Blogs and Podcasts

Recently I had to troubleshoot an error in Veeam Backup and Replication. Error appeared at File Level Restore operations. In detail: restore Windows files from a Veeam Hardened Repository.Environment consists of existing and freshly installed proxies and repositories servers. New repository servers were Windows and Linux as hardened repository (LHR). Mount server was a physical Windows server.Problem that occurredWhen we tried to restore files from LHR we get errors like these:   We also could see that mounting of the restore point worked for a few moments. Restore Explorer also showed first directories. After a few seconds, mount point was disconnected automatically and browsing in Explorer resulted in an error.After some tests we found out, this only happens when we were using newly installed proxies as mount servers. It worked fine with already running proxies and even with new Windows repository server.That was solved the problemWhen we were checking the configuration of new proxy

IntroductionOne of the most notable upcoming Veeam Backup and Replication v12 capability is Direct to “Object Storage” backups.I thought it might come in handy to share a small AWS cli cheat sheet with the community. Initial AWS cli configurationThe first step is to run aws configureAll you need to provide are access key and secret key. You specify the --endpoint-url directly in the commands.Next, make sure you are using v4 signature aws configure set default.s3.signature_version s3v4 Creating a simple bucketaws s3api create-bucket --bucket <yourbucketname> --endpoint-url=<yourendpointurl> --no-verify-sslNote: You don’t necessarily need the --no-verify-ssl option except if like me you are lazy with certificates in your lab. Creating a bucket with object lockCheck out this great post from my colleague Steve Firmes where he discusses “How to avoid an Immutability Migraine”.The command is pretty straight forward:aws s3api create-bucket --bucket <yourbucketname> --object-

Account lockout help keep user accounts secure by preventing unauthorised users etc., from guessing the username and password. When your account is locked, you will have to wait for a specified amount of time before being able to log into your account again. Here is the link to the original blogpost. In the past, it was recommended to disable the local Administrator account due to several known vulnerabilities such as the built-in administrator account cannot be locked out no matter how many failed logins it accrues, making it a prime target for brute-force attacks that attempt to guess passwords. This is no longer true as beginning October 11, 2022, or later Windows cumulative updates, a local policy will be available to enable local administrator account lockouts.  Brute force attacks are one of the prevalent ways Windows devices are attacked today. Previously, Windows devices did not allow local administrators to be locked out. This leads to scenarios where, without the proper netwo

A new feature in vSphere 7 is the ability to configure a VMkernel port used for backups in NBD (Network Block Device) respectively Network mode. This can be used to isolate backup traffic from other traffic types. Up to this release, there was no direct option to select VMkernel port for backup. In this post I  show how to isolate NBD backup traffic in vSphere.ConfigurationIt is quite simple to configure backup traffic isolation. With vSphere 7 there is a new service tag for Backup: vSphere Backup NFC. NFC stands for Network File Copy. By selecting this, vSphere will return the IP address of this port when the backup software asks for ESXi hosts address.So all you need to do is to add a new VMkernel port, enable Backup service and set IP and VLAN ID. Host does not need to be rebooted. Now NBD backup traffic will be routed through this port.   How does it look likeFor verification there are a few options. You can check log file or monitor ESXi network throughput. On my demo ESXi host, I

Complementing my last post highlighting the Veeam software releases reaching end of support in 2023, I’m once again providing an expanded list of software that Veeam works with, that will be approaching end of life in 2023. Why does this matter when I’m just trying to protect the data? Times change, and software changes with them, until it’s no longer supported. At any point, a patch to an operating system, a .NET framework update, or anything else really, could end up with the software no longer being backed up properly, or not working at all in production. Without valid support there’s no process to get a fix, and whilst your backup software may still be in support with Veeam, if the vendor won’t fix the problem, it’s time to start panicking.With this in mind, let’s explore the software & operating systems being declared end of life in 2023 so we can start planning our upgrades/migrations if necessary. Microsoft We may as well start with one of, or potentially the largest softwar

It’s that time again to remind everyone that all good things run out of support eventually. The 2023 calendar year has the following products reaching end of support status for the following products.February 2023Veeam Backup & Replication v10 Veeam ONE v10 Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows v4 Veeam Agent for Linux v4March 2023Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV v2 Veeam Service Provider Console v4June 2023Veeam Agent for Oracle Solaris v2July 2023Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator v3 (Formerly known as ‘Veeam Availability Orchestrator’)September 2023Veeam Agent for IBM AIXDates To Be Defined:Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v5 (Formerly known as Veeam Backup for Office 365) Veeam Backup for AWS v4 Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure v3 Veeam Backup for Google Cloud v2As a footnote to this section, why do I say ‘dates to be defined’? This is because Veeam’s support for these products is based on ‘Next GA Date + 1 Version’ for the cloud protection products (AWS/Azure/GCP), and ‘Next GA date +

Hi! Thinking about Polish M365 users i prepared short article about Veeam Backup for MS365. https://inleo.pl/blog/veeam-backup-for-ms365-czyli-gdzie-zaczyna-sie-twoja-odpowiedzialnosc/Here is English summary. Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model, in the simplest words, says “Your data – your matter.”Many people aren’t aware of that and think they are protected against data loss. They are partially right, but only in case of internal Microsoft infrastructure failures. Microsoft replicates its regions between each other to maintain the continuity of the services. But replication and backup are different things. If your file gets damaged, it will be replicated in its current state, and you will not be able to restore it. If you delete a file accidentally, and 93 days are left (the time of MS Data retention), you will not be able to restore it. So how do you cope with it?The solution is Veeam Backup for M365, a great tool that allows you to protect data stored in M365, Hybrid, or On-Pre

I’d like to first thank Rick Vanover, Madalina Cristil, Nikola Pejková, Aubrey Galen, and everyone at Veeam for their efforts and support leading into the Veeam 100 Summit. It’s a HUGE undertaking that requires many levels of coordination. This was my first time attending the event in person. It was an honour to attend such a prestigious event and meet many fellow Vanguards, Legends and MVPs in person.  It is amazing how being at an event and being able to speak to others of the same mindset makes you feel great.  As for the host city of Prague, it never fails.Day 1 included a Welcome Reception.A big thanks to Jim Jones and 11:11 Systems for sponsoring our Go Kart event earlier in the day! It’s safe to assume everyone thoroughly enjoyed this experience!Day 2 was the official kickoff for the Veeam 100 Summit. Rick, Madalina, and Hannes Kasparick started the day with a presentation in which we learned more about the various Community groups managed by each.  If you’re not familiar with e

A quick note on an important point that I missed originally in Microsoft’s announcement. As users are starting to find their basic authentication mechanisms are being actively disabled, Microsoft have provided one last mechanism to prevent a complete outage if you rely on basic authentication currently. Which Protocols Are Impacted? If you’re using basic authentication for any of the following protocols, you might find that suddenly it has stopped working:Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) Exchange Web Services (EWS) IMAP MAPI Offline Address Book (OAB) POP Remote PowerShell RPC I Think This Impacts Me, What Do I Do? Microsoft are offering one final time to re-enable Basic Authentication, via the self-service diagnostics, direct link here.From this link, you can see which protocols are disabled, and choose a specific protocol that you can re-enable. Warning: Microsoft Are Serious This Time Microsoft have stated that any protocols that are re-enabled will be automatically disabled in the first c

Why protecting Microsoft 365 data is so important Your organization's data is one of its most valuable assets. That's why it's so important to have a plan in place to protect it. Microsoft 365 provides a comprehensive set of tools and services to help you safeguard your data, but it's up to you to put them to use.In this post, we'll explore some of the key ways you can protect your Microsoft 365 data, including enabling multi-factor authentication, using Azure Information Protection, using Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, and more.Don't wait until it's too late to start protecting your data. Read on to learn more about how you can keep it safe with Microsoft 365.The Importance of Data Protection Data protection is critical for any organization that relies on Microsoft products and services. By ensuring that data is protected, organizations can maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of their data. Additionally, data protection can help organizations meet compliance req

Hey guys, here are some cool gears for grabs! This is the right time to learn about VMware Aria Hub.This offer is only available during the VMware Explore Europe 2022 period which is from the November 7th through November 11th, 2022. Go to the Hands-on-Labs area and request HOL-2301-08-ISM “VMware Aria Hub – A look at what’s next in Multi-Cloud Management”.At the completion of the lab, you will be able to order Cloud Management gear as a gesture of our appreciation to be shipped to you*.Hey guys, let’s run with this….  

Thinking of becoming a Veeam Vanguard or a Veeam Legends and you want to know what is all about the Veeam 100 Summit that everyone talking about?When you read this recap of the first day you will understand what you  can expect when you are a Veeam Vanguard or a Veeam Legend and join in the Veeam 100 Summit.The Veeam 100 Summit is all about content sharing and also a get together with a group of people from all over the world and talk about technology and other subjects. And yes you can make good friends in this group. And of course, the summit is just a part of this great Veeam community program #Veeam100In this first day there was a lot of content sharing.First Day:First Session - Introduction and 2022 Veeam 100 Summit KickoffThe first session starts with a welcome to everyone and the new arrivals(new Vanguards, Legends, and MVP). In this session, Rick, Madi, and Hennes talk about Vanguard, Legends, and MVP.A lot of information about what the program is (for the new ones) and what to

Hi Folks, It will be a great honour and huge pleasure to have a chat with Mumshad Mannambeth from Kodekloud. I found all the Kubernetes certifications to be very challenging exams. Kodekloud’s courses are excellent and the practice exams prepared me for what was going to come. All of the Linux Foundation exams (except for the entry level KCNA) are hands on from the command line. There are time restraints and you have to solve real problems that can occur in production. The experience was like dealing with multiple priority 1 emergencies one after the other. The key is learning the material but also putting the kubectl commands to muscle memory. Of course keeping your cool is a huge priority. I hope to find out a lot of interesting details from Mumshad about how he created Kodekloud but also get some tips on what is coming and what are the hot topics in the Devops education world.  

Last week Veeam did release Veeam Backup for Salesforce (VBSF). VBSF is a completly new product which offers backup for the Salesforce CRM plattform.Salesforce only has very limited possibilities for backing up your data & metadata, just like many other PaaS vendors (plattform as a service). On the other hand they recommend their customers to regularly create backups. For more informations see this article: Best practices to backup Salesforce dataInstallationVBSF is supported to run on CentOS 7, RedHat Linux 7/8 and Oracle Linux 7/8, and uses PostgreSQL as a database. So in order to install and manage it, you should have at least some basic Linux skills. You can choose to install the software and it’s dependencies manually, or use the setup script provided by Veeam, which automates all the necessary steps:sudo curl https://repository.veeam.com/yum/el/vbsf-install-script.sh --output ./vbsf-install-script.shsudo sh ./vbsf-install-script.shhttps://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbsf/usergu

The following disclosure vulnerability (CVE-2022-22948) was reported to VMware by Yuval Lazar (@Ul7raVi0l3t) of Pentera. To remediate this vulnerability, apply the patch in the response matrix below as it applies to you. The vCenter Server contains an information disclosure vulnerability due to improper permission of files. VMware has evaluated the severity of this issue to be in the Moderate severity range with a maximum CVSSv3 base score of 5.5.Below are the affected productsVMware vCenter Server (vCenter Server) VMware Cloud Foundation (Cloud Foundation)An information disclosure vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server was privately reported to VMware. Updates are available to remediate this vulnerability in affected VMware products.Known Attack VectorsA malicious actor with non-administrative access to the vCenter Server may exploit this issue to gain access to sensitive information.ResolutionTo remediate CVE-2022-22948 apply the patches listed in the 'Fixed Version' column of the 'R

Nowadays a lot customers are using M365 and that’s a good choice!What are the most important components of this SaaS solution :Exchange online Sharepoint Online Teams Onedrive for Business Wow, instead of having your data on-premise we have it now in the public cloud!Is that a good idea?Yes, it’s running on a big high available infrastructure, always available and everywhere available whether we are at the office or at home.We are rid of upgrades – maintenance – security patches, just pay on a monthly base and Microsoft does the rest for us.True?Absolutely not !!!Hmm, what do we still have to do as a customer?Taking care of the backups of all your data in M365 !!!Is Microsoft not doing this for us, in our monthly fee?Not at all! That is one of the biggest misconceptions : Microsoft is not taking care of everything.In short : the customer is responsible for their own data in M365.Microsoft is not taking care of your data and is not taking backups and will never restore your data if need

For my first Veeam Community post, I thought I would share with you all something I’ve been doing for over a decade - an exam prep Study Guide; this one being for VMware VCP-DCV 2021. For those who haven’t followed me over the years, I started creating these “outlines”, i.e. Study Guides, for my own benefit to help me with tech cert exam prep. I then thought others in the community may benefit using them, so I decided to share them online. I generally post them on Twitter, so if you’d like to follow me, you can do so from here.When reviewing the VMware ‘Blueprint’ for the DCV 2021 exam as compared to the 2020 exam, I was initially overwhelmed by the additional content for 2021. As I dove deeper into the 2021 exam Objectives, it turns out a lot of them were similar to what was asked to know for the 2020 exam, so it wasn’t too bad to review. As with most of my Guides, I enjoyed learning about the new tech VMware implemented with vSphere 7 - e.g. Identity Federation & Lifecycle Manage

Unable to add extent Local Repository because it servers as the target for one or more job types which are not supported by a scale-out backup repository. We trying to add a new scale-out repository.

Hi there! I would like to share with all of you this awesome tool called Apache GuacamoleApache Guacamole is a clientless remote desktop gateway. It supports standard protocols like VNC, RDP, and SSH.I use it a lot to connect to my HomeLab, instead of enabling a VPN and open few RDP and SSH, I use my Navigator to connect to my Servers, no matter where Im connecting from (Ipad, Macbook, Raspberry Pi, Windows, etc.)For me is very useful, you can add MFA, SSL Cert, etc. very flexible and friendly.Here you will find the Installation files, instructions and useful information.Just a few screenshots!These are from my home lab. In another post, I will share with you a basic deploy and configuration, over vsphere. Home access Connections list Windows Server 2016 RDP over HTML5!SSH over HTML5!Windows Server + other tabs on topenjoy!.

Recently I needed to restore a SAP Oracle Database and I received this error below: After open a ticket with Veeam support I discover that this error has relation with SAP Oracle Databases specifically. The solution was a fix on Veeam Explorer for Oracle. After applying it my restore ran successfully.However, it doesn't have a public KB about this error and only support Veeam has access for this fix.So, if any of you get this kind of error, I recommend open a ticket with Veeam to solve your problem as soon as possible.

This is part two of the blogpost. Part one can be found here: SOBR Archive Tier – Explained and Configured – Part 1 of 4 | Veeam Community Resource HubIn this part will will discuss the reason behind having different tiers and how they appear within Microsoft Azure. Hot or Cool? – what’s it all aboutS3 storage or blob storage as it is also called is offered by the hyperscalers in various flavors that basically differ in speed of access and the cost charged for the in- or egress of data as well as its storage. We can generally decide between hot, cool and archive for Microsoft Azure. This translates to Standard and Standard-IA (=infrequently accessed) with Amazon AWS. The concept behind is the same. In the following I will stick to the terminology as of Azure.The capacity tier of the SOBR allows us to leverage either “hot” or “cool” storage tiers from the portfolio the hyperscaler offers. Both tier modes have the same access methodology (API) and the main difference is:Hot: Higher stora

In this Link https://bp.veeam.com/vbo/ you can find everything related to:Best Practice Guide for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365This guide is intended to provide best practices for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. It is not meant as a full documentation or detailed explanation of features. Please refer to the Veeam Help Center for this kind of documents.The best practice guide is inteded for professionals who search for a best practice answer to different topics. To allow deeper understanding of why we recommend specific best practices we add deeper information on the topics where applicable.Be aware that a best practice is not the only answer available. It will fit in the majority of cases but can also be totally wrong under different circumstances. Make sure you understand the implications of the advised best practices or ask someone who does. This time we will seeConfiguration Maximums This section covers the supported VBO configuration maximums. Numbers might vary depe

Next week it will be back to Kubernetes but this week we are still talking O365 Backups  

IntroAn often overlooked feature we can leverage since V11 is the archive tier for the Scale-Out-Backup-Repository (SOBR).SOBR: Tiers against fears… 😉While we find quite some good guidelines for the Veeam side of the functionality (e.g. Archiving Backup with Microsoft Azure Blob | Veeam Community Resource Hub), I’d consider it helpful to have some more insights to the technology and a guideline to also set up the hyperscalers side of the archive tier. I’ll choose Microsoft Azure here as an example. In the following blogpost with four parts (TLDR), I’ll walk you through some background and the complete setup.  A short history of the SOBRA scalable storage layer for backups is crucial for larger environments. This is why Veeam brought us the Scale-Out-Backup-Repository with VBR version 9.0 already. First it only consisted of the so called “performance tier” – that is the on-premises storage devices being pooled together as so called “extents” in a very flexible way.With Version 9.5 U4 t

I’ve just seen VMware has announced a revision to their expected release date of vSphere & vSAN 8, and for the right reasons! The VMware vSphere 7.0 Legacy I won’t go on a bashing spree of VMware vSphere 7 release, but… it wasn’t good. The highlights of which include aggressive wear & tear, and subsequent killing of, SD cards and lower durability storage. Additionally, VMware had to temporarily pull some v7 U3 releases due to Quality Assurance (QA) issues.With the issues mentioned above being part of the story of the infamous v7 release history, I felt positive when my RSS reader pulled [UPDATE: Link has been pulled by VMware] this article [/UPDATE] from VMware this morning. In summary, General Availability (GA) of vSphere & vSAN 8.0 have both been pushed to the 11th October 2022, with VMware specifically calling out addition time wanted for QA. [UPDATE] As this link has been pulled, I can't confirm if this is still VMware's proposed date, or if it was a placeholder. [/UPDA