Host-based backup of Microsoft Hyper-V VMs.
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GTFbnelson
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Newbie Questions: Best way to Backup Hyper-V VMs?

Post by GTFbnelson »

Hi Guys,
I'm still new to Veeam and want to understand the best way to backup VMs. I have a few questions:

For Backing up VMs, I believe my options are:

1.) create a new backup job and select > Virtual Machine > Then select the VM.

2.) create a new backup job and select > Virtual Machine > select the HV host.

3.) Create a new backup job and select > Windows Computer > Select the HV Host.

Is it better to use Option 1 or Option 2 when I need to backup ALL VMs that is on an HV Host?


For doing a good mix between lots of restore points, but small backup space what are good settings to use?
I'm currently using:
  • 14 Restore Points to keep on disk.
  • I'm currently doing 1 full backup every other month.
  • Create Synthetic full backups periodically on Saturdays
nmdange
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Re: Newbie Questions: Best way to Backup Hyper-V VMs?

Post by nmdange »

Option 1 or 2 are both fine. The plus of Option 2 is that you don't have to remember to add new VMs to your backup jobs, but it also means you have to use one job to backup all your VMs, so if you need different backup job settings for different VMs, you can't do that.

If your Hyper-V hosts are in a cluster, then you want to make sure you add the cluster itself and not add each cluster node individually. Also, if you have SCVMM, then you'd want to add that to Veeam instead.

For 14 restore points, I would skip the weekly synthetic full and just use forever forward incremental. You will have one full backup along with the daily incrementals and they will get merged every day. Active Full isn't really required, but can be good as a precaution.
GTFbnelson
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Re: Newbie Questions: Best way to Backup Hyper-V VMs?

Post by GTFbnelson »

I thought i read that its bad to not due a full backup every month or so in case the chain or something gets corrupt?
jmmarton
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Re: Newbie Questions: Best way to Backup Hyper-V VMs?

Post by jmmarton »

It's a personal preference on how often to do periodic active fulls, or to even do them at all. I've seen customers do it both ways. With such a short retention period, forever forward incremental is unlikely to experience an issue and even if it does there are many restore points after that corruption (since there are only 14 in the entire chain) to affect.

What I often suggest is in lieu of synthetics fulls, when dealing with chains < 30 RPs, is to use SureBackup. If you use that weekly or even daily you'll quickly discover if there's an issue at which point you can immediately run an active full to start the entire process over.

Joe
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