The Veeam SAP HANA Plugin is an SAP-certified backup tool that connects directly to SAP HANA through the Backint interface and lets you store transaction-consistent database backups and log files in Veeam backup repositories. It acts as an intermediary between the SAP HANA server and Veeam, compresses the backups, transfers them to the Veeam repository via Data Mover, and allows backup and restore operations using native SAP tools such as SAP HANA Studio, Cockpit, and HDBSQL.

As the plug-in only establishes the interface to Veeam, all further configuration is carried out via SAP, and SAP administrators are free to configure this as they wish.

Installing the plugin is quite simple, but there are a few things to consider beforehand.

Preparations / Basic Information

OS and HANA Version
The OS and SAP HANA version must be compatible with the currently used Veeam version.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/plugins/system_requirements_saphana_64.html?ver=120

Firewall Rules
Firewall rules must be configured as specified in the Veeam Help Center.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/plugins/ports_vpsh.html?ver=120

Licensing
The SAP HANA plugin can be used with both Veeam Universal licenses and socket licenses.

Veeam Universal Licensing (VUL) – (Instance-based):

• Each SAP HANA host consumes one License Unit
• Scale-Out Clusters: Each node consumes one License Unit

Socket-based Licensing (Legacy):

• Only supported with Enterprise Plus edition.
• Requires a license for each hypervisor CPU socket used by protected SAP HANA servers.
• If the hypervisor is not added to the Veeam infrastructure, an instance unit is consumed instead

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/plugins/licensing_hana.html?ver=120

Veeam Backup Repositories
A supported backup repository is required. Not all repository types are compatible.

For example, with version 12 of VBR, it is not possible to back up to an S3 repository using the plugin. This is only possible from V13 onwards (Yeah!!).
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/plugins/sap_repos.html?ver=120

Backint Version
Backint version 1.0 is required for backing up “SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 02-08”!

Backups are not possible with version 1.5 and will fail.
In my case the customer had an TSM Tivoli agent installed before that used 1.5. We had to search for quite a while before we found the error with the wrong version.

If Version 1.5 is enabled, you will see for example following error inside the backint.log:

In this case you must change the Backint protocol version to 1.0.

Installation

SAP HANA Plugin
The plugin RPM file must match the currently installed Veeam version!
The current RPM is always included in the Veeam Dataplatform/VBR ISO.

Mount the ISO and go to the Plugins\SAP HANA\x64 directory.
Take the VeeamPluginforSAPHANA-x.rpm file and upload it to a temporary folder on the HANA Server (for example with WINSCP).

Veeam User and Repository permissions
To be able to connect to the VBR/ the repository from the SAP HANA plugin, a local user must be created on the VBR server who is authorized to access the repository required for SAP.

Create a local user on the VBR server.

Select the desired repository and go to “Access permissions.”

Set “Repository access” to “allow to the following accounts or groups only” and add the SAP backup user created on the VBR here.

Plugin installation
Log in to the system via SSH (root!) and install the RPM file.

rpm -i <path-to-RPM-file>

Basic Plugin configuration
The plugin must be configured under the user under which the SAP instance is also running.

Switch users with “su – instanceuser” and execute the command

SapBackintConfigTool --wizard

The parameters of the Veeam server and the authorized repository must now be specified in the wizard. The previously created user is specified for communication with the Veeam server.

Now the plugin is configured and has been connected to Veeam and the Veeam repository.

Further configuration is handled in the SAP HANA Cockpit from SAP Admins.

Preferred Networks
By default, no preferred network needs to be set.

Preferred networks specify dedicated network IP ranges that the HANA Backint plug-in should use for data transfer to Veeam Repo and VBR. The plug-in attempts to use the entries in the list in order; if a connection fails, it automatically moves on to the next entry.

Show preferred networks

SapBackintConfigTool --show-preferred-networks

Adding preferred networks 

SapBackintConfigTool --add-preferred-network <network_IP_address> <position_in_list>

 Delete preferred networks

SapBackintConfigTool --remove-preferred-network <network_IP_address>

Further configuration
Further configurations and options can be found in the Veeam Help Center.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/plugins/configure_sap_hana_plugin.html?ver=120

Test

Test Backup
To test whether the configuration was successful, initiate a manual backup. To do this, go to the backup management of the respective database and select “Create Backup.”

After some time, the backup job should appear in the Veeam Console:

That’s it. I think that for a fairly complex product like SAP HANA, configuring the backup is quite simple with Veeam.

Original post on my Blog: https://petersvirtualworld.de/veeam-sap-hana-backup-and-the-correct-backint-version/