Backup Validator questions

[geraldb]

Hi,

until now we've created every weekend active full backups to ensure that the backups are ok but slowly they get to big so we want to use the backup validator cmd tool.
I would have a few questions to it: (i read the KB entry)

1. Does it make a difference if we check the .vbm or the .vbk file of a backup ? or do we have to check both (with 2 separate queries)

2. If the report of the backup validator is successful does it mean, that the backup is to 100% ok ? or should we still do active full backups from time to time (although the backup validator report is successful) ?

3. Does the statement: veeam.backup..validator.exe /file:"d:\veeambackup\VM-Backup.vbm"
check only the latest restore point or all restore points in the backup ?
If we don't specifiy a VM, all VMs in the backup are checked ?

Thanks in advance

[Shestakov]

Hi,
I would suggest to perform backup validation with Surebackup Verification the best VBR tool for recoverability testing.
if you use surebackup, you don`t really need to perform active fulls that often.
Thanks!

[foggy]

1. If you target Validator to the VBM file, it will check just the VBM file. If you target it to the specific backup file, VMs in this backup file will be tested. To check the entire backup chain, you need to point it to the job name. There's a command line help available ("/?") for better understanding of the tool usage.
2. Validator checks whether blocks in the backup file itself are valid (not modified/corrupt after file was created). However, only SureBackup can tell you that VMs are actually recoverable (were not corrupted before the backup was created).
3. a) Only VBM file will be checked;
b) All VMs in the job are checked.

[FrancWest]

Hi,

when you select a .vbm file as the source for Veeam Backup Validator, which backup is being checked? All files the backup consists of (.vbk's en vib's), the latest .vbk and it's .vibs or....?

The output validator generates is not clear to me, the size being reported processed under statistics is way too small (only some GB's or MB's are reported), while the check runs quite a long time and the VM is many GB's in size, but the number of files reported is the entire backup.

[foggy]

Hi Franc, please see above for the answer. Thanks!

[FrancWest]

Hi Foggy,

What do you mean by ‘only vbm file will be checked’. This file is only several kb’s in size, but the output it generates suggests it validates all files of the VMs in this backup, including the vmdks. In our case it’s running for about a week now, so it checks way more than only the small vbm files. I can’t specify the job name, since I need to check imported backups and the job name of that imported backup is the same as an existing job (we need to check an old backup repository).

[FrancWest]

Addition, looking at the output of the validator, under 'reading file summary' you see all the files of the backup (vbk and vib) listed, after that it starts checking the VM files (ie. vmx, vmdk, etc). So it's definitely checking the VMs inside the backup, but which restore point is that then?

[foggy]

Hey Franc, I've briefly checked that and was able to confirm your observations regarding the size reported. I will take some time to internally verify the exact behavior in case the tool is targeted to the VBM file (and my answer above accordingly) and will get back with the results.

[foggy]

Well, further investigation showed that checking with the '/file' parameter has some issues and it is recommended to use the '/backup' parameter instead. In this case, Validator will check the latest restore point checking all the blocks it consists of from the latest increment up to the corresponding full. Thanks!

[FrancWest]

Hi, thanks, but I cannot used the /backup parameter since I want to check imported backups. The imported backups have the same name as the recent backups so those current backups have priority when using this switch. Validator reports it's using the current backup since it has a backup job associated with it, so it will check the wrong backup.

[foggy]

They should have an _imported suffix, shouldn't they?

[FrancWest]

Unfortunately they have not. They are only listed under the 'Disk (imported)' node. I did not manually import them. When I implemented the new repository I cloned the existing jobs and changed the repository to the new repository. Then I deleted the original jobs. The existing backups from the removed jobs were moved to the 'Disk (imported)' node with their original names.

[foggy]

Just a thought - maybe removing them from configuration and importing them back would add the suffix and allow pointing Validator to them explicitly?

[FrancWest]

Ok, will try that. But what about the issue with the /file parameter. What is de issue precisely and when will it be fixed?

[foggy]

Looks like being pointed to VBM, it starts checking from the full and doesn't check the latest increments (at least it skips corruption there), this is yet to be investigated closer. There will be no fix for it in v11, likely in the next major version.

[FrancWest]

ok, thanks.