Veeam Community Edition waketimers going nuts with Backup for Microsoft Office 365

VBR does not manage VB365 - it has its own console for administration.  VB365 tends to be installed on its own server to manage O365 backups separate from VBR/Agents.

Thanks for that helpful clarification!  I only installed Backup for Microsoft Office 365 on a single system. and when I installed the B&R console it appeared to take over managing backup on the workstation.

I uninstalled VB365 and the crazy waketimer behaviour disappeared.  I’m going to wait a bit before I put it back on again.  And do some reading. The documentation is nearly 500 pages!

Veeam Backup & Replication can manage the Veeam agents, so maybe you have taken over the standalone agent of your server? But you won’t need the full VBR installation, if you only have a single server to manage. VB365 is independent of VBR as Chris mentioned.

Regarding your issue. I think I’ve seen your post on Reddit but I didn’t have a clue on how to solve that. VB365 is a server application and meant to run 24/7, so there might be services in the background which wake up your server. I know that customers in the cloud power off their instance and start it at the beginning of the backup job; but that’s different from standby. Let’s see what Mike from Product Management will reply to your post in the R&D forums.

Thanks very much for that response, regnor.  Interesting, maybe I should clarify.

I have a separate, dedicated BDR server that does nothing but perform and manage backups, host the backup storage RAID array and hard drive swap caddy bay.  There’s no reason I’d want to use Microsoft 365 on it.

I have a pair of separate servers that provide network file services and domain control.  The BDR backs those up as well, and manages that backup.  The BDR also manages backups on personal desktops and tablets.

When I first started switching over my backup infrastructure, getting to know Veeam, I started by just installing the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (workstation edition) on my primary workstation, backing up to a USB-attached external hard drive.  That would be about when I also installed Veeam for Microsoft 365 on that system: it has a large partition dedicated to OneDrive local replication and should, in theory, have all of my OneDrive and other Microsoft 365 data (Microsoft does not make that easy to confirm.)  I wanted  some way to make sure I have a local backup of all Microsoft 365-hosted data. “Probably” isn’t good enough.

So, so far, no BDR and no Community Edition.

After I got that working and became comfortable with Veeam, I switched the BDR from my previous backup software (StorageCraft ShadowProtect), installed Veeam Community Edition on it and set up backups for all other systems to the BDR.  That when apparently when the BDR took over backups of the workstation Agent.  It also appears to have created duplicate job definitions and such, which I am only now figuring out how to clean up.

It was around this time I started notice that the (newly-upgraded) workstation could not sleep to save its life.  I would be sitting nearby doing something else, and hear its storage devices going through wakeup cycles ever 5 or 10 minutes when it should still be sound asleep.

At first I thought the problem was due to workstation upgrade issues.  It took me some time to figure out that I had a bunch of maverick Veeam-related waketimers, and that stopping Veeam’s Microsoft 365-related services stopped them and the system could sleep properly.

I have now uninstalled the Veeam Microsoft 365 backup software complete and sleep is working properly.  But I do want to backup my Microsft 365 data, which resides primarily on the workstation.  

It seems like maybe I really stepped in it by installing Veeam Microsoft 365 backup on the workstation.  _Maybe_ it was because I installed it on the workstation before installing Community on the BDR.  I don’t know.  But it seems very odd that nobody else anywhere has run into this issue.

So, now what do I do?

-- Ken

I can’t imagine that you’re alone in this issue, but I’d guess a minority in that you don’t have the system running fulltime.  Most people running VB365 will likely have a server running 24/7 and haven’t encountered the issue because of this.  Might be worth trying to open a ticket with Veeam support, but Community Edition is best effort when they have time.

I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at.  I DO have a server running 24/7.  Multiple, in fact.  I have a virtualization host cluster, a file server, and DC, and a BDR server.  But it makes zero sense to me to have OneDrive and Microsoft 365 on a server.  Is that what you are talking about?  

I didn’t install the VB365 backup on the BDR server because I didn’t install Microsoft 365 on it.  I installed VB365 backup on the system where I use Microsoft 365.  

My purpose was to have a local, complete backup of all of the data in OneDrive.  Maybe nobody else does?

I guess I’m just confused.

You are slightly confused. The vb365 solution is not required on the machine you use O365 on as it just requires a connection to that for doing backups and why you install it on a server.

So connection to the organization in O365 not the applications.

Huh.  Thanks!  OK, I’ll try that soon.

Hi @Wallewek -

I’m just following up on your M365 backup question. Did any of the provided comments help you out? If so, we ask you mark one as ‘Best Answer’ so those with a similar question who come across your post may benefit. If not, can you share what you did? 

Also, if you have further questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

Thank you.

Hi @kwallewek -

Thanks for the update. That’s really what we want...what you did (or couldn’t) do to resolve the ‘wake’ issue...not necessarily to select a ‘Best Answer’ if none fit. It appears what you did on your own in 1 of the comments → uninstall VB365 ...resolved your wake issue; although, your whole issue aside from that was you still wanted to backup your OD, but are unable to due to lack of support (licensing, it appears).

It looks like you may have created another account? This is the reason you’re not able to see and select a Best Answer (it’s an option to the left of the ‘like’ option), because you’re not the original poster account. “Wallewek” is 😊

Yeah.. I know about the multiple logins thing.  It’s related to other Veeam account hoop-jumping.  It’s a PITA but not quick and simple to clean up, so...  Maybe another time.  

All good. Thanks 😊