vCenter Backup with Veeam

[mongie]

Hello All,

Just wondering what consensus is on backup on the vCenter server (and truncating logs).

We configure veeam to communicate directly with the host on which the vCenter server is hosted, which gets around the SQL Truncation limitations, however with DRS moving the server around, sometimes out jobs will become invalid.

Does anyone have a solution to this? Do you just pin your vCenter server?

[haslund]

Hi Alex,

Which version of Backup & Replication are you running?
Based on your post I will assume you have VMware vCenter Server and Microsoft SQL Server on the same virtual machine.

Since v7, Veeam should automatically exclude the vCenter SQL database from VSS processing. This means you can backup your vCenter/SQL VM directly through the vCenter, eliminating the need to add a host directly.

In the past, around 2 years ago, it could sometimes happen this exclusion did not occur. If that happend, you could use a registry key to enable manual database exclusions and then select the vCenter DB to be excluded from VSS processing (it is still backed up): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication\EnableDBExclusions = 1 (DWORD).

[mongie]

Since v7, Veeam should automatically exclude the vCenter SQL database from VSS processing. This means you can backup your vCenter/SQL VM directly through the vCenter, eliminating the need to add a host directly.

Hi Rasmus,

Thank you for your reply, and yes - you assumed correctly about my environment. We're still using Veeam V8 at this particular site, but we'll be upgrading to V9 soon.

I am aware that Veeam will exclude the SQL database when the VM object has been added from the vCenter server. Can you please explain what you mean about backing up vCenter/SQL via vCenter? I'm not a VMware expert, but I wasn't aware this was possible. I wanted to avoid SQL jobs if possible.

Thanks,
Alex

[haslund]

In your original post, you explained you added the host, where your vCenter VM is running, directly to Veeam and then backed it up.
You can do this if you'd like, but as you found out when the VM is vMotion'd to a different host, the backup job will fail. You could of course, if you have vSphere license for it, use DRS and pin the vCenter VM to a single host.

However, instead of adding the host, where your vCenter VM is running, to Veeam, just add your vCenter VM to a backup job like you would with any other virtual machine. Since Backup & Replication v7, it is no longer needed to add the host, running your vCenter VM, directly to Backup & Replication.

I hope this explains it better, otherwise just let know.

[mongie]

I get what you're saying, but how do you then backup your vCenter instance?


SQL Maintenance Plan?
Some built in mechanism I'm not aware of?

[haslund]

It is still being backed up, it is just excluded from VSS processing ie. it does not freeze the vCenter database during the backup - but it is still backed up via the usual image level backup Veeam performs of the VMDK files.