How to create an environment like Veeam demos?

[agregersen]

Hi

I need to setup an environment to test the "advanced" features of Veeam without changing our current backup setup (stuff like ad restore, sql restores, certifikates). And after seeing some of the demos by Veeam, it would be cool to try out some of the features without putting our production environment at risc in any way. But as always the business wants to spend $0 on it or something near that amount. I can create a sql or a SharePoint in our current environment and test those features, but testing AD is something I need to do in a very isolated place on our Network.

Any ideas on how to get to that point?

Cheers,
Anders

[Shestakov]

Hi Anders,
Which advanced features are you going to test? Do you also want to try newer version of VBR while you are on the previous one?
Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

You can install a new Veeam backup server, copy backups created by the production backup server, import them and then you can try our all the features you want. Additionally, if you want to do tests with backed up VMs (for example, AD restores), I would recommend to use > On-Demand Sandbox functionality. Thanks!

[Mike Resseler]

Anders,

What Vitaliy says is indeed a good option, however, I can understand that even that might be considered "not done" in some environments. What you could do is try to find a laptop at work, that has around 16 GB of Ram. Install your favorite virtualization software on it (I advise Hyper-V but because of licensing...) and then you can deploy a few VM's on top of it. What I normally have is:
* Host: Hyper-V
* 1 DC (server core) running DNS and DHCP also
* 1 B&R server (full windows server) topped at 2 GB memory (yes, performance will be low but it is for testing...)
* 1 SQL server (server core) with sample databases (I get them from here: http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
* 1 Veeam ONE server (full windows server) also limited in memory

With this setup, you can actually create a new domain and start testing in detail without the risk of losing your production environment. If you are already backing up your current AD, I would copy the backup to that laptop, import it in your test B&R server and you can actually do some real testing and playing

I know it is not the ideal solution, but I've been into your situation lots of times and you start to become creative (PS: my favorite advantage... I can take my "lab" at home and play with it in the evening when nobody could come and ask me to fix some stuff )

[agregersen]

That is great input. I also came across Virtual Labs in Veeam (a feature I didn't know about - shame on the reseller for not telling about that in any detail).

[Mike Resseler]

Anders,

Make sure you tell this to your local Veeam system engineer... So he can go to the reseller and show him virtual labs in detail

[dellock6]

Oh, Mike, really, the laptop lab? Welcome back to ten years ago....
If you need to test out restores more than anything else, Virtual Labs are your answer, you can spin up existing VMs as they are, and you can even use the virtual lab appliance to fence a copy of your production VMs so that they can run side by side with the "real" ones. Our colleague Timo wrote a nice post that explains the networking basics of surebackup/virtual lab: http://blog.dewin.me/2013/04/surebackup ... pdive.html

[Mike Resseler]

@Luca, I am actually working on taking it a step further... I'm hoping that soon I have the time to test nested virtualization with Nano server on MSFT Azure (considering the performance loss is acceptable for testing...) and then use DR2MA in Veeam B&R 9.5 to restore some production servers to that environment and do my testing over there... Since I have credits, and I can learn myself to stop / start when necessary (OK, PowerShell will help me there ) I should be able to build nice testing / demo labs...

But first, I need some vacation to start working on it

M/