Portal or use the Azure Powershell. Register-AzResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.ServiceBus I’m not sure if this Resource Provider should be registered by default, and if so,

Following the line of some of my topics, in Veeambp.com we can find a very useful unofficial tool                                                    This tool is not Veeam supportedIt was developed externally and is not linked with Veeam Software or ServiceNow in anyway, No support is offerred or inferred from Veeam Software on this tool. vSnow App is an application to integrate Veeam Backup Enterpriser Manager with ServiceNow vSnowApp for ServiceNow:The application offers integration with Veeam Enterprise Manager.vSnowApp provides following capabilities:Performance Dashboard Incidents Management Manage Backup Jobs. Failover Plans Agent Jobs Backup Servers Management How vSnowApp Works: vSnowApp function as an intermediary between Veeam Enterprise Manager and ServiceNow, after you deploy the vSnowApp, you can manage reporting and management of backup infrastructure from ServiceNow. Pre-requisites:ServiceNow MID Server Veeam Enterprise ManagerSupported ServiceNow Instances:New York Orl

Just a quick post on an interesting issue with the Guest Credentials test in Veeam Backup & Replication we’ve seen last week. Instantly after clicking “Test Now” in the Guest Processing section of a certain backup job, an error was displayed."Building list of machines to process Error: (Child group-vXYZ (Folder) for object XYZ was not found)"Normally you see such errors with vSphere when a certain object has been deleted or recreated. While Veeam displays names of objects, internally it works with MoRef IDs. So we’ve checked the job selection, custom credentials and the application aware processing settings. But all listed objects were still valid, especially no folders where used anywhere.We’ve contacted Veeam Support and had a remote session. The support engineer discovered some orphaned VM folders in the exclusions. After removing those, the error disappeared and the credential check worked again. From a logical point I thought those weren’t relevant for the check, so I didn’t c

Hello, everyone,I wanted to share the sizing of an accelerated WAN infra and the differences between WAN Low bandwidth mode vs WAN High bandwidth mode. The DR consists of 6 replica VMsSizing for Low bandwidth under 100 MBhttps://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/wan_accelerator_sizing.html?zoom_highlight=sizing&ver=110 Using RVTool extract the list of VMs with the total Original VM on Source Vmware Tenant side: 1649 GB = 1.649 TB  · The connection between the client and the DR is a 100 Mb.Server1                                           1024 GB   Digest  2% 20.48                          Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit) Server2                                           200 GB    Digest 2% 4                                    Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (64-bit) Server3                                           150 GB    Digest 2% 3                                    Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (64-bit) Server4                                           200 GB    Di

While updating our VCSP stack with V11-RTM, I just stumble again onto this small but fine new feature to prioritize your primary backup jobs:More than once I had customers request several jobs to be finished with priority.You could of cause concatenate jobs with the schedule option “After this job:”. But this is not recommended as it does not use the ressources of your backup system accordingly. Valuable proxy/repo slots would linger out-of-work for quite a while.Overlapping jobs would lead to the second job jumping in with the first one still running, so saturating ressources. But this might easily oversteer and thus delay the first job.With the new option this problem can be solved by just the click of a checkbox.Prioritized jobs get a nice little flag in the job list. So how does it work?The Veeam scheduler runs all its tasks according to priorities:800: Restore jobs — restores are obviously the most important jobs 700: Continuous data protection jobs — new CDP ist also considered v

This no new part about what else is new in v12, because I this is great improvement in the upcoming release.With Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) v12 it will be possible to use a Linux Hardened Repository (LHR) server as proxy server. Only limitation seems to be the transport mode. Only Network mode (NBD) is supported! This is because of security reasons. Network Mode was possible to implement without requiring root permissions on service. This is no show-stopper, because it is the most secure among all available transport modes. How does it workHow to get a LHR proxy server to work? It is simple as any other proxy server. Just create a new proxy server in VBR console:And select a LHR server in dropdown list:With that selection you get the information that only Network transport mode is supported for LHR.With confirmation, transport mode is set to Network in repository settings. Next I create a job that uses this proxy for backup. As backup target I use the local Hardened Repositor

While I was studying for the VMCE, a detail on deduplication caught my attention.I’m talking about inline deduplication. What's about?Inline deduplication is a feature offered by Veeam B&R and it’s used to reduce the amount of storage space required to store backup data by removing duplicate data. One of the main benefits of inline deduplication is in fact that it can significantly decrease the amount of storage space, amount of time and resources required for backups and this can be especially beneficial for organizations that generate a large amount of data on a regular basis.   Another advantage of inline deduplication is that it can improve the efficiency of backups, ‘cause backups can be completed faster and the amount of data that needs to be transferred and stored is reduced.  An example?An immaginary company named CatsFood has a file server that contains 10 terabytes of data and the organization wants to create a backup of this file server using, proudly, Veeam. Without inl

 Today’s post is a direct result of experience in the field, and it was certainly an interesting one!I was recently working with a customer that wanted to migrate to the Veeam Availability Suite. They had an Enterprise SAN solution that they were using for booting their VMware ESXi hosts, in addition to storing their workloads on. The customer’s virtual estate was large, with some servers that were highly transactional, and a great candidate for storage snapshots.Everything was going well, until I performed the storage integration with Veeam, and hit a severe issue. after performing the storage rescan, all of the ESXi hosts within the cluster suffered a PSOD near simultaneously. I’ve certainly never seen that before, and upon asking all of my peers in the wider Veeam community and even some Veeam technical contacts, NOBODY had seen this before. The Culprit: The issue thankfully was not one that required much troubleshooting to discover what was going wrong. Each of the ESXi hosts were

This has been a hot topic since some time: With administrative access to the VBR server, credentials stored in the configuration database can be decrypted.That may sound critical at first, but one shouldn't forget the important detail 'administrative access'.Veeam stores its credentials in an encrypted state using the Microsoft Data Protection API and a Machine key specific to the VBR server. This is a security standard and a safe way of storing passwords, while enabling the Veeam services to use those for authentication.And just like the services, an administrator can access and decrypt the credentials.This is no secret and Veeam has even published a KB article on how to recover credentials from the configuration database: https://www.veeam.com/kb4349And again, please remember that this requires administrative access to the backup infrastructure.In general an administrator or 'root' will always have the highest available permissions and therefore can do anything on a system.This is th

Recently I got this error below during the Oracle redo log backup:Oracle redo log errorMy backup job configuration is about a Veeam Linux Agent in an Oracle Linux and the application aware was configured to backup logs with 15 minutes interval and delete logs older than 24 hours:Application aware configurationThis kind of configuration is very common on critical databases and I have this same configuration in various environments.So, the first thing I assumed is that the cause of the problem was not on the Veeam side.Looking on Linux side I discovered that the user used on Guest Processing configuration needs to be part of the oinstall group on OS.So, the only thing I did was put this user on this group:usermod -aG oinstall <my_user>  After that, all Oracle redo logs started to being process successfully:Oracle redo log success 

Veeam Backup & Replication is a data protection and disaster recovery solution for virtual, physical, and cloud environments. With Veeam Backup & Replication you can Create crash-consistent and application-consistent backups of virtual and physical machines, quickly restore physical machines, EC2 instances, VMs, VM disks, guest OS files, and application items, perform a backup health check to verify that backups are not corrupted and are ready for restoring, create VM replicas and switch to them in case of a disaster and automate transferring of backups to tapes and other external repositories. Veeam Backup and Replication Configuration Database Settings come with the Veeam.Backup.DBConfig.exe utility that allows you to manage connection settings for Veeam Backup & Replication and/or Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager configuration database. Using this utility, you can:1. Connect to a different Microsoft SQL Server instance. If you specify a database that does not exist yet, i

The Veeam Legend programme is due to have its second intake in the coming weeks/months, and I wanted to put together a small collection of resources for people to find out more about this amazing sub-community. What is the Veeam Legends Programme? The Veeam Legends programme is at its heart, a Veeam community, its a sub-group of the wider Veeam Community Hub & R&D forums’ users. It was created as part of the ongoing recognition that Veeam wanted to give to its most active Veeam experts within these spaces.The Veeam Legends programme is one of three sub-communities within the ‘Veeam 100’ collective, with the other two being Veeam Vanguard and VeeaMVP. But whilst Veeam Vanguard focuses on external evangelism & activity, and VeeaMVP celebrates Veeam staff that contribute externally to the Veeam community, Veeam Legends is focused on Veeam platform-based activity. Are there perks to becoming a Veeam Legend? Of course there are! To date I’ve witnessed the following perks from th

Hi Folks,We have a real treat on our next Kubekorner show. We will talk to Yongkang He and will get a demonstration of Amazon EKS Cluster Automation & Protection. This is another “don’t miss it” show   

Show current job for each driveIt is just a small improvement but very helpful in daily tape operations. In VBR v12 console you will see the tape job that is currently using a drive.PowerShell newsWe get some new PowerShell cmdlets with v12 (beta):Find-VBRTapeCatalogItem Find-VBRTapeCatalogItemVersion Find-VBRTapeCatalogueHost Get-VBRTapeBackupSession Get-VBRTapeCatalogueDirectory Get-VBRTapeCatalogueFile Get-VBRTapeMediumForSession Start-VBRTapeFileRestoreUnfortunately I did not manage to get much data out of these new cmdlets. Will have to wait for availability of command reference guide. Something I still miss, is the ability to get the content of tapes with PowerShell.