ESXi host not listed in destination for backup

[mwpreston]

Hi,

I am having some issued with setting up a backup job...

What I want to do is backup all the vm's on one host to another hosts (and vice versa). I have the replication setup, and it is working perfectly, however when I attempt to create a new backup job, my esx hosts are not listed in the destination drop down. The only option I have is This computer or Shared Folder.

Not sure if I am doing anything wrong here....In our other Veeam instances I can do this...

One Note: We were running the ESXi free version before using Veeam. Once we installed veeam I applied Vmware Essential lisences to those boxes...I just added the lisences (didn't do any reinstallation) Not sure if this has anything to do with it...

Thanks,
Mike

[Gostev]

Hi Mike, supported backup targets are listed in the System Requirements section of the Release Notes document bundled with your download. Basically, ESXi is not supported as backup target.

Regular ESX servers are supported, and will appear for selection in the destination drop-down after you specify the service console connection settings in the ESX host properties (right-click the host in Veeam Backup Servers tree).

[kbeeby]

Hi,

Do you know if version 5 of Veeam Backup and Replication will allow you to select a n ESXi host as a backup destination?

It seems VMware is pushing everyone to deploy ESXi instead of ESX so ideally I don't want to have to deploy ESX if VMware are moving away from ESX

Thanks

keith

[Gostev]

Hello Keith, no - ESXi will most likely never be supported as backup destination.

See the corresponding discussion for more information:
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... estination

In all cases, you probably do not want to backup to your hypervisor host - whether it is ESX or ESXi, because they were never designed to be file servers, and not really optimized to handle large network file I/O traffic through the management interface. Plus, using production host as backup target may affect your production VMs.

[kbeeby]

Thanks for the quick reply,

Just found the same post, and was just going to update my post when you replied

We have a Physical Linux Server on the network so will look to use this

Thanks

Keith

[kbeeby]

Hi

Do you happen to know if an Apple OS X Server (acting as a NFS of CIFS Server) can be a destination for backup. I presume it should just seem like a Linux box to the Veeam Backup Server? I have a couple of OS X Servers I could then use

Thanks

Keith

[Gostev]

I don't believe our Linux agent works on OS X, so you won't be able to add these servers to Veeam Backup as Linux machines. However, there is no reason why CIFS share approach won't work here.

[aurimask]

Can the virtual machine on ESXi connected directly to SAN be backupt target?

Is it possible to do SAN based backups of ESXi?

What format of disk (VMFS, NTFS ) have to be to contain VBK backup files?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

1. Yes, it can.
2. Yes, it is possible. It doesn't matter whether you have ESX or ESXi host for SAN based backups.

If you're able to make SAN LUNs presented as local disks to your Veeam Backup server via ISCSI initiators, then you should be able to chose those disk at backup destination option.

Thanks!

[aurimask]

So you can only not make backup to ESXi VMFS disks?

And what format SAN LUNS must be formatted?

[Vitaliy S.]

Backup to ESXi hosts is not supported per our release notes. You should format your LUN as NTFS volume and mount this LUN on your Veeam Backup server to be able to use it as backup destination.

[mwpreston]

So, we have applied VMware ESX Essential lisences to these hosts. So, that doesn't really remove the esxi branding from it. Am I right in assuming there would have to be a reinstall of the regular ESX and then apply the lisences to them. I thought I could get away with just applying the lisences....guess not!

[Vitaliy S.]

Mike,

That's right, applying licesnes wouldn't change the hypervisor from ESXi to ESX and vice versa. You should install ESX host to be able to use it as backup destination target.

[ricmik]

[merged]

Hi! I'm currently evaluating Veeam B&R.

I've installed it in a virtual machine as specified in the users manual and connected it to the vcenter. When I try to create a new backup job (Virtual Appliance), I can only see the local storage of the Veeam B&R server, and none of the LUNs or NFS stores that are presented to the ESXi servers. Have I missed something?

I would like to run all backups from Veeam to a datadomain box, preferably over NFS. Do I have to mount the NFS store to the Veeam server in order to get this working?

[ricmik]

I would like to run all backups from Veeam to a datadomain box, preferably over NFS. Do I have to mount the NFS store to the Veeam server in order to get this working?

Probably..

[Vitaliy S.]

I would recommend mounting this NFS share to a Linux server and then adding this server to the backup console. In this case, you will be able to choose NFS share as destination target for backup jobs.

[matthadley]

So, if you never plan to allow backups to ESXi hosts what happens when ESX is no longer an option?

[foggy]

Matt, nothing bad, really, as:

In all cases, you probably do not want to backup to your hypervisor host - whether it is ESX or ESXi, because they were never designed to be file servers, and not really optimized to handle large network file I/O traffic. So, using production host as backup target may affect your production VMs.

Thanks!

[Gostev]

Let me quote myself (from another topic) as well for some additional points

... backup to VMFS is considered a bad practice, because it may significantly complicate recovery in certain disasters scenario, and make it simply impossible in other (there are existing discussions about this which you can refer to for more info). We highly recommend using proper backup targets instead, and when running Veeam in VM, the best choice is NTFS formatted LUN on iSCSI storage. This will provide you with up to 16TB storage per LUN. Thanks.

[matthadley]

Ok. In our field-office enviroment, we have two or three VM host servers, each with 8TB of direct attached storage, using VM and Veeam Essentials. As we migrate those to ESXi, we will lose the access via the "back door" of ESX. Absent a stand-alone backup NAS, would it make sense to attach VMDKs, specifically for backup repositories, spread across the hosts based upon a DR strategy we devise, and to our Veeam console and direct the backups into them?

[Gostev]

This of course is possible and will work just fine, but again, backup to VMFS is not recommended. If your VMFS LUN data corrupts or gets deleted accidentally, you will be on your own in getting your backups from VMDKs which was stored there. Also, in case with local storage, you won't be able to get the data out easily if your host fails. This, in turn, will affect your recovery time.

Cheap NAS would be much, much better and preferred solution.

[matthadley]

Thanks. As for replication, ESXi and ESX hosts will both work, correct? And, presuming the answer is yes, replication will run slower connecting to an ESXi target than a ESX?

[foggy]

Yes, with v5 the speed will be much slower for ESXi target. But v6 is going to increase the speed by ~10x.

[jamster69]

[merged]

Hello I'm sorry if its been covered in other topics or in the product documentation.
Im looking for a quick answer.
From what I can gather Veeam now fully supports Esxi 5.
Earlier versions of veeam supported only backing up to a ESX host.
Does VEEAM now fully support backing up to ESXi 5

Thanks for any input.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello, nothing has changed in terms of ESXi support as destination target for backups. If required, please review this topic for additional information. Thanks!

[jamster69]

So Vitaly

Just to clarify (Sorry this isn't sinking in)

VMare has Esxi 5 which replaces ESX

Veeam 5 could not use Esxi as a host backup target.
Veeam 5 could use ESX as a host backup target.

Veeam 6 still cannot use Esxi 5 as a host backup target even though Esxi 5 has replaced ESX.

So when we upgrade to Esxi 5 from ESX and to VEEAM 6 we will need to create a new virtual host (Windows or Linux server) on the Esxi 5 host then on this virtual host create shares, be it shared disks locally on the server or on a SAN.

[Gostev]

Correct.

[thedos]

[merged]

Hello,

I remember I read a thread that involved Gostev mentionning that Veeam do not recommend to store vbk on ESX datastore.
Plus, another one mentionning that in Veeam6, ESX VMFS datastores were now not supported anymore as a target location.

Dooes anyone remember this topics?
If yes, could you point me the directions?

I know I read it, but I'm not able to find it anymore.

Thanks a lot for your help.
Jeremy

[awftong@fehd.gov.hk]

[merged]

HI,
I have s ESXi 5 connected to a SAN storage and all my VM's are on the SAN. Would like to know if Veeam can backup the VM from the SAN onto the host's local hard disk.
I downloaded the free edition and when I configure a backup the only destination available to me is whatever available to the Veeam server. I can select any datastore to backup to. Any idea?

[foggy]

ESXi storage is not supported as a backup target. Thanks!