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If you were creating your very own Veeam training course what would you include, what would you focus on? If you have sat the VMCE training already, what you add more of or remove?What do you think are the essentials, that everyone should know about when working with Veeam?

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, and the storage volumes.Let’s use a quick example: The Veeam block size

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:In case you are wondering what this is, check out the user guide: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/one/deployment/typical_choose_collection_mode.html?ver=100 and the table from https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/one/deployment/data_collection_modes.html?ver=100 (partial screenshot): 

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 Microsoft Windows machines.The extract utility can be helpful, for example, if it is written to the tape next to machine backup files. In this case, you get a possibility to recover machines from backups at any moment of time even if backups are removed from Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Backup & Replication is uninstalled at all. IMPORTANT! The extract utility does not work with backups that are stored in scale-out backup repositories.  The extract utility can be used in two interfaces:Graphic user interface (GUI) Command-line interface working in the in

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 using the command:# sudo apt-get install /tmp/veeamazurebackup_1.0.0.261_amd64.debAfter few seconds the patch installation is completed successfully.Start the service veeamazurebackup with the command:# sudo systemctl start veeamazurebackupNow login to Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure and schedule the job. After applying the patch, the job now runs on a backup schedule.The fix for this issue is quite simple to apply and takes only few minutes.  

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 right here.Step 3Now that you have seen a number of how-to videos and recordings, it is a great time to try out the product for yourself. Perhaps you still have concerns and want to ask questions live? Veeam has regular live product demos on the website and you can find the schedule

I think a lot of customers will plan to migrate their existing repositories (NTFS, ReFS) to a new XFS repository with immutability in v11. I am curious about the options you see to migrate backup files to a new XFS repository. I have already said goodbye to the idea, block-linked (block clone (ReFS), reflink (XFS)) data can be copied without dehydration. A nice way is to put a new repository into place and let the old one(s) fade out. But how to move long-term backup? How do you migrate backup repositories?

Hi floks,does anyone use a Nimble HF40 as backup target for Veeam. So backup repository is configured als LUN formated with ReFS. We face really bad performance during tape jobs. After all it seems, Nimble Storage is not able to deliver more than 380 MB/s. With one tape drive configured to a job, the calculated processing rate within this job is 152 MB/s. Really bad performance...

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/

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Are you sending transaction log backups to an off-site location? How do you do it? What do you store them on? Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

In the following link you can read improvements in vSphere 7.0 U1 for data protection. Areas of improvements are: Network QoS for Backup Traffic Improved backup job resilience Improvements in scalability for concurrent backup jobs vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO) improvementshttps://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2020/11/18/whats-new-in-vsphere-7-u1-for-data-protection

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. Is your company 3-2-1 compliant? What do you consider as two different media types? One could argue at lot of options is “disk” in the end, but is HDD one media type and SSD a different media type? What if it is two different physical servers running Windows, is that two different media types?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

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. 

I wrote already a post about checking Microsoft ReFS space savings. Now I want to show some basics to check XFS savings too.To check space savings on repository layer go to the repository directory and run: ls -lhsYou can see the size of each file and the total size of all files. If there a way to much files, run ls -lhs | grep total Compare this to the size allocated on the volume. To show this, run df -h In this example you see space savings of: (86 - 35) = 51G Another way is the use the command xfs_bmap. It works on file-level and is very technical. I am still not sure to interpret all output correctly. At least it can show, reflink works!To show all extents of a file, this command can be used:  xfs_bmap -e -l -p -v -v -v filename. Here also additional information like a legend is displayed.I made a small script to show the size of all shared extents of all *.vbk-files. But do not overstrain it, its experimental.#!/bin/bashfor f in *.vbkdo echo "File $f size of shared extends:" xf

Today’s #VMCE2020 #DailyQuiz walkthrough is ready. How do you handle consistency during backups? Do you enable application-aware processing for all VMs? What about pre-freeze/post-thaw scripts? Do you have VMs where crash-consistent backups are sufficient?Try this question and more at https://rasmushaslund.com/vmce-practice-exam/

Backup job: mwc-appsvr-midtier_2020-11-17T095355 (Full) Error 1 of 1 VMs processed 17 November 2020 09:53:55 AM Success 0 Start time 09:53:55 AM Total size 0 B Backup size 0 B Processing mwc-appsvr-midtier Error: Access is denied. Could not perform threshold check for backup location "\\10.0.0.12\Backup\VirtualMachines\Autobackups" due to space info retrievement fail! Warning 0 End time 09:54:35 AM Data read 0 B Dedupe 1.0x Error 1 Duration 0:00:39 Transferred 0 B Compression 1.0x Details Name

Is there any ready tool to calculate how many proxy do I need in my backup environment?

Not to be a negative nelly, but don’t we already have github.com/veeamhub as a repository that is purpose built for this type of content, managed by people who know code? Can we not push community script additions there rather than turning them into effectively forum posts?