What is the best way of protecting the Veeam Backup server?

[davidkeis]

[merged]

Hi all.

Since the search function is not working right now I dont know if this has been answered before:

Is it possible to make a backup of the Veem Backup & Replication settings, including all the jobs, locations, etc.?

I would like to make a regular backup of the settings, along with all the VM backups that i have.

[laxi]

Hi,

in Veeam B&R V5.x we solved the selfbackup of the backup server with a replication job. Destination: another ESXi-Host and another Datastore.
Described here: http://www.bn-its.de/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=78

In Veeam B&R V6.x this solution does not work. Turning of "Application aware Image Procession" does not improve.
This error occurs: Unable to allocate processing resources. Error: No backup proxy is able to backup this VM. Check processing mode settings on proxies.
The Backup Proxy is located on the B&R Server itself (because our customers have a relatively small VMware Infrastructure.)
VMware 4.1, iSCSi-SAN, 1-3 ESXi-Hosts

Is there a way to Replicate the Backup-Server V6 itself?
Is there a solution as described in detail at least the job / repositories / proxy settings can be saved?
In my opinion the database seems not to be backed up necessarily because the key settings (about the backups) are stored in the backup files.

Thank you very much

[Gostev]

Sounds like you have disabled failover to network mode in the backup proxy server settings. You need to enable this as backup proxy cannot hotadd its own disks. Thanks!

[laxi]

Hi Gostev,

in the proxy server setting i have tried many:
- Automatic Selection (with Failover to Network)
- Virtual Appliance (with Failover to Network)
- Network

I also tried:
- selecing the VM over the ESXi-Host (not over vCenter Server). This was "the magic solution" under V5.
- "Automatic selection" or explicitly selction of the proxy server

At each selected setting the error remains the same. What else can still trigger the error?
Thank you

[Gostev]

Any processing mode setting on proxy will work as long as failover to network mode checkbox is selected. In fact, this should work with the default settings. No other special measures are required. If you cannot make it work, please open a support case and we will assist you in setting this up. Thanks!

[laxi]

Hi Gostev,

the support told me that it would not work until the next release. Right now the self-backup is not working with V6 if the database is located on the same server.
Case ID: 5161851

[Gostev]

Self-backup works fine with the database located on the same server if you have application aware image processing disabled (which was the requirement with all previous versions as well).

[msidnam]

What is the proper procedure to move the database from the MSDE (the SQL that gets installed by the installer) to a remote 2005/2008 SQL server?

[Vitaliy S.]

Take a look at existing topic for more details: Moving Veaam B&R to another VM?

[bunger]

I am encountering the exact issue with the same, non-successful results. Is it no longer possible to backup the Veeam server as long as its DB is on the same server?

[Gostev]

backup the Veeam server as long as its DB is on the same server?

No changes in this scenario - same considerations as outlined on the first page of this topic (method 2).

[bunger]

My Veeam server is also my vCenter server, which I would like to be able to backup. This used to work in v5, but this no longer supported in v6?

[Gostev]

My Veeam server is also my vCenter server

No changes in this scenario either. Just like in v5, you need to configure the backup job for your vCenter Server VM through standalone ESX(i) host. However, this is offtopic to this discussion - please refer to the existing discussions on vCenter Server backup if you have further questions.

[kklo]

If someone needs to restore a Veeam database backup made with larry's ms-dos batch script, here is a sample code that allows that.

Thanks larry for this tip.

Code: Select all

@Echo Off
SET FILE=%1

IF "%FILE%"=="" GOTO NOFILE
if NOT EXIST "%FILE%" GOTO NOTFOUND

NET STOP "Veeam Backup Service"
SQLCMD -S .\VEEAM -E -Q "RESTORE DATABASE VeeamBackup FROM DISK='%FILE%'"
NET START "Veeam Backup Service"
GOTO FIN

:NOTFOUND
ECHO.
ECHO ERROR: Backup file '%FILE%' not found.
ECHO        VEEAM database has not been restored.
ECHO.
GOTO FIN

:NOFILE
ECHO.
ECHO VEEAM Database Restore Utility.
ECHO. 
ECHO USAGE: %0 BackupFile 
ECHO        Where:
ECHO        - BackupFile: File that contains a previous Veeam database backup.
ECHO.

:FIN
SET FILE=

[jgar]

Hi, using v6/patch3, and about backing up the Veeam VM, when uses the SQLExpress DB on itself (no remote SQL).

By coincidence, I noticed that at one of my customers, the Veeam VM was being backed-up in VSS Application-aware mode, apparently without any issues.
Actually because I forgot to disable the VSS-aware processing for that VM, when I did the initial setup a couple of months ago.

How can this be possible, as I've read a lot of times through the forums that this doesn't work, period?

Furthermore, at another site, where another Veeam VM was backed-up with VSS-aware processing disabled, I enabled it by curiosity.
And it worked as well.

Of course I can be wrong, but as far as I can see:
-the windows system log reports the start of the MS VSS + Veaam VSS support (and their stop at end of job)
-the application log reports the DB's of the SQL Express as transactionally correctly backed-up
-the vssadmin utility displays the active VSS snaphot while the backup job is running

What am I missing here?

[Gostev]

How can this be possible, as I've read a lot of times through the forums that this doesn't work, period?

What you've read is for previous versions. Starting 6.0 Patch 3 and later versions, this scenario works fine, because the engine no longer communicates with the configuration database during the periods when it might be frozen. Thanks!

[Kslawrence]

[merged]

Hi,

We have veeam running in our vsphere essentials environment and it seems to be working really well, a quantum leap from regular physical backup systems. We are running veeam on a bare w2k8 virtual server on the same host as our production vms. Veeam then sends its backups to a windows file server share. We also have veeam doing replication of some vms to another host.

My question is, what happens if the main host fails completely? Obviously our veeam server will also fail at the same time and we will have no access to a veeam console to manage failover etc. how can we protect against this scenario? I installed veeam on the virtual server in order to use the hot add functionality and I assume if we didn't do this, then backups would happen in network mode instead which would be much slower.

Should we be replicating our veeam server to the standby host also? Is it even possible to do that?

Hope to hear back from other users who have come up against the same scenario!

Keith

[dellock6]

You can also replicate the veeam server itself to the other host; for replica is really not a problem since all VMs are registered in the other ESXi host so you can simply power them on when you need it to.

[averylarry]

Just to clarify --

In the event of a disaster, I only have to have a (non-corrupt) .vbk file, right? I don't have to have the SQL database to be able to restore, etc. In theory, I could use extract to get the SQL database restored first, and then connect a new Veeam server to the existing database . . ?

[Vitaliy S.]

In the event of a disaster, I only have to have a (non-corrupt) .vbk file, right?

Correct, you can use extract.exe utility or a brand new Veeam backup server to restore VMs from this backup file.

I don't have to have the SQL database to be able to restore, etc. In theory, I could use extract to get the SQL database restored first, and then connect a new Veeam server to the existing database . . ?

Yes.

[zak2011]

[merged]

I installed VBR6.1 yesterday on my backup server which was running Backup Exec 2012. I tried installing Veeam as a seperate instance and was not successful. So i am using the same instance as BE2012 and it works.
Previously i had tried installing Veeam on a VM and using the physical server as proxy and my local attached NAS as repository. However the backups kept failing and said network path not found. So i chose to install it on the physical server. How do i backup the Veeam server on a physical machine?

[dreese]

If you are using Windows 2008 as the veeam server we have found that backing up using the M$ built in backup utility works pretty well. You do not get historical backups of your veeam sever however unless you write a script for the backup files to be archived off to alternate storage.

D

[solvetech]

For my implementation I am using Symantec Recovery Server to image my physical server running hyper-V to a remote disk just in case. Any comments? Veeam will backup the VMs.

[Vitaliy S.]

Image backup will also work fine, however dumping SQL Server db backups to the remote location is all you need.

[chimera]

Easiest way I've found to backup the Veeam server is using a drive snapshot utility from http://www.drivesnapshot.de/ Its a 250Kb file which doesn't need installing, runs in Windows, supports VSS, is easy as to use and works an absolute treat. I've already used it to restore a stuffed Veeam box at a client a few months ago with great success (just booted off a flash drive [which it has tips/tricks option for on their website] run the snapshot.exe program and restored the image from USB drive back to the local hard drive, easy as)

[itdirector]

Please let me know if this is confirmed to work.
Veeam 6.1 running on a Win2k8 R2 VM (with SQL Express 2005 local), backing up to an external repository - the VM is running on vSphere 5. This is on our target destination server for replicas, so we don't want to purchase a license for just this VM.

-Shutdown the VBR VM once a month, clone it using vCenter for backup.
-Use any SQL utility to backup the VBR database nightly.

If there is a disaster, & we completely lose our production VBR VM:
-We bring up the cloned VBR VM, & restore the SQL database from the night's before backup.

Will that provide us with an exact copy of the VBR production VM? As in, will that restore all of our jobs, settings & schedules? What about the replica & backup metadata that resides on the VBR production server (example: D:\Veeam\Replication\Replicas\vm-84 & backup indexes)?

Thx

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, this should work fine. Veeam B&R database stores all jobs and settings configuration, so if you do a daily backup of this database, you will always an ability to restore the entire configuration of your Veeam B&R server. As to the indexes and metadata, then you do not need to protect them at all, as metadata files will be automatically re-created on the next job run.

On top of that, why would you want to use such a complex procedure to protect your Veeam B&R server? If you do not want to purchase an additional Veeam license, just use VeeamZIP functionality (part of our free Veeam B&R tool) to backup the entire image of your production Veeam V&R server.

[Fiskepudding]

+1 for "Veeam Free"

Perfect for backing up Veeam B&R server with local SQL express .
That was our number 1 reason to put a "Veeam free" server in our network.
And we could finaly scrap VMware Data Recovery.
Thanx Veeam!

[itdirector]

Vitally,

I forgot to mention that we have a Perc6E card passthrough on that VBR VM. The PERC6E card is attached to an MD1000 with 30TB of DAS for Veeam backups. Not elegant, but we find it provides us with the best performance.

With the DirectPath I/O passthrough, you can't use snapshots on live VM's; hence rendering VeeamZip & Veeam backup/replication useless for this particular VM.

I also wanted to clarify my question (two posts up). With that scenario, with only an SQL database restore (no file restores), we won't lose any of our history, nor indexing/searching history for files in Enterprise manager?

Any suggestions other than the ones mentioned would be appreciated.

Thx

[Vitaliy S.]

SQL database is not used to store information about indexing/searching history. Please see this topic for mode details on how to protect your indexing data.