Blogs and Podcasts

Again, we have a cool opportunity to win some cool gadMicrosoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft.gets. Register with Veeam for a chance to win a Canon Camera or other great prizes, and a Free T-Shirt. Enter To Win Great Prizes with the following registration link: https://bit.ly/veeamplusmicrosoft After registering, do not forget to share on Social Media to gain extra entries, make sure to use the following hashtag #VeeamatMicrosoftIgnite2022. This piece was shared on the following link1 and link2.For some of us that are not so familiar with this event, Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft. You can register via the  the following link: https://register.ignite.microsoft.com/.By registering any participating in the event, you will be able to explore the latest innovations, learn from product experts and partners, level up your skillset, and create connections from around the

If you had this on your 2022 IT bingo card, well done, you probably should try the lottery. If you’re less psychically gifted however, this announcement is slightly bizarre. Microsoft announced yesterday that they’re intending to retire their Basic SKU IP Addresses. Here’s everything we need to know. Basic SKU only, Standard SKU Unaffected It wouldn’t be much of a cloud if we couldn’t access it, so don’t worry, only Basic SKUs will be impacted by this change. Microsoft have announced that on the 30th September 2025, Basic SKU IP addresses will be retired.Further, from the 31st March 2025, you won’t be able to provision new Basic SKU IP addresses. How do these SKUs differ? Static/Dynamic IP AddressesAll IP Address allocations are static within the Standard SKU, whereas the Basic SKU offers Dynamic/Static for IPv4 and Dynamic is the only option for IPv6. Security ModelStandard SKU IP Addresses follow the ‘Secure-by-Default’ model. This means it’s mandatory to utilise a Network Security G

Alt Text: Header Image with the text “In the Lab With: Veeam”, subheading “Breaking the Consolidaiton/Merge Stalemate For VMware vSphere & Microsoft Hyper-V”Have you ever seen a snapshot/checkpoint fail to merge? Maybe VMware vSphere was telling you that a virtual machine required consolidation, or Microsoft Hyper-V reported that the checkpoint couldn’t be merged. Whatever the reason, it’s a painful situation.Or should I say, it’s a painful situation, ONCE you notice! And IF you don’t, you have a disaster approaching. Why Snapshots/Checkpoints are bad in the long-term If you need bringing up to speed as to why we don’t like snapshots/checkpoints sticking around, here’s the non-exhaustive, good to know key points:Snapshots/Checkpoints make the original virtual disk a read-only file, and all changes from the snapshot/checkpoint creation point forwards are saved to a ‘delta’ virtual disk. This will consume more storage space. Snapshots/Checkpoints cause increased IO penalties, reducin

I just want to share two tips for the VBR console that can make life simpler. Both of them are related to the live job protocol. I made two GIF files to illustrate them better.Historic viewFirst is to show not just the current running respectively last run, but also log of all previous runs. This can easily be done be using left and right courser keyswithin the log viewer. This looks like this: Last 5 minutes vs. all time performanceSecond is to simply switch performance graph between last 5 minutes and all time view. This can be done by just clicking into the graph. I hope you find this useful as me!

Finding Indexed JobsWhen many users start with Veeam, they turn indexing on for everything not understanding what it does or that it requires Enterprise Manager. The environment I inherited had this exact issue.  I have modified the jobs that the file servers are still indexed for quick search/restore but here is a handy little PS command to find all of the jobs using indexing on your Veeam Server. Script Get-VBRJob | where {$_.GetVSSOptions().WinGuestFSIndexingOptions.IsIndexingRequired -eq $True}   Listing all VM backup sizesAnother helpful PS script is to get the size of all of the VM backups. I often want to know which VM’s are taking up the most room, and having a total of the VBK’s and VIB’s without doing math on 30+ incrementals.This will gather all the required info and can be exported if needed. If you have multiple repositories the jobs may show up more than 1 time as there will be a separate entry for each repo.  It’s still a great way to charge back to the VM owners.    Scr

Hi everyone,  For a possible upcoming project on the Veeam Community Hub I am looking for someone who has a feeling with Automation. While I cannot share much about the project just yet, I am looking for someone that would have time to assist me and probably someone else in organizing events, blogs, content etc. Please reach out to me with an DM if you are interested

In other topics I have talked about how to make a Veeam On line design, but ... For those who continue to use visio, I leave here the Stencils where you can download them for free …https://www.veeam.com/es-lat/vmware-esx-stencils.html?ad=in-text-link   

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 true, but they are not. 😆In fact, it’s dangerous to assume these myths are true in this cloud age, as they may result in downtime and data loss at a highe

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 information about former backup chain. So as before, I configure the job again with 7 to 10 restore points.So what will happen in the scenario of 7 restore points and

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 spent some time to troubleshoot, ask colleagues, recherche. Finally I get an answer in R&D forum:https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/search-not-behaving-like-i-would-expect-t72642.htmlShort answerIndexed search should show all file versions. This feature is broken in v11 and will be fixed. 

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 repository with the rotating drive option, you have some limitations you have to keep in mind. Those are :On one managed server, you must create only one repository with rotated drives It is NOT possible to store archive full backups (GFS) with backup or backup copy jobs It is NOT possible to use per-VM backup files It is NOT possible to rescan the backup repository NF

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 year in the Legends program, and I was happy to contribute to helping the community. I look forward to another year and meeting many of the Legends in person at the #Veeam100 event in October.There are some great benefits to being a Legend -As a part of Veeam Legends, you’ll be eligible for unique content, NFR licenses, private betas, prelaunch briefings, Veeam R&D insights and, of course, awesome Veeam Legends swag!But one of the most significant benefits is being part of a community to share knowledge, experience, tips, tricks, etc.  I know this from already being in the Veeam Vanguard program for the past five years.So if you are interested, check

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' and use B2C name on backup job. BC - Backup CopyBackup copy jobs we often use to make one or more copies of data between repositories or sites. LTR - Longe Term RetentionBackup copy jobs we can have to attend a long-term retention on data ar

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 : 3-2-1-1-0 Golden Backup Rule | Veeam Community Resource Hub In this post (part 1 of 2 parts) I explain a bit more about implementing the second 1 in the rule – offline backup.One of the solutions is using rotating USB disks.This is specifically for backups of VMs and/or backups using agents of physical/cloud objects.In part

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 within the expected range. For more information and to download the patch, visit the following KB: https:

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 “certificates” with applications or websites and understand this is generally associated with security but may not understand what role certificates play. To start, let's talk about what a certificate is. A digital certificate is used to initiate an information exchange in two major parts; first, by saying, “ you

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 Microsoft 365 are designed to help organizations comply with regulations, laws and internal policies that require that they retain or delete content; they are not back ps. But even if you do rely on your retention policy in place of a backup, these retention

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's the corresponding R&D forums post: https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-for-microsoft-365-f47/warning-on-my-sharepoint-site-t81314.htmlUpdate 2:It looks like the issue itself is gone since Saturday; perhaps Microsoft did change something on their side. I did

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 usage of these permissions. This is available within the v6a release notes, available here. Alt Text: Image displaying the permissions tables within the release notes Microsoft Teams API will NOT be enabled by default

 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 data.What is explicitly each party respo

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.