Exclude MSSQL Named Instance

[dandav]

We have an application which installs its own named MS SQL Express instance. The application vendor does not provide the sa password to the instance and manages the backups themselves. The application host also hosts a second MSSQL named instance which we do need to backup and we do know the login details for. When backing up the host VM with VBR using application aware processing, the backup completes but always shows a warning that the login details were incorrect for the first named instance so it was unable to backup that instance.

Is there a way to exclude a single MSSQL named instance from a backup job so the backup job isn't always in a warning state?

[HannesK]

Hello,
did you already try to exclude the database as described in KB2104?

Best regards,
Hannes

[dandav]

I hadn't as that KB says it applies to 8.x and 9.x. I have now followed that KB and added the following registry keys:

Code: Select all

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication]
"SqlBackupInstanceDatabaseDelimiter"=":"
"SqlBackupInstanceDatabasePairsDelimiter"=";"
"SqlDatabasesToSkip"="NET2:"

I am still getting this warning in the backup job:

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9/09/2021 13:36:20 :: Failed to backup SQL Server instance NET2 databases: 	Code = 0x80040e4d
	Code meaning = IDispatch error #3149
	Source = Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0
	Description = Login failed for user 'DOMAIN\veeam'.

COM error:  Code: 0x80040e4d  

[Mildur]

Please try it like written in the kb article:

:db_name - skip all databases with this name, on all instances

You are using "SqlDatabasesToSkip"="NET2:"
But it should be "SqlDatabasesToSkip"=":NET2"

Veeam thinks, that you instance name is NET2, if you put „:“ after the name NET2.
That could be an issue.


Another way you could try is to follow this kb article.
It will give you a GUI option to exclude databases from within the vbr console.
https://www.veeam.com/kb2110

[dandav]

The instance is called Net2 as well as one of the databases, I tried that to exclude the entire instance. I already had all the databases excluded using the process as per KB2110, however that didn't change the error. I have now tried setting the registry keys as per below to exclude the 3 databases that exist in that instance.

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[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication]
"SqlBackupInstanceDatabaseDelimiter"=":"
"SqlBackupInstanceDatabasePairsDelimiter"=";"
"SqlDatabasesToSkip"=":Net2;:Net2Archive;:Net2Events"

I still get the same warning. If we just exclude the databases then won't VBR still try and connect to the instance to enumerate the databases stored in the instance? In this case the user that Veeam is using doesn't have the rights to do that.

Code: Select all

10/09/2021 12:12:58 :: Failed to backup SQL Server instance NET2 databases: 	Code = 0x80040e4d
	Code meaning = IDispatch error #3149
	Source = Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 11.0
	Description = Login failed for user 'DOMAIN\veeam'.

COM error:  Code: 0x80040e4d  

[HannesK]

sql_instance_name: - skip all databases on this instance

if that does not work, please post the support case number that we can investigate. Support can only help if logs are provided.

I already asked my colleagues to update the article as the versions in the text should be "V8 and newer". On the right side, the versions are "any", which is okay because I cannot imagine anyone still running something older than V8

[ChrisGundry]

I would be interested to know the outcome of this as we had a similar thing and never got to the bottom of the issue.

[HannesK]

Chris, can you please post the case number where you tried to find out the bottom of the issue?

[ChrisGundry]

We didn't raise a case specifically for this issue, it came up as a potential solution to another issue we had logged a case for. The support tech couldn't get it to work properly. But in the end I worked out that the actual issue wouldn't be solved by this exclusion anyway, so we stopped looking at why the SQL exclusion wasn't working correctly.

[DaKernel]

We had an issue with the excluding named instances in the past the GUI way resolved it for us. We could never get the registry entries to work. Go with the GUI option from the VBR Console to fix it.

Another way you could try is to follow this kb article.
It will give you a GUI option to exclude databases from within the vbr console.
https://www.veeam.com/kb2110

[dandav]

What was the format you used in the GUI option to exclude an entire instance?

[ChrisGundry]

Yeah we tried registry and GUI and neither worked for us...

[HannesK]

as I mentioned earlier... support is there to help. please post the case number for reference. Thanks!