Skip to main content
  • EN

My organization uses VMWare ESXi to manage all of our virtual machines.  We do not have the correct license to be able to do simple “copy” backups of our virtual machines (according to the error messages that I get when I attempt those).  We are having to run backups from the VEEAM agents, but, the last time that I had an issue and needed to restore, it was a pain in the a$$.  I’m assuming that this is because of the way that we are using the agents, but I really don’t know any better way.

Would it be possible for someone to point me to or help me out with a step-by-step for the best practices for backing up our virtual machines?  How should my VM hard drives be set up to allow for the quickest possible backup/restore?

If you’re using a free ESXI license, the API’s utilized for image-level backups are not enabled and you cannot perform image-level backups which is why you’re using the agent.  The same holds true for restores.  Your alternatives are purchasing an ESXI subscription, continuing to use agents for backups and restores, or moving to a different hypervisor such as Hyper-V or Proxmox, etc.

I don’t have a problem continuing to use the agents for backups/restores, I just need a step-by-step on the best way to set them up.

I don’t have a problem continuing to use the agents for backups/restores, I just need a step-by-step on the best way to set them up.

This is subjective to how you need to do your backups and other factors.  Do you want to store backups for Agents on locally attached storage or on a Veeam Repository?  If a Veeam Repo then you need to grant access to that repo.  Do you want to do image level backups or specific volumes?

Take a look at this page as it will have all the information you need and the step-by-step too - How Backup Works - Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows Guide

The restore process is more or less a “bare-metal recovery”.  Meaning you need to build a new VM that looks like the old as far as spec’s go (CPU and RAM as desired, disks as matching the old server), and then boot using the recovery media ISO, connect to your Veeam repo, be it a NAS or a VBR server or whatever, and then run the restore from there.  That feels like a pretty over-simplified version, but that’s more or less the process.  It sounds like you’ve been through it before, so without knowing what issues you’ve run into exactly in the past, it’s hard to say if there’s any room for improvements.  The way to obviously make this easier is to be using a paid license of ESXI and VBR for image level backups and restores - I don’t know that I have an easier way to do what you’re doing when it comes to an agent restore of a VM back into the hypervisor.

Comment


Terms & Conditions