Feature Request - Multiple Jobs

[RSILVA]

Request Multiple Jobs on Veem Agent

USE CASE: Backup of physical workstations and servers, to a local storage (usb HD or NAS) and a remote job (Remote Backup repository) Azure etc.

Required to implement the 3.2.1 rule, main sale argument.

[nitramd]

Hi Mike.

Your suggestion is plausible; thanks for that. I think that my situation may be a case of "What the boss wants, the boss gets."

C'est la vie, I suppose.

[cgardner]

The use case we are looking for is quite simple. While backing up to either a B&R server or CloudConnect instance is available, the requirement is to also have a local, direct attached backup for speed and redundancy. 3-2-1 rule, right?

As soon as this option is available, we will displace other backup tools and unify on Veeam across all clients, not just the virtual components of those clients, but this is the one remaining obstacle to the Veeam agents being truly ready for production use.

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks for the use case Charles.

So we are mainly talking about clients here (workstations) and not servers that are most likely close to a VBR repository anyway. Correct?

So your goal is to protect the workstations to something local (USB? Internal volume/ disk? something else) but at the same time on a regular (but most probably less) basis a backup to your in-house VBR or a CC instance.

(Let me know if I am right)
Cheers
Mike

[cgardner]

Mike,

Let me unpack three different scenarios that fall under this pattern.

At the smallest end, there is a remote office that has a single workstation that helps run the facility and is highly critical to them. That site is in an area where the best they can get is slow broadband so we can keep a remote backup up to date, but restoring from there would be a deal breaker if the facility still stands so they require a local restore source to minimize downtime. But, they need an offsite backup as well, in case of fire, flood, theft, etc.

Another client has a physical server and five workstations. With the existing backup tool, we backup server and workstations to onsite NAS and backup the server to a remote location. Basically the same situation as above. They need a local restore source for speed and a remote source for physical protection from destruction.

Finally, I have a client that has a full B&R environment, but on a couple of their key computers (owner's and a secure bid system) they require a local backup copy in addition to the backup sent to B&R repository.

So, all of these fit the mold of needing a local and remote backup, although all for different business reasons.

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks for the additional information Charles.

As already said somewhere in this thread, we are not arguing whether multiple jobs is needed, but are now looking into the scenario's so we can hopefully cover them all

cheers
Mike

[DannyMurphy]

Hi guys,

Would it be worthwhile in the interim to add in a setting to copy a job to Cloud Connect as a short term solution for some of the customers whilst the full solution is developed? A copy job shouldnt take too long to develop and integrate

[mikeydobs]

We have a few smaller clients that only have one physical server but want the security of a local and offsite backup. Being able to run multiple jobs is definitely something we would love to have. Even just a copy job that would allow us to copy the local backup to the cloud repository would work.

[Vitaliy S.]

Would it be worthwhile in the interim to add in a setting to copy a job to Cloud Connect as a short term solution for some of the customers whilst the full solution is developed? A copy job shouldnt take too long to develop and integrate

Danny, while your idea is good, but the development and testing costs would push back the native functionality further (which neither of us wants to do in this thread). Hope this makes sense.

[Carlos87]

Hello Veeam Team

Please direct me if I have posted this in the incorrect place.

I would like to know if there is a feature being included in the upcoming version of the Veeam Agent for Windows whereby I am able to create more than 1 backup job per server?

Examples:
On a single server i would like to backup different folders on different days.s
One backup task to local NAS repository and second backup task to Cloud Connect repository (Customer wants a local copy and a copy in cloud)

Thank you

[Dima P.]

Hi Carlos87,

This feature is planned. Thank you for your feedback.

[jks731]

We do NOT have Veeam Backup & Recovery but are considering using the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows to backup a couple of our physical servers. We would like to be able to point the backup to both a local file share as well as to a Cloud Connect Repository. Is this a planned feature in a future release? Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, multiple backup jobs for Veeam Agent for Windows is a planned feature for our next updates.

[DannyMurphy]

Do you know which quarter we can expect the update?

[nielsengelen]

Currently there is no ETA yet on the update.

[gperson]

As a workaround, I discovered that it is possible to install the full version of Veeam B&R Free edition, and afterwards adding the paid agent licence to it. It then let us manage multiple Jobs and Destinations

[Dima P.]

Hello Guillaume.

It's true. With Veeam B&R as a central management unit you can create multiple 'managed by backup server' jobs for your agents.

[DannyMurphy]

Is there any update on when we can expect this to be coming as yet?

[DGrinev]

Hi Danny,

No, we cannot share any ETA yet. Thanks!

[cthorpe]

VAW v2.2 has been released, but no sign of the "Multiple Jobs" feature request promised in Vitaliy's post on 6th March. When can we expect to see this feature?

Thanks, Chris

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Chris, this is still planned for your next updates. Currently all dev teams (Veeam B&R, Agent, VAC, ONE) are working to support this functionality across all products.

[mark.culhane]

Hi @Vitaliy S. can you advise which release number this feature is planned for?
Is there going to be a beta release (if so we would be keen to enlist)?

[Vitaliy S.]

This is a high priority feature and it is planned for the short term updates, this is the most precise time frame I can give you at the moment. Yes, usually all betas are available via Veeam SE (sales engineer) responsible for your region, so I would suggest contacting him/her and showing your interest in the beta.

[Dima P.]

Hi guys,

The wait is over! With newly released Veeam Agent for Windows v3 you can configure multiple backup jobs via new shiny UI. Here is the link to detailed What's New document. Cheers!

P.S. You can get the latest version here.

[Earthrise]

It is not possible to have multiple jobs managed by B&R Server, all pointing to the B&R Repository, right?

[Earthrise]

You can not have two jobs if the agent is managed by the B&R Server nor can you have two jobs targeting to the B&R Repository. That's pretty lame.

[Dima P.]

That's not correct. Managed agents (agents deployed and controlled via Veeam B&R) can created more than one job with the type Server. Same remains for standalone deployments - you can create any amount of backup jobs to any target with the Server edition. For workstation edition you can create any amount of backup jobs to Cloud Connect repository (and plus one job with local target).

[Earthrise]

Ok, let me elaborate this. We assume here that you back up Workstations to your B&R repository:
1. You can not add the same clients to another job for the same repository -> "Skipping <client name> host is already assigned to backup policy <policy name>"
2. You can not add the same clients to another job pointing to a local target -> "Skipping <client name> host is already assigned to backup policy <policy name>"

For what reason this pointless limitation is even present in an enterprise level product like veeam? Why do i have to pump sensitive data to a cloud provider to have multiple jobs working for Workstations? Seriously, this is beyond me and makes no sense at all! I can't use the Server Agent either, because it doesn't support backup on target connection.

[Dima P.]

Earthrise,

Could you please clarify what sets of data you would like to protect by multiple backup jobs configured for your workstations? Thank you in advance.

[Earthrise]

I want to backup the Systemdrive of important workstations that contains important data (workstations only have one big drive) and i want to have the system states for at least one year. I don't have enough storage space to backup 365 days, so i wanted to do it like this:
1st backup job every day for the last 3-7 days -> for disaster recovery of the Machine.
2nd backup job once a week for about 52 Weeks -> to get back files that have been deleted long ago but are needed again.

With that functionality i would have just ~60 Snapshots per Workstation. Right now i have one job for 60 days that just covers 2 months. I could even do something like this:
1st backup job once a day for 7 days
2nd backup job once a week for 4 weeks
3rd backup job one a month for 12 months

23 Snapshots for one year. We've used another software for workstations before that has this functionality (don't know if i am allowed to name it?), but it has pretty poor implementation for virtualized servers, so we're using veeam for this. I was really excited about this "multiple jobs"-feature, cause i thought i can finally have just one product for everything. It would have been just nice and clean. Now i have to keep fiddling around with something else.

Cloud backup is a no-go for us for two reasons:
1. Way too slow internet connection to backup that much of data every day (~40 Mbit/s upload), since we have other applications that rely heavily on upload too, like Remote Apps, Remote Desktop connections, SMB over VPN etc.
2. Management declines cloud backup anyway.

I don't mind if we need to use Server Agents to achive this, but the Workstations are not running 24/7 and the backup works great with the "when backup target is connected"-option, which is not available for Server Agents (for obvious reasons i guess).