Physical DC Running Old Server 2012 Standard

[cheekycharly]

Hi we have a Physical DC running server 2012 Standard and I am wanting to back it up but feel the full install of Veeam B&R might be too much for that old server to handle and wondered if I could create another physical machine and domain join it and install Veeam on that and tell it to backup the server from that machine.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Mildur]

Hi Charly

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, that would work. Installing Veeam Backup & Replication on your production DC would be a bad idea from a security perspective. Also don't join your second physical machine to the same domain that you try to protect.
Backup services and production environment should be separated. Or you make it really easy for an attacker to take over the backup server with the same credentials as he most likely already has for the production environment. And then you loose all backups and your production data.

After the VBR installation, please follow this quick start guide to deploy the Veeam agent to your DC server and protect it with a backup job:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Thanks,
Fabian

[cheekycharly]

Hey Fab that's rapid and great advise. I will take your advise now and set veeam up on another physical machine I have here and follow the link above.

Will keep the post updated with any updates.

Thanks again!

cc

[cheekycharly]

So I have setup a machine with a non domain logon and installed Veeam. I then attached my cloud repository to it, and created a backup job. During the backup job I told it what I want backing up is "SERVER001" (The DC) I have then gone through the rest of the steps and it has created the job.

I was kind of expecting it to invoke "SERVER001" and see if it had Veeam Agent installed and come up with a warning but it didn't.

I haven't run it yet as pupils are still in and it would hammer the internet. Do you know if the backup will just fail as the Veeam agent hasn't been installed on "SERVER001" or will it just crack on?

[Mildur]

Without a Veeam Agent, it will eventually fail.
Have you created the protection group? Do you see Veeam Agent Service running on your DC controller?

Thanks,
Fabian

[cheekycharly]

Hi Fab when I go to "Inventory" to create a protection group I only have the words "Storage" on the left and on the right "Add Server" "Create Job" "Restore".

When I created the Job on the "Computers" Tab I clicked "Individual Computer" instead of "Protection Group" as I only have the one server to backup. Is this correct?

I have not yet installed the Veeam Agent on the "SERVER001" as students are in and I have a feeling it will require a reboot of the server unless you don't think it does?

[cheekycharly]

Sorry I think there has been confusion on my part as to what Veeam Agent does. I thought it was an installer that put the services on the system so your Veeam B&R could control it.

I have now installed it on the server and can see it is basically a lightweight self managed backup system which means I dont need the physical VEEAM server I created.

I am running a backup now and will keep an eye on the status.

[Mildur]

Hi Charly

I have not yet installed the Veeam Agent on the "SERVER001" as students are in and I have a feeling it will require a reboot of the server unless you don't think it does?

A reboot may be required if you have too old .NET versions installed or if you optionally install the Veeam Agent CBT driver. Our installer needs .NET 4.5.2 which requires a reboot to install.

Sorry I think there has been confusion on my part as to what Veeam Agent does. I thought it was an installer that put the services on the system so your Veeam B&R could control it.

Veeam Agent is our product to backup a physical host.
A protection group on the Veeam Backup & Replication server is used as a central management of all Veeam Agents in your environment. You can install and upgrade Veeam Agents on your physical computers.
When you have done that, you can create a backup job in the veeam console on your backup server. The job will then tell the Veeam Agent on your phyiscal computer to create a backup.

Best,
Fabian

[cheekycharly]

I am having major issues getting my data up through a poor broadband line and have just watched both backups fail today one after 90hours and another after 26hours. I have changed my backup type from Entire to Volume and selected just the data drive now but notice Veeam counts the whole drive capacity instead of just the data. Why is this?

Also when it fails I'm back to 0% which is frustrating so looking at the Veeam agent would "Enable backup cache" fix this issue?

Thanks in advance.

[Mildur]

Backup Cache will be used when the backup repository is not reachable. And Restore Points won't be available until they are uploaded to the backup repository.

I would not use backup cache. I would try with backup seeding. You create the first backup locally. Then transfer the backup files to the target location and remap the existing backup job to the transferred files. :
1) create a Veeam backup repository in the location of your DC server.
2) Create a backup job which backups to this veeam backup repository
3) Let the job create the initial full backup
4) disable the job
5) Follow this guide to move the backup files to the target repository where you have your VBR server:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Best,
Fabian

[cheekycharly]

Just as an update to the post I have changed the type of backup and split it up. The first backup runs and just backs up the data drive and the second backup is just the OS. Running the backups as file level separate backups I have managed to get them up to the cloud repo. I know this wont give me a system image backup but that is not what I require.

Thanks for all previous replies from the team.