Agent Backups when not connected to office network

[adamfindlay]

Hello, I have a customer that has the following setup.

3x Laptops running Veeam Agent for Windows
1x Backup and Replication server hosting a repository
A copy job that runs daily to copy the Agent backups up to a Cloud Connect repository

The Agent backups are managed by the B&R. The issue we are seeing is that when the users are out of the office and not connected to the office network the scheduled backup tries to run and generates a failure. Is there any way to stop this happening and make the backup only run when the users are connected to the office network for example? Or is there an alternative way to design the setup which could alleviate this problem?

thanks

Adam

[Dima P.]

Hello Adam,

Fist option would be to backup directly to cloud connect repository - this will ensure that agents can connect to the target over internet. Second idea is to configure so called backup cache to store backup locally on the machine's disk when the destination is unreachable. Such restore point with be synchronized later when the connectivity is restored. Cheers!

[mfred02]

Hello Dima,
I'm about the same situation as Adam. Particularly, in these days, I upgraded B&R to v10 (which operates also to backup a single Hyper-V server...) and I'm upgrading each Veeam Agent Client to last version. So that everybody is happy!

It is licensed with a perpetual standard edition 2 socket (2 socket used) and 2 free instances (1 used). (It was bought as Backup Essential product with a 2 instance promotion offer included... really I have 5 PC di backup but I can start to cover with licence 2 of them and then if everything goes well, I'll buy extra licenses.)

I'd like to give a try to so called Backup cache, but... when I updated first of my PC clients I didn't see that option in the wizard
On the left I see: Name, Backup Mode, Destination, Backup Server, Backup Repository, Schedule, Summary... and that's it!

Is it because that client is not licensed?? Or because for some reason this feature could not be applicable to that pc? What I read from help is that if there is a single disk/single volume on PC, it should anyway works...

Well, really... that client - not only is not licensed - but is not even listed in the LICENSED INSTANCES inside the LICENSE INFORMATION. But maybe this is another problem...? Could you give here some hint? Or better open a case?

Thank you.

[Dima P.]

Federico,

I'd like to give a try to so called Backup cache, but... when I updated first of my PC clients I didn't see that option in the wizard

I should have mentioned that backup cache functionality has following requirements:

- when agent is managed by backup server, job must be configured as managed by agent
- image-level backup (i.e. entire computer backup or volume level backup )
- remote targets (i.e. shared folder / veeam repository / cloud connect repository)

Can you please check your agent job configuration?

[adamfindlay]

Dima, thanks for your response it sounds like the backup cache may be the solution. I will give that a try and see how I get on.

Adam

[mfred02]

Now, I'm upgrading agent on a second PC and I verifying that:

1) Agent is not managed.
2) Entire computer backup.
3) Veeam repository.

Well... this said, I tried something else: on Veeam B&R, in LICENSE INFORMATION / Instances, I checked "Allow unlicensed agents to consume instances" and... magically, after restarting wizard to edit job, I finally saw the Backup cache options and could configure it!!!
And finally say appearing the first client I upgraded yesterday, so I could assign it a license.

So, all this said, can you definitively confirm THAT a license IS needed to enable Backup cache? And that in the free edition Backup cache is not enabled?

Thanks again.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, the backup cache option is part of the paid editions only: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_vaw_edition ... son_ds.pdf

[mfred02]

Thank you all, @Dima & @Vitaliy!