VeeamZip and application aware processing

[HErceg]

Hello,

I have VM that was recently decommissioned and I would like to have a one-time backup just in case.Also I would like to unassign licence from that machine.
Question is can I later restore old backup if I remove licence?Or should I go with VeeamZip?
Since VeeamZip doesn't support AAP I was wondering is it safe to backup decommissioned VM with it?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hello Hrvoje,

let me clear the case:
- VeeamZIP is a perfect way to perform one-time standalone backup for servers being decommissioned.
- VeeamZIP will not consume a license too(if your Veeam B&R server is up to date).
- In case you missed last half year of updates or don't want to update for whatever reason, VeeamZIP might consume a license.
- VeeamZIP is, by default, trying to perform an application-aware backup using VMware Tools quiescence. If that is not enough to guarantee consistency of your apps inside said VM, feel free to create a normal Backup Job and create a Full Backup with it. It will consume a license.
- Finally, in any case, if license was consumed, feel free to Revoke it.

Hope that helps!

[nmdange]

If the VM is decommissioned, then I would assume it's powered off. In that case, you definitely wouldn't need application-aware processing

[HErceg]

Thank you both for explanation.
I have one question though: My VM-s are Hyper-V based and VMware Tools quiescence is off.From what i understand it is only for non-Windows systems, so I don't really need it?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hyper-V has Hyper-V quiescence instead(called Online Backup in MS world). It has quite a list of requirements to be successful though.
Like nmdange suggested, you can just gracefully shut down your server, perform a VeeamZIP(it will be 100% consistent no matter what) and decommission your server.
That will do the trick!

[HErceg]

Another last question

Based on provided link Hyper-V quiescence relies on checkpoints, but I have disabled them in Hyper-V settings.Does Veeam/Hyper-v turn it back on during backup process?

[HErceg]

Hello Hrvoje,

- VeeamZIP is, by default, trying to perform an application-aware backup using VMware Tools quiescence. If that is not enough to guarantee consistency of your apps inside said VM, feel free to create a normal Backup Job and create a Full Backup with it. It will consume a license.
- Finally, in any case, if license was consumed, feel free to Revoke it.

Hope that helps!

Hello Egor,

Decomissioned VM was backuped before regulary, so I was hoping for confirmation that if I delete job and keep backup files can I restore it one day?

[Egor Yakovlev]

- No, Veeam will not alter your production environment settings in any shape or form
- disabled checkpoints in VM settings do not restrict backup service checkpoints, so backup should work just fine
- yes, if you delete the job and keep backup files on disk, you can restore from those at any moment in time! (they will be moved to "Imported(Disk)" section automatically")
Cheers!