Are all my virtual machines being backed up correctly and within the required RPO?
Of course!
I think..., or not 😉?
Do I implement best practices in creating jobs?
If using vSphere, do I use folders or tags or use whole clusters to add virtual machines to the job?
If using HyperV, do I use whole clusters or hosts or in case of using SCVMM do I use tags?
Yes, OK, that ’s fine, did I not forget a new VM giving the correct tag or putting in the correct vSphere folder?
Yes it can happen to everyone to forget a VM putting correctly to the backup job (automatically or manually). Especially if you are working with colleagues (1 person is creating a new VM but is not aware about the backup and forgets to tell a colleague...). It happens.
Everyone is very busy so can forget to add the new VM at the backup job or vSphere folder or tag or...
To be sure we have several options to verify :
- Using Veeam ONE
If you are using already Veeam ONE : perfect!
You can schedule the report Protected VMs so you can verify that all VMs are being protected within the required RPO.
If you are not using Veeam ONE yet, but have an availability suite or essentials license in VBR?
Go ahead and install Veeam ONE and configure it.
If you have no Veeam ONE or VAS or VES license available, ask your partner for a quote to upgrade your existing VBR license to VAS or VES.
Unfortunately Veeam ONE is not multi-tenant, so in case of a service provider to be sure that all VMs are protected for all your tenants, you can’t use Veeam ONE except if every tenant has Veeam ONE implemented and this report is being sent to the service provider centrally. That is possible, but not the most convenient way if you have a lot of tenants.
- Using Veeam Service Provider Console
As a service provider you can install and configure the free tool Veeam Service Provider Console. With that tool you can manage and monitor your tenants using information collected from your connected Veeam Cloud Connect server and information from the tenant servers itself.
In VSPC you can also create a report for an overview of protected VMs within the required RPO.
- Using Powershell script
As a partner and service provider we are already using a central monitoring tool to monitor all servers, network devices, etc… for our customers.
Therefore I created a Powershell script that is scheduled by the monitoring tool and runs every day on the VBR server of all tenants.
This returns it results to our monitoring tool.
In that way we have a central overview to verify that all existing VMs on a vSphere cluster, host, HyperV cluster, ... what is added in the VBR inventory have a correct backup within the required RPO (default 24 hours).
Exclusions (no backup is needed) can be set (test-VMs, Citrix workers, ...)
Of course you can use such a script locally also.
In that way we are more certain that we have a correct backup within the required RPO for all VMs in the scope.
