Is it possible to exclude VM(s) from SureBackup job?

[pirx]

When you configure an advanced multi-host virtual lab, you must select an ESXi host on which the proxy server will be created and DVS on which Veeam Backup & Replication will create isolated networks.

Do you use this? Is this really using different hosts? In my test I always have to select exactly one host in VL configuration which can not be changed afterwards.

[Samba222]

Thx Fabian, yes we have...
"...in that case" - but we dont have "that case" - we are using enterprise functionality without DVS and even if - I dont want to configure the DVS myself
so yes - please keep it simple in a normal use case with a host change in lifecyle process

From my point its often or maybe more and more here in the forum that an engineer comes with a laborious workaround instead of a useful, contemporary function. (or the understanding)

Thx
Ronald

[pirx]

I'm puzzled and still can not belief that I can't make advanced settings (disable ping / heartbeat) for VM's that do not exist anymore. Can someone confirm this or point me to a setting that I'm missing?

Example: a VM was created, backed up and then deleted because the install was broken (or no install was done at all). The VM is on SOBR with S3 extent + immutability, so no chance to delete it from backup before retention of 10 weeks + some-not-always-clear-extra-time is over. SB now tries to verify the VM every time it runs and fails. Okay, no exclude possible in SB, we know this (and I did not try the SB exclude patch yet as it seems that it might be revoked soon...).

But I want to disable heartbeat and ping test for this VM. So I go to Linked Jobs -> Advanced -> Add and search for the VM. Nothing. As far as I can see the search does not include VMs from the backup job it only checks vCenter for the name. That simply doesn't make sense.

So if someone can confirm this or even better has an idea to solve this I'd be happy. I asked support now multiple time and didn't get an answer (other than SB is special...)

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Pirx,

Verification Settings window works the way to display current linked job's objects list, so true, if you have an infrastructure-added(say, Resource Pool, for example) backup job, it will not display respectful (deleted) machine under SureBackup > LJ > Advanced list. Tree will be built based on current resource pool status.

As for ideas to solve this, you can add this machine using "from backup" option to Application Group for that SureBackup job and configure it's granular settings there. App Groups has priority over LJ and will pick that VM's settings from there.

/Thanks!

[pirx]

With an AG in addition to the Linked Job I can now disable ping/heartbeat for the deleted VMs. Nothing that works for going live, but at least the test job does not fail every day.

[Ben.online]

+1 for VM exclusions!

Or creating jobs based on Vm's and not linked jobs to make a selection.
We now have the situation where IaaS clients are in backup Job X
But because they all have there own subnet not all networks within that job can be mapped because of the maximum of 9 nics in the vlab
This makes creating Vlabs and linked jobs a nightmare and inflexible

[TWuser]

Thought I had already +1 this before, but it's a giant hole in SureBackup and is so frustrating it's not surprise most customers don't utilize it.
As per Ben's point above, exclusions and/or ability to create jobs based on VMs and not Linked jobs.

[alessandro.dallari]

+1 for VM exclusions!

As we have some deleted vms, not existing anymore in the production environment, but presents on gfs backup.
sure backup job try to mount them anyway, directly from archive cloud storage, then thei fails anytime.

[adamcbeck]

+1 for vm exclusions or the ability to simply select vms individually

As it exist today, surebackup is unmaintainable in our environment

[amagnone]

+1 for exclusions. Adding immutability in our offsite backups made SureBackup a mess and almost impossible to keep running.

[mriesenbeck]

I've just installed V12 RTM hoping to see new features in what I consider the weakest part of the product, SureBackup. But I see NOTHING new. A feature I've been dying to get into the product, since not having it is being able to exclude VM's from Linked jobs. But that is not possible. I know of the global exclude, but I need this feature for machines that we want to backup, but the SB always fails, eventhough the vm is behaving normally. Now the only option we have is to create an application group (nightmare and takes so much time), but the application group runs are different that that of the linked jobs, I want a machine to boot, get the green sign and turn off, and have that being done on eg. 10 machines at a time, as can be configured with the linked jobs.

So the fact that there is no exclude vm from a linked job is very disappointing, and the fact that a lot of the configuration within SB needs to be done one by one, instead of being able to process multiple numbers of items. For instance when adding the mapped networks.

I wanted to be excited about this release and with the 500+ new/changed features I was expecting Veeam to make SureBackup mature. That hasn't happened

[mriesenbeck]

I've tested V12 and NO change whatsoever to SB. So no exclusion from linked jobs. Leaves me VERY disapointed indeed.

[Samba222]

Oh no... i was hoping the feature would be implemented

[Gostev]

Guys, the PM was very transparent that this feature won't make it into V12... there's no point in sharing disappointments about something that was known for over half a year, they do not really add any value to this discussion.

[Samba222]

oh of course its not the "disappointments about something that was known" - its the disappointment about these 11 year old thread!

[Gostev]

It doesn't matter what kind of disappointment it it. What I'm saying is there's no value in such comments on a technical forum, especially in this specific context.

It's one thing to be disappointed if we promised to deliver some feature in V12 but never did, and moreover kept this decision to ourselves, letting our users discover this in the RTM build.

However, coming here only to say, effectively, "I'm very disappointed V12 does not implement a feature that was previously confirmed not to be included in V12" has absolutely no value. This is just a waste of everyone's time. Just imagine what this thread (and other threads about missing features) would turn into if everyone else follows up with identical comments now.

[mriesenbeck]

I did not know that it was explicitly not mentioned for V12. It's more a general feeling that one of the most important things in Veeam in my opinion is basically disregarded when new versions come out.

TO give you an idea of the headache, we have customers with jobs with MANY vm's in them. Say 100. If one of the vm's in such a job cannot be SB'd succesfully (for good reasons), we have to either create new jobs to hold those machines, or we need to create an application group, which is not doable since all machines need to be added manually and per vm sometimes parameters need to be changed. So while, I truly LOVE the Veeam products for backup and replication, this very important part of the product stays underwhelming.

[Gostev]

The issue itself is very understandable, which is why in the same post Egor indicated that we're already looking at delivering this in the following product updates. It's just that we try to group all related pending changes to certain functionality together, so that we don't end up breaking and re-testing every feature every release.

[pirx]

I agree that this discussion is somehow expendable. Because there was already feedback from Veeam about "maybe" implementing this feature multiple times in the past 11 years. So I expect not too much from the "considering to include it with the following update" statement. And that's my biggest point of criticism, there is absolutely no roadmap for SureBackup. And that's one reason why verifying backups is not on the plus side of Veeam anymore. It's a feature that was heavily advertised and was a differentiator to other products. But if there is 0 development and user input is not heard in 11 years, it renders this features useless.

Veeam B&R is a slow moving ship. New features or changed to features are not released that often, it's seems to be all very monolithic.

[Gostev]

there is 0 development and user input is not heard in 11 years

This is simply not true. I quickly searched through What's New documents of every release in the mentioned 11 years and there are SureBackup mentions in ALL releases but one. With V12 being no exception with much requested support for agent-based backups in SureBackup jobs plus a number of other enhancements. And you can expect further enhancements to SureBackup including to the job scoping in future.

Having said that, I'm locking this thread because unfortunately it can't seem to recover into the actual requirement discussion, with everyone now only coming here to share their disappointment - which is not too useful but takes time to keep responding to.

[Gostev]

Unlocking this discussion early for further feedback before I forget to do this, as the requested feature has been delivered as a part of version 12.1 (along with a number of other SureBackup enhancements that will be documented in the usual What's New PDF). The new version should become generally available in the next couple of weeks.

[crackocain]

Thank you Gostev. This feature is at the most critical part of the SureBackup. It was affecting the usability of the feature a lot.

This way we have less fail SureBackup/SureReplica jobs and customers follow alerts very easy.

[lukklin]

Great news! Thank you Gostev

[bg.ranken]

As someone who has to manage very long retention schedules (5+ years) this is going to fix so many of our jobs. We have jobs that haven't seen a successful message in years due to one or two VMs.

[TWuser]

This is a long awaited feature that should make SureBackup realistically useful, as I had abandoned it due to this issue.
I'm not sure if anything else has been updated (the interface seems outdated) but the ability to exclude finally will be a big deal.