Displayed as the row..
Backup: created at mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss AM/PM, type
Let me explain the scenario/problem I just came across and why this could be better exposed.
We are in a project phase migrating applications to new VM Guest OS. eg Windows Server 2008 to Windows 2016
However, for consistency we are keeping the same VM name, for monitoring purposes etc
BARNEY (Windows Server 2008) is in a backup job and also a surebackup job
NEW_BARNEY (Windows Server 2016) is sitting in the wings for the application to be migrated.
On the day of cutover VM BARNEY is renamed to OLD_BARNEY
NEW_BARNEY is renamed to BARNEY
Weeks later OLD_BARNEY is deleted from vSphere.
In our Veeam environment our backup jobs are performed on VM's by Folder in vSphere. So moving the old BARNEY out and new BARNEY into the folder we did retain 2 BARNEY VM backups on Disk. The old BARNEY backup was kept on disk for a several months.
And this is all done without any requirement / intervention from the backup administrator. Only the VM administrator needs to do this knowing that put in that folder and it will get backed up.!
4 months after the migration go-live event I come across the fact that SureBackup is performing its job on old VM backup of BARNEY and not the new one.!! It's a GOTCHA, I understand. But could be better exposed perhaps.?
Is there any better way to work within the realms of how I have this setup. Recommendations welcome.
Learnings
1. Should have deleted the old BARNEY VM backups on Disk earlier than this. As when I attempt the 'Delete from disk' it prompts that it is being used in SureBackup job.!
2. Using the same VM name as previous in the same backup job is not perhaps ideal and gives false sense.
3. Better use of Maintenance/Remove deleted data items from disk after X days. Would this option actually delete ALL of old BARNEY from on disk in Veeam, I'm not sure.
Veeam Improvements/Enhancements
When you right click Report against a SureBackup job - it would be nice if the report under Virtual Machine Status showed a column for each VM which backup date that was just used in the SureBackup job.