Blogs and Podcasts

Since this issue wasn’t specifically caused by me, I will try to coin it correctly. The takeaway here is that with “Veeam Backup for AWS”. This issue would have been fixed in a jiffy. Release Dates for Veeam Backup for AWSYes, I would love to list the various years the following versions were released and as such, most of us were left with AMI and various script options for creating backups. Veeam Backup for AWS, the solution designed to protect your Amazon Web Services (AWS) workloads, has seen several releases. Let’s take a look at the key versions and their release dates:Veeam Backup for AWS 7: Release Date: December 5, 2023 Veeam Backup for AWS 6a: Release Date: July 3, 2023 Veeam Backup for AWS 6: Release Date: July 3, 2023 Veeam Backup for AWS 5a: Release Date: December 9, 2022 Veeam Backup for AWS 5: Release Date: June 16, 2022 Veeam Backup for AWS 4a: Release Date: December 23, 2021 Veeam Backup for AWS 4: Release Date: October 5, 2021 Veeam Backup for AWS 3: Release Date: Dece

This is my second story with backup, I will talk about my first project, it was with Veritas, however, the challenges was pretty good to gain experience.I had a project to backup Oracle DBs at oil and gas customer. The challenge that DBs wasn’t be able to be backed up. Support could not solve the problem, and I needed to sigh out the project.After troubleshooting and following KBs, I found that each DB has its own issues. One needs to setup the time and date, another needs to configure ORATAP file, and another has issues in archival logs.After fixing issue one by one, the project has been completed and signed off

I have a big challenge when a big project for Veeam was handed over to me in the middle, the project was at big financial sector, it was a migration from Networker + Data Domain to Veeam on Pure NAS storage.The first challenge was I have no choice to set the best practice, like not to backup to NAS storage, specially with huge environment with more than 30 Hyper-V host and big Oracle database.The second challenge was is to backup Hyper-V with internal policy to disable checkpoints!!!The third challenge was to backup 60TB Oracle DB with applications using same ports of Veeam to NAS storage.To overcome the first challenge, nothing to do 😂To overcome second challenge, I had to backup general VMs with Hyper-V backup jobs, and VMs with application, I had to backup them with Veeam AgentsTo overcome third challenge, I had to use Veeam Application plugin and create scale-out-repo and created 10 NAS shares to increase in parallel backup scream. 

Organizations generally tend to think about backing up their data and applications, which is always great!However, they often forget to protect the configurations of the components of their IT environments. And this is very important as most corporations still have to deal with technology silos made up of the most diverse solutions, standards, and manufacturers.The ability to quickly restore the operation of these environments in the event of failures of any type is extremely critical to ensuring business continuity!Historically, one of the biggest challenges has always been keeping the backup of network equipment up to date. After all, companies can have hundreds or even thousands of these components in their IT environments.Some time ago, when the concept of Software Defined Network did not yet exist, this was a manual, error-prone and problematic task.As a testimony, I went through a very critical situation due to the lack of an updated configuration backup in a large, mission-criti

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity threats, safeguarding data integrity within backup systems has become paramount. Malware, in its various forms, poses a significant risk to the reliability and security of critical data backups. This article delves into the pivotal role of robust malware detection in ensuring the resilience of backup solutions, emphasizing real-time scanning techniques, periodic scans, and updates to identify and contain potential threats promptly. Understanding the Threat Landscape Direct attack of the Backup SystemsMalware, including viruses, ransomware, and other malicious software, can infiltrate backup systems through various vectors. Whether through compromised network connections, infected devices, or malicious email attachments, the threat is omnipresent.Once in the backup environment, malware can lie dormant and wait for the right moment to strike, compromising the integrity of the backup data. In the worst case, the entire backup repositories ar

I’d like to share a new vCommunity Podcast that’s been in the works lately.We discuss all things vCommunity. A gathering place if you will of people from all walks of the tech community. Its not vendor specific, but you may find a few friendly faces from time to time. Special thanks to @keiranshelden for pushing to have this start off. Along with regular guests @tsmith,  @JoeHoughes and myself @Tyler Jurgens we tackle a range of topics and questions. Check us out! You can find us on (other platforms will be added as we can):Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@vCommunityioPodBean: https://vcommunity.podbean.com/Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vcommunity-podcast/id1733005383

I thought I’d post a slightly different take on an experience I had several years ago in a previous role, sometimes even the good guys need some luck. We had recently taken on a new client and hadn’t had a chance to review their infrastructure, unfortunately for them, everything was domain-joined and backed up locally to a NAS.The client got hit by ransomware and it ran amok encrypting the production VMs and unfortunately for the client also files stored on the NAS. This happened during the middle of the night and the client only noticed the next day when they turned up for work. Frantic calls followed to the help desk and the recovery effort started.Initial response efforts found that the backup server encrypted and it looked like the backup metadata was also affected. Upon further investigation, Lady Luck shows up. It appears that a number of the VBK files were being written at the time and were locked, so they were not affected.We deployed a new VBR server and set about importing th

Years ago, before 3-2-1 and 3-2-1-1-0 were household terms, I had a lot of photos from my early teens, and other important documents stored on my computer.  Fixing PC’s from an early age, going on college, then work for a large IT company I knew the importance of data backup, and have seen people upset when their precious photos were gone forever. I had an old Dell prebuilt PC that was cutting edge at the time. I paid thousands for it, and it had one of those nice big square monitors. I still have the recept somewhere to remind me not to keep spending so much on items the depreciate in value so fast. (as I type on a computer with a 4090 GPU and 14700k CPU🤣)  I bought a USB hard drive for backups, and copied over everything. One day, when my computer crashed I was happy when I bought a new hard drive, and restored all the files. I never really thought about it too much, and felt like my own hero for not losing all my data. I continued on, copying all my photos and files to the drive fo

Nutanix has been around for sometime but I have only recently decided to take a peak at it.I am going to install a single node cluster nested in my Proxmox homelab.First step is to create your Nutanix account (free) and login. Head to the Nutanix Community Edition page by pressing launch.Press Launch under Community EditionISO and InstructionsDownload the ISO and then upload into your Proxmox. Now time to setup the VM. Create the VM Choose the ISO.ISODefault Settings You need at least 3 disks and 2 of them need to have SSD emulation turned on. The first disk can be relatively small but the other two mush be at least 200GB200GB diskLast disk for data.3rd diskIn my case I chose 4 sockets 2 cores for 8 vcpus and processor type hostCPUMemory AllocationNetworkSummaryAfter creating start the VM.StartAfter the boot screen completes eventually the Nutanix CE Installer will appear.The Use column should fill out automatically but you can edit if need be. Keep in mind that the Hypervisor boot dri

Hi Everyone, Quick poll here. There might be some interesting news coming.  

Azure PortalIn order to use Immutability with Azure Blob Storage, you must setup Storage Account creation.On the “Data protection” tab of storage account creation:Disable “soft delete for blobs” Enable “Versioning for blobs”  Select “Keep all versions”  Disable “Version-level immutability support”Set “Blob public access” to Disabled and create a container. Give the container a name and set the “Public Access Level” to “Private”.Container-Level SettingAfter creating the Storage Account with the required settings, create a new container with the following setting:Expand the Advanced section, and Enable “Version-level immutability support”Notes:Do not configure lifecycle management policies for the container`s data.Do not enable any default immutability policy at the storage account level.After the Container is created, go to Security → Networking, Access Keys and copy the key1 key. Veeam Data Platform SettingLaunch New Object Storage Repository WizardAdd Backup Repository, Object storag

My story goes back many years ago. At the time I was working abroad for an American real estate company. My manager was a decent person but very much into the whole "I am a manager" thing. He loved playing mind games with the staff by giving them the evil eye when he was not pleased and making elusive comments about imminent cutbacks in staff with a regretful but obvious smirk on this face. He also enjoyed demonstratively taking people into the server room for confidential talks. One day he asked me to come and have a talk in the server room so I knew that something unpleasant was afoot. He explained that the branch office in K. needed to do a server upgrade and he would have gone and performed the task himself but....blah blah. In short there was obviously something wrong with that office and he did not want to go.I had a very early flight and arrived at the branch office before 8 am. Much to my surprise the local boss was already there. He immediately informed me that he was a former

Hey y’all, doing a bit of testing with VB365 v8 and documented my way through getting PostgreSQL setup on a ubuntu 22.04 server for this purpose and it seems to be working very well. Here’s the link if you think it will help you out! https://www.koolaid.info/postgresql-on-ubuntu-2022-4-installation-configuration-for-veeam-purposes/

I’ve seen this multiple times now with VMware. You cancel a task via vCenter or the ESXi UI and it just stays there hanging and nothing further happens. Normally this situation resolves itself after some time, but just last week I had a case where the task never stopped. While the Webclients weren’t really helpful in that case, we were able to cancel this task with the ESXi commandline.Warning: Interupting certain tasks, for example snapshot consolidations or Storage vMotions, can lead to issues or corrupted VMs. So only do this if you don’t have any alternatives and need the task to be canceled. And better have a backup at your hand.SolutionStart the SSH service on the ESXi host where your VM is registered Connect via SSH Query the VM ID: vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms Query all tasks for this VM: vim-cmd vmsvc/get.tasklist “VM ID”Check the Task information: vim-cmd vimsvc/task_info “haTask….” Is the task still state still active? Note: The screenshot is just an example; the task state is s

Let’s walk through the steps to perform a Physical to Virtual machine (P2V) conversion using Veeam Backup and Replication (VBR) to migrate a physical server to a Cluster virtual machine.Install Veeam Agent on the Physical MachineInstall the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows on the physical server you want to convert. Ensure the agent is properly configured and connected to your Veeam Backup and Replication server.You can also create a Protection Group to install it. We will show you how to convert it from the Veeam Backup and Replication Management Console.Create a Protection Group and add the physical machine to the protection.Ensure you select the Install Backup agent. Create a Temporary Backup JobIn the Veeam console, Select the Protection Group and create a new backup job for the physical machine.Select Server Type and Manage by Backup Server Mode.Assign Job name and Description.Select the entire computer in backup mode.This is just a temporary job. Change the Retention policy to 1

Hi allMany people in the community probably are already aware of the fact that in Q4 of 2023 Microsoft will launch in preview their own 365 Backup and Archive service.For those who doesn’t know yet, they are now informed 😎.More info can be read and viewed on following links : Welcome to Microsoft Inspire 2023: Introducing Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive - Microsoft Community HubMicrosoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive My goal is to have a summary of pro’s and con’s of this MS service vs the proven existing Veeam solution!As a partner we are offering at this moment a Veeam SaaS solution and my idea is to keep it that way of course 😊, but therefore I have to convince the cloud team that this is still the best solution to offer to our customers.The MS backup solution is a built-in solution to backup M365 (Onedrive, Exchanage and Sharepoint).The MS archive solution is to put less frequently data on cheaper cold storage but can still be directly used.Is this Microsoft

Cue Superman standing on a hill with hands on his hips, wind blowing through his hair, and cape flapping in the wind 🦸🏻😂  Ok, not really...hahaThe truth is, “sysadmin superhero-like” tactics would not have been needed if I had been a bit more meticulous in my storage configuration tasks.Veeam FlexibilityOne of the many benefits of using Veeam Backup & Replication is its flexibiltiy in how you deploy it. Personally, I use the “Advanced” deployment method, creating separate servers for Veeam and my ancillary components, Proxy and Repository. But, to save on hardware and software (OS) costs, Veeam allows you to combine the Proxy and Repository roles. I use physical hardware for these components. As such, I wanted to push my physical compute (CPU/Memory) and network (10Gb nics) resources to the limit on my hardware, so I combined them on 1 server. At the time, I also chose to use the fastest backup method → DirectSAN. One drawback of using the DirectSAN transport mode with Windows (

When it comes to SureBackup, at least a ping test is desirable. In some situations no network connection can be established to the VM under test because of the internal Windows Firewall. Now it is possible to have SureBackup disable this to reduce these kind of false positives.For more information to this feature read the documentation:https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/surebackup_job_tests_vm.html?ver=120See the list of all new features in v12: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_12_0_whats_new_wn.pdf 

In the realm of data protection, encryption stands as a crucial line of defense against unauthorized access and breaches. This article delves into the significance of encryption within backup solutions, emphasizing its role in safeguarding sensitive data during transit and storage. We explore encryption standards, key management strategies, and the compliance implications that organizations must consider when implementing encryption in their backup infrastructure. IntroductionIn today's digital landscape, the significance of encryption in safeguarding sensitive data cannot be overstated. Encryption stands as a powerful mechanism, rendering data unreadable to unauthorized parties, whether it's in transit or at rest. Particularly within the realm of backup solutions, encryption assumes paramount importance in fortifying data security throughout its lifecycle. By encrypting data during both transit and storage, organizations can effectively mitigate the risk of exposure to a myriad of thr

Hello everyone A long time ago, I was employed as a programmer at a small hosting company. About eight weeks in, I had just returned after two weeks of absence from the office due to family matters. Out of the 3 Linux sysadmins we had, we only had one left. The only one left got tasked to replace a RAID controller on a faulty server overnight. When I came in the next morning, I got a call from the customer asking why their server was still down. Being the programmer in the company, I contacted the owner and the Windows sysadmin to see if they knew why. They gave me the cellphone number of the engineer and I reached out. All I got was a snarl from him with “I am still working on it!”Together with the Windows sysadmin, we decided to go to the data center and see if we could help him somehow. When we entered the suite, the only thing he could say was “Everything is gone, I can no longer find the partition tables”. He gave some details on what he did and we decided to send him home to get

 It's alarming to note that over the past few years, the speed at which ransomware attacks are executed has plummeted by a staggering 94%. Criminals now take an average of just 3.85 days to deploy a ransomware attack, a significant decrease that should raise serious concerns. Once triggered, the encryption process is lightning-fast, further underscoring the situation's urgency.According to a real test scenario conducted by Surge/Splunk, it takes about 5:50 minutes to encrypt 98.561 files placed in 100 directories of a Windows Server 2019 host. The LockBit is the fastest variant because it only encrypts 4KB of each file, rendering it unusable.Even more concerning is the potential for triple extortion in these attacks. Suppose the initial ransom for recovering the encrypted and exfiltrated production and backup data is not paid. In that case, criminals can escalate the situation by launching a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the organization’s services. This adds anot

Yes, Veeam can! (sorry for this pun)Question arose today and I thought this is could be interesting to share: Is it possible to copy a backup copy job? So can a backup copy job use a backup copy job as source job? Yes and no. It is not possible to select the copy backup job directly. But it is possible to select the repository, the (second) copy job searches for backup data. How to create a copy copy job:Start the New Backup Copy Job wizard and enter a name. Here it is required to use Periodic copy (pruning) Copy mode! Note: Source copy backup job can also use Immediate copy (mirroring) mode. On next step, press Add… → From backups...  and select the job you want to copy second time.It is important to do so, otherwise, selected source repository (next step) will be ignored!Press Source… and select the repository, the first copy job uses as target. This is the repository this copy job will read backups from. The rest of the wizard can be configured as desired. In joblog you see the sour

Hi Everyone,I have changed my channel’s name. I figured everywhere I go everything nowadays is verified, except of course for my stuff because I refuse to pay more! However, I can verify myself and what’s more at no cost at all! So welcome to the Verified Vanguard! I will continue to talk about Kubernetes things as well but also introduce more Veeam and Security topics into the content.   

Hi Everyone.I was fiddling in my lab yesterday evening which is never a good idea on a Friday after a long week. Trying to setoff some security alarms with different systems that I am testing I went a little too far and somehow nuked the agent distributable package for windows. This morning when getting ready to do some testing with IAM/STS on Ootbi I ran into this error when trying to rescan a manually added  machine:ErrorAfter a short search I realized that the redistributable package for Veeam Agent for windows had been corrupted. The solution is quite simple. Mount your Veeam VBR installation ISO and run the VAWRedist.msiVAWRedist.msiRun the MSIAgent for WindowsAfter that I tried the rescan again and everything worked as is should:SuccessI can now go back to my originally planned weekend to do list! 

Recently @Julia F Morgado and I have released a blog post talking on the Best Practices to a secure AWS environment.https://www.veeam.com/blog/aws-security-best-practices.htmlIn this guide, we emphasize the significance of data encryption and utilizing the AWS Key Management Service (KMS). Encrypting data is crucial to thwart unauthorized access, and when combined with immutability, it not only protects against data theft and misuse but also guards against the malicious deletion of data.There’s also a third risk even with those two practices that I would like to share, which is the KMS key being deleted.  Say you’ve done everything right and encrypted your immutable backups with a key, then your production and/or other copy of the data (3-2-1 rule, right?) have been attacked, locked or encrypted, and someone have deleted the KMS key to your backups, how will you recover?Andreas Wittig from Cloudonaut wrote an interesting scenario where a combination of some pre-conditions could lead to