Blogs and Podcasts

In the past years, IT has changed dramatically. The pandemic accelerated Microsoft Teams and overall Microsoft 365 adoption, Office co-authoring surged, and organizational data found its way to all sorts of cloud apps.In this webinar, Jay Gundotra (from ENow Software, the fabulous Karinne Bessette (Technologist at Veeam) and I discuss how things have changed from their perspective.Working with organizations has offered us many insights in the way people think. While discussing our experiences, we found three common myths:We have a 99,99% SLA. Monitoring Microsoft 365 is unnecessary.Procurement is in charge of managing Microsoft 365 licenses. They’re in control.Microsoft takes care of backups as part of Microsoft 365. We don’t have to do anything in that area to ensure business continuity. Most organizations believe these myths to be t

CT4 has a vision to create and distribute world-class software products that control and protect data while also translating data into meaningful insights, clear actions and measurable outcomes for their clients. Dan Pearson and I talk about how CT4 have evolved into a data centric company with three products in market.Dan and I also talk about their IoT offering Canopy and how data has become central to all offerings that CT4 do. 

During troubleshooting a backup environment, it’s common the necessity of test ports responsivity of our backup servers, like Veeam backup server, mount server, proxy or repositories.We normally do that with telnet. However, by default telnet client is not installed during Windows Server and the Veeam Backup Server often is our principal component our backup infrastructure.So, if you want to test some communication port without install telnet client, you can use PowerShell for it.Use the sintax below:Test-NetConnection -ComputerName <IP> -Port <port>Here is an example for the command:An interesting point is that if the communication port is not well succeeded, the utility make an aditional ping test:

The sequel of part 3 and last part 😄  How it works with Linux or shared folder repositoriesAs example : we connect a USB disk to a USB3-port at a NAS-device that is shared as a SMB-shareIn that scenario it’s behaving differently (it uses a limited version) than when using a Windows Server repository.Why limited?VBR keeps only information about the latest backup chain.So how is this performed :VBR creates the first time of course a full backup file on the currently attached disk, afterwards it creates incrementals until you swap or the number of configured restore points! It checks if the current chain is consistent, if so it will create a new incremental restore pointIf you swapped the disk, the chain is not consistent and will create a new full. Even when there is already a previous backup chain present. If forgets all informa

I hope, this post safes you the time I spent to figure this out.Normally I do not install Veeam Enterprise Manager (EM) unless there is a use case - like indexed file search. With it, EM can search a index - created at backup time. So no mount of restore-points is necessary to find files in backups. For more information see here:https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/em/understanding_search.html?ver=110According to my knowledge, index search is able to lists all file-versions in selected time range. For this you have to filter your search:ProblemIn multiple VBR v11 + EM environments I had the situation that index search results shows just latest file version in result. I

As promised part 2 of a 2-part topic regarding rotating USB disks 😉.But after writing this topic I had to devide it 2 separate parts because of the limitation of 50.000 characters 🤣😏 You can read the first part in OFFLINE backup copy using rotating USB disks – part 1 | Veeam Community Resource Hub As already mentioned in part 1, using rotated USB disks is a possible and affordable way to have an offline or airgapped backup copy. If you keep them offsite, the two times 1 of the golden 3-2-1-1-0 has been completed!In this part I will go a bit deeper in this topic.I will split it into 4 sections : LimitationsWhen using a r

Today I received a great surprise in my email from Madalina Cristil (@MadiCristil), the manager of the Veeam Community Legends program, and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) that I was renewed into the 2022 second intake.You can find out about the Veeam Legends program on the Community Hub here - Veeam Community Hub.It has been a great first

One of the things that we have in all our projects and backup environments are Backups Jobs.After deploying all components and servers on our Veeam infrastructure, the first thing that we do is the creation of our backup jobs.Thinking of that, I write this post telling you what is the main nomenclatures that I’ve been used on my Veeam Backup & Replication. B2D - Backup to DiskBackup jobs that we use to send data to any disk repository. B2T - Backup to TapeBackup jobs that we use to send data to tape libraries. B2C - Backup to CloudBackup jobs that we use to send data to cloud. On V11 we need a SOBR to send data to public cloud like AWS, Azure and GCP. However, if we have a Veeam Cloud Connect repository, we can send data to this kind of 'cloud' an

As a system consultant I often implement solutions for customers in the SMB market.Working for the SMB market is often more challenging than working for the enterprise market because of the limited financial budget/investment. I always try to deliver a solution that is as good and secure as for customers of the enterprise market but of course with other and cheaper solutions 😉. Of course VEEAM is always being used as the software defined backup solution 😊. For me personally the golden 3-2-1-1-0 rule is one of the most important things to keep in mind when creating a good backup solution for the customer.More info about that you can read in one of my first posts :

Just two weeks after the release of Veeam 365 version 6a, Veeam has released the first cumulative patch P20220825 (build 6.1.0.254). This patch fixes two issues which have been discovered in the 6a GA release. While, according to Veeam, those issues only affect less then 1% of the v6a users, it’s still recommended to install the patch. A backup of Security groups, Distribution groups, M365 groups, and specific users may complete with the warning: Nothing to process When this occurs no restore point is created for such objects.Note: Depending on the job configuration, the job may complete with a Success status, and the problem may occur unseen Under certain conditions, a backup job that includes SharePoint, OneDrive, or Microsoft Teams objects may run longer than expected, and the processing of lists may complete with the warning: Failed to analyze list changes. Value does not fall w

I case you haven’t seen. There are currently two ongoing surveys from Veeam; one about the Help Center and the documentations, the other one about the livestreams (Industry Insights, TechBytes). So in case you want to share some feedback on those topics, here’s your chance:Veeam Help Center: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JFBXD2HVeeam Livestreams: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VeeamStream22A Sources:https://forums.veeam.com/post461204.html#p461204  

50 Episodes of GTwGT celebrating with a great interview with David Friend, CTO of Wasabi... he is a very engaging and smart individual... really knows what he wants Wasabi to achieve. Learnt a lot about what makes them tick.

Some of you may have noticed a certificate validation error when using the Automatic Update function in the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 console. The error is due to a certificate expiring (which is needed to validate server updates). There is no cause for concern; the certificate was not compromised, and the option to manually patch the server was not interrupted. This certificate has since been updated, but a manual patch is needed to get the new certificate for validation. For those who want the quick fix, head over to KB4341. The rest of this article will cover some good-to-know information about certificates and some lessons learned.What is PKIWe commonly hear the term “cer

So part one of the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 discusses the shared responsibility model and outlines both Microsoft and Customer responsibilities. I also took at why you need to backup briefly but will dive more into this for part two. You can find resource links and part one here - Part 1 When it comes to backing up your Microsoft 365 data, there are seven reasons why you NEED to back it up -Accidental deletion: This is actually the most common cause of data loss in Microsoft  65. If you delete a user, whether you meant to or not, that deletion will then be replicated across the netw rk. A backup could restore that user, either to on-premises Exchange or Microsoft 365. Retention policy gaps and confusion: Retention policies in

UPDATE: Please see Update 3, as the hotfix/workaround needs to be undone because of possible side-effects.Just a quick information.Currently there could be an issue with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and Sharepoint. Some sites will be backed up with the following warning:Processing site XYZ finished with warning: Failed to backup list: XYZ. Unknown ErrorI have seen this with 2 different customers and Veeam support is aware of this issue and actively working with Microsoft on it. At the moment I don’t have any further information, but I’ll keep updating this post.Update 1:I just found out that there's already a hotfix available: https://www.veeam.com/kb4326I haven't tested it so far, but will report back next week. Also here

Veeam have today released the long-awaited update to Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (VB365), v6a.This release has been overshadowed by Microsoft’s controversial changes being made to the Teams backup process, forcing vendors such as Veeam to cease using EWS as a mechanism to backup Teams data, instead insisting on the use of the Teams Graph API. Why is this controversial? Because the Teams Graph API is billable per query. You can read more about this in my full blog post here.There are two key notes I’d like to highlight on this v6a release: Permissions Changelog Veeam are now including a permissions changelog for the Azure AD Application, vs the v6 release. This contains any newly required permissions, changed permissions or removed permissions, as well as describing the usag

 For this blog series, I will look at M365, which many people use daily, and why it is necessary to have backups using the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365.  Now my approach will be coming not from a typical user perspective but from an MSP (Managed Service Provider) perspective.  I will start part one of this series by going through the shared responsibility model for Microsoft 365 and how Veeam plays a key role there.  As we progress through the series, I will talk more about the installation of Veeam for Microsoft 365 and other best practices. Shared Responsibility ModelThe shared responsibility model regarding your data relates to what Microsoft is responsible for and what you as the end-user are responsible for in protecting your data.  Many thought that Microsoft did backups for your data, and that assumption could not be farther from the truth.  When your data resides in Microsoft 365 as the end-user, you are responsible for backing up your

SureBackup is a really great feature to verify your backup data. Up to now the selection of VMs to verify within a single job was limited. For example it was not possible to mix physical with virtual machines. There seems to be something new in v12 beta! With beta it is possible to add agent backup machines to virtual machines into the same Application Group and as Linked Jobs too.

VMware has announced on August 3rd that vSphere ESXi 7.x is the last version supporting Apple Mac platform.https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/88698Reasom is that Apple is moving away from the x86 processor platform.With 7.0 the MacOS platform will be supported until EOL. Guest OS support for Mac is discontinued, too.  macOS guest operating system may only be operated in VMs on vSphere ESXi hosts installed on Apple Mac hardwarehttps://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2015161

VeeamON 2022 was live this year in Las Vegas and it was a great event.  I am a little late with my review of the conference due to catching COVID when I got back which took me out last week.  But I am back to feeling great again so here is my in-depth review and many of the new things coming in v12.Being able to walk the strip as well being my first time in Vegas was something of amazement with the sights and sounds as well as the lights.  You definitely get your steps in when you go to Vegas!First off the conference was great and to be able to attend live again was something else.  Being able to discuss and mingle with the vCommunity again was terrific as chatting with someone in person is something special.  The conference was packed into three days of exciting sessions, the welcome reception, expo hall, tech town, swag shop and even

Hello everybody!Today I’m coming to talk about archive backup with blob Azure.Archiving is good option to save money with your full (GFS) backups. It means that you can save your backups as archive instead of traditional hot/cool blob of Microsoft Azure.To do that you need configure a Scale Out Backup Repository with the Archive Tier enable.After that you can move your full backups older than X day to this kind of archive, as this example: But first you need to configure your blob repository as an archive option. To do this go go to Backup Repositories inside Backup Infrastructure menu. Right click on the pane and chose Add backup repository…

More and more customers are aware of the fact that 1 copy of their backups is not longer enough  . Yes!I always recommend to my customers and colleagues to implement the golden rule 3-2-1-1-0 (see my blog post  : 3-2-1-1-0 Golden Backup Rule | Veeam Community Resource Hub).The thing I want to highlight is having 1 copy offsite and being airgapped - immutable at the same time! Veeam delivers here 2 important possibilities : using a copy

Hello,I'm taking the opportunity right now to work on a like disaster recovery plan like, with Veeam.Once the replica job is up and running, my goal is to be able to trigger a failover if the server's ping is knocked out, so I wrote a little homemade powershell script to do that. If it is useful take it.^^ Clear-HostFunction FailoverCheck{    $server = "SERVER NAME"    if (Test-Connection $server -Count 1 -Quiet -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue){        Write-Output "$server connected successfully."    }else{        Write-Output "Connection to $server failed."        Write-Verbose "Pause for 10 minutes...then try again" -Verbose        Start-Sleep -Seconds 5 # set to 600        if (Test-Connection $server -Count 1 -Quiet -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue){            Write-Output "$server connected successfully after 2nd try."        }else{            Write-Verbose "Failed again. $server needs restar

For the last few years, I have spent a lot of effort along with others at Veeam carefully watching the industry behavior when it comes to ransomware and its devastating impact it can have on an organization. I’ve also spent a lot of time putting together a lot of great works in the form of whitepapers, webinars and other assets to get the word out. Before I forget, check out these three key whitepapers:Edwin and I recap all Veeam ransomware capabilities: https://www.veeam.com/wp-protection-yourself-from-ransomware.html Hannes from Veeam Product Management goes deep and technical on the Veeam hardened repository: https://www.veeam.com/wp-guide-protect-ransomware

This Friday - I am presenting on SysAdmin Day 2022 with Sagi Brody - one of the Veeam Vanguards.But I need YOUR HELP - What is your best SysAdmin Story? I will feature it on the show and stream. Tell me a good one - I’ll share it! You can join the show to see if your session is featured also! This Friday at 11:00 AM New York time, Sagi and I will be LIVE on 4 Veeam social feeds (LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter) with a special stream. Join us on the LinkedIN feed here.I have a story that, for now, I will only refer to as “The Coworker” and Sagi will share his best SysAdmin Day story as well.But what is your best SysAdmin Day story? Do you have a save the day moment? What ab