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This is part 2 of the blog series about Veeam Backup for Proxmox, which focuses on backup and restore. Part 1 was about the architecture and setup; in case you’ve missed it, you can find it here: 

Disclaimer: All information and screenshots in this blog post are based on an early access release. Until the final release changes can and will occur!

 

Restoring/Migrating from VMware

Before we can start to backup systems running on Proxmox, of course we need to deploy a VM. The first release of Veeam Backup for Proxmox will support cross-platform restore, so I restored an existing Windows Server 2022 system from VMware to Proxmox.

The process isn’t much different from other platforms and doesn’t require any special knowledge.

 

 

 In the storage tab, you need to select the destination storage/datastore and define which type of disk (RAW, QCOW2, VMDK) shall be used.

 

 

After the restore completed, I noticed that the BIOS was set to “SeaBIOS” by default. As Windows Server 2022 required UEFI to boot, I changed this.

 

And as expected the server booted up without issues and was back running; just like on VMware.

To be honest: At the beginning I actually installed this server on Proxmox, restored it to VMware, deleted it on Proxmox and restored it back again. So this VM moved its platform twice without any problems 😉

 

Creating a backup job

Again this is not special at all, if you worked with Veeam in the past, you will already know how to backup Proxmox VMs.

In addition to selecting dedicated virtual machines or the host, resource pools can be added to a backup job.

 

The backup completed in 3:05 minutes (starting the worker required about 1 minute), which is ok for my lab environment. From 32GB allocated, 12GB were in use and only 6,5GB were transferred. The resulting backup file had almost the same size as the one for VMware.

 

Restore options

I don’t want to go into detail for the restore options, because those are again very similar to what we already know.

For Proxmox backups the following options will exist in the first release:

  • Instant recovery to Hyper-V, Nutanix and VMware
  • Guest File Restore
  • Restore to Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure and Google CE
  • Restore entire VM to Nutanix AHV and Proxmox
  • exporting & publishing of disks

While Application Aware Processing won’t be available in the first release, it’s worth noting that you can still do application item restores. In case of the restored VM, I could, for example, restore Active Directory objects.

 

Conclusion

The beta of Veeam Backup for Proxmox already works very well and offers a nice feature set for the first release. From the setup to the backup and restore process, nothing is special or complicated; just like the backup of all other existing platforms with Veeam. I will continue testing it and might post a 3rd part if something interesting comes up.

Great article Max, thank you.
Looks like “works like a charm” and the handling is mostly like we know and use already. Time to onboard some Proxmox Workloads in the near future 😄
Beeing a bit afraid if some of our customers will switch from vSphere to Proxmox or AHV, but if the Proxmox integration is GA, i'll be fine with this as well, as far they stay with VBR 😀

cheers Markus


Was wondering when you were gonna get the 2nd part out Max. Good writeup and thanks for the share! 😊


Great second part to your blog series Max.  I am installing Proxmox now and will be testing the plugin Z well so this helps. 👍


Great second part to your blog series Max.  I am installing Proxmox now and will be testing the plugin Z well so this helps. 👍

A blog post coming?…. 😏


Great second part to your blog series Max.  I am installing Proxmox now and will be testing the plugin Z well so this helps. 👍

A blog post coming?…. 😏

🤔 🫣


Very Excited for Proxmox Support GA! Great write up, can’t wait to use it!


I would love to beta test veeam proxmox plugin

 


I may have missed it wanted to ask can we restore into a ceph cluster? 


I may have missed it wanted to ask can we restore into a ceph cluster? 

Based on this page I don’t believe you can - Supported Platforms and Applications - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com)


I may have missed it wanted to ask can we restore into a ceph cluster? 

Based on this page I don’t believe you can - Supported Platforms and Applications - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com)

I don’t see any info here for Proxmox currently, again, unless I’m missing something.


I may have missed it wanted to ask can we restore into a ceph cluster? 

Based on this page I don’t believe you can - Supported Platforms and Applications - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com)

I don’t see any info here for Proxmox currently, again, unless I’m missing something.

Proxmox plugin is Beta still not GA as yet.  That page will update once it is available.  So you may need to wait a bit longer to find out.

 
 
 

I may have missed it wanted to ask can we restore into a ceph cluster? 

Based on this page I don’t believe you can - Supported Platforms and Applications - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com)

I don’t see any info here for Proxmox currently, again, unless I’m missing something.

Proxmox plugin is Beta still not GA as yet.  That page will update once it is available.  So you may need to wait a bit longer to find out.

 
 
 

Well that is why I’m asking on this blogpost about folks testing proxmox backups.  I don’t have access to the Beta so it would be good to know what has been tested or not tested.


@smitchuson Unfortunately I don't have any information on that but at least it's not currently listed as a limitation. As far as I know Ceph only cannot be used as a snapshot storage.


Hi, can you make a comparison with Proxmox Backup Server?
I am very happy with PBS, it is simple, lightweight, well integrated.
Backups and restores are easy to manage, as are prune, garbage and retention.

My biggest problem is that it does not backup the proxmox host and does not protect other clients in the network. In addition to not supporting S3 cloud backups.

I am trying veeam (I know it because we use it where I work) and I would like to use it as the only backup program for the proxmox home server and windows clients. I am not sure if it handles deduplication as well as PBS.


This plugin is ready for download?


This plugin is ready for download?

Not GA yet no if that is what you're asking.


In case you were waiting for the release, it's here 😉

https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_12_2_whats_new_wn.pdf


Thanks for the info Max, will later check the release notes. 
To bad, had yesterday an onboarding for a whole setup of VBR, ONE, EM on V12.1.2... so tomorrow some updates to install 😅


@regnor, I am not sure what this means “In case you were waiting for the release, it's here 😉

https://www.veeam.com/veeam_backup_12_2_whats_new_wn.pdf

Does it mean, the version 12.2 already contains the plugin “Veeam for Proxmox”?


@reklov Yes, 12.2 also contains the new plug-in for Proxmox.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbproxmoxve/userguide/deployment.html?ver=1


Thanks alot. We successfully upgraded to 12.2. It all works easily and smoothly.


I observed, that the hardware resources seems to be particulary oversized / undersized:

I there a way to configure the worker’s hardware inside the Veam software?

 

Next: Is it possible to have a progress information e. g. x% of yGB transfered?

The next information I get is, when it is ready, but in the meantime there is no information whats going on


Hi @reklov , you can edit worker advanced settings in VBR console.

Regarding progress details, I don’t known, I have noticed it too.


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