Blogs and Podcasts

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Which platforms are you monitoring with Veeam ONE? Which ones are supported?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

An interesting question arose some time ago. A customer changed permissions of files on a Windows file-server VM. Changes were replicated using DFS. So far so good, but the amount of data that was processed at next incremental backup of target VM was even more than a full backup. Because incremental backup is based on VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT) feature, it was suddenly interesting to know whats the size of a CBT block. After some recherche I did not find an answer to this question. But I did find a great script that calculates CBT incremental backup size. Based on this script I created the following script to list the amount and the size of blocks changed in between of two snapshots. Outcome in shortWhen using the script – described in detail later – t

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Most people seem to agree having multiple restore points is good both for backups and replicas, but how do you really failover to an older restore point than the latest one?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Last week was Tech Field Day 22, and Veeam was happy to be back at this key Technical Decision Maker Influencer event. This was a great event and we were happy to be back, as a presenter it was a great thrill! Now that I had the weekend to think about it, I want to share a few reflections on the event exclusively here at the Veeam Community site.  Let’s start with a video I made recapping the content of the event:Now, I want to take a moment to explain the Product Strategy team's strategy for Tech Field Day overall.Why does Veeam do Tech Field Day?Straight Answer:              We are committed to ensuring technical decision maker awareness in all communities that align to Veeam’s interests.More to the Story:           My team loves doing this. We love the thrill of live Q&A, live demo and other aspects that truly embrace the spirit of technical evangelism.Who do

Because VMware snapshots is always a topic for backups, I want to share my latest experiences with VM-snapshots on NFS. I had to troubleshoot a problem with system time within a VMware vSphere VM. During backup VM freezes for more than 30 seconds. When this happens, system time in VM also stops and resets to current time after the freeze. And this behavior causes massive problems in the application-layer. During troubleshooting we found a very slow VM snapshot deletion on NFS volumes on ESXi hosts.EnvironmentIn this setup, we were running:HPE SimpliVity Hyper-converged infrastructure running in current Version. Notice: SimpliVity uses NFS v3 to present volumes to their hosts. VMware vSphere 6.7 in quite current version. Current Version of Veeam Backup and Replica

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Are you using the SElinux kernel module? Which Linux file systems are you using?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Many times I have had to do Veeam designs and this online site http://www.draw.io/ has helped me more than once !!It has Shapes from Veeam - VMware and many other Shapes, which will help you do what you need.  We can import from these options  Export in many formats 

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Do you use the on-demand sandbox for patch/update testing? How are you getting your patches/updates inside the isolated virtual lab?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

In this week's episode of #HomelabWednesdays, I show you how to deploy the free StarWind Virtual SAN that we will be using for shared storage in the home lab.Don’t forget to subscribe to get automatic notifications whenever a new video is released. 

Veeam released Version 5 of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 today!https://www.veeam.com/backup-microsoft-office-365-download.html Release notes see here:https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_microsoft_office_365_5_0_release_notes_en_rn.pdf

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Do you use the on-demand sandbox? How do you keep it running without being interrupted by source jobs starting?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. What do you do when your application tests fail in a SureBackup job? Did you look into the sequencing? What is a stabilization point?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Veeam.Backup.DBConfig.exe Utility We continue to discover Veeam utilities that we may not know were there and are very useful ...Veeam Backup & Replication comes 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:Connect to a different database on the same or another Microsoft SQL Server instance. If you specify a database that does not exist yet, it will be created on the selected server. Change authentication method for databa

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Are you running SureBackup tests on your production hosts? or did you decide to repurpose older hosts for this? If yes, what happens if there is insufficient CPU or memory on those hosts? What about custom roles? Did you create any? If yes, for which applications?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Block Sizes As can be seen from the field, optimal value for the stripe size is often between 128 KB and 256 KB. However, it is highly recommended to test this prior to deployment whenever possible.During the backup process data blocks are processed in chunks and stored inside backup files in the backup repository. You can customize the block size during the Job Configuration using the Storage Optimization setting of the backup job.By default Veeam’s block size is set to Local Target, which is 1 MB before compression. Since compression ratio is very often around 2x, with this block size Veeam will write around 512 KB or less to the repository per Veeam block.This value can be used to better configure storage arrays; especially low-end storage systems can greatly benefit from an optimized stripe size.There are three layers where the block size can be configured: Veeam block size for the backup files, the filesystem

If you are using Veeam ONE with MS SQL Express you probably either have a small environment or you just didn’t hit the 10 GB database limitation yet  But, how much space will the database then consume?The good news is Veeam offers a Veeam ONE database calculator tool right here: https://www.veeam.com/kb2246It is actually a Excel spreadsheet, but is very easy to use: But wait! Don’t forget to select the correct data collection mode you plan to use at the bottom:

I like to show all the utilities that Veeam offers us ... to perform administration tasks in the backup infrastructures Did you ever use??Extract Utility Veeam Backup & Replication comes with an extract utility that can be used to recover machines from backup files. The extract utility does not require any interaction with Veeam Backup & Replication and can be used as an independent tool on Linux and Mic

In this week's episode of #HomelabWednesdays, I show you how to migrate your domain controller and VMware vCenter Server to a new network without issues.Don’t forget to subscribe to get automatic notifications whenever a new video is released. 

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. How are you testing your applications during SureBackup jobs? Are you familiar with the expected return code from your script?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Do you utilize the on-demand sandbox feature? If yes, how do you offer access into the isolated lab?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

When a backup policy is configured in Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, the job doesn't start automatically on a backup schedule.This is a known bug of the software and the fix requires a patch installation directly in the system. Install the fixAfter copying the patch provided by the support (patch Fix_263734_34880afcb0.zip) to the appliance (you can use WinSCP), stop the service with the following comand:# sudo systemctl stop veeamazurebackupInstall the package

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. How well do you know your virtual labs and routing between the proxy appliance and your backup server?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

How do I skill up fast on Veeam Availability Suite?Maybe you are completely new to the product, or maybe you are trying to figure out what you don’t know? Regardless, you can find an easy path to get started on this topic.Step 1First of all, Veeam offers great free bite-size training at Veeam University. These videos will cover you from how to install, an overview of the console, creating your first backup jobs, and much more. My favorite part is that you get asked simple quiz style questions along the way to help you focus and validate you are learning.Step 2At this point, you might want to learn more about specific features such as restores and there is a large collection of how-to videos already provided ri

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Do you have experience deploying the advanced multi-host virtual lab? How do you handle VLANs for the port grops?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/