Hyper V - SQL VM Backup Guidance Needed

[pcts]

Hi there, we have a two node hyper v cluster (Windows Server 2012 R2). Two Hyper V servers have their OS on local drives. Our setup has 5 VM's, 3 of which are on shared storage (SAN) and the other two are domain controllers one local to each host.

I am currently trialing Veeam B&R to backup the VM's from the shared storage to another server repository.

We have 2 x SQL Server VMs in the cluster and have SQL undertaking separate daily and hourly SQL backups (transactional) for them and we are thinking that we might be best to retain SQL ownership for these, so should we disable "application aware processing" when using Veeam to backup the SQL VM and should we also exclude certain volumes (logs, data, backup etc) from the SQL VM backup using Veeam?

Thanks
PCTS

[foggy]

You can leave application-aware image processing on but configure it to perform copy only backup.

[nmdange]

It would be beneficial to have Veeam perform the hourly transaction log backups instead of SQL Server. Using Veeam to do it will allow you to keep those transaction log backups on your backup repository. So if you lose your entire SAN, you can still restore your SQL databases to the most recent transaction log backup, rather than having to go back to the last full VM backup. I also find it easier and quicker to have Veeam restore the logs for you, rather than having to manually run a RESTORE DATABASE command on a bunch of separate transaction log backup files.

[pcts]

@foggy - thanks for this - I tried this and it worked successfully.

@nmdange - thank you also for your insight and recommendations. I will have to get up to speed on how to configure the SQL server transaction log backup and restore process using Veeam but this sounds like a more comprehensive approach given it protects also again the loss of the SAN.