Two Veeam B&R servers, one source VM, and CBT

[jimmymc]

Hi

I have a physical Veeam B&R server (running v6 patch 3) doing backups to local storage, but I'd also like to get replication going to a different site. For the replication side of things, I'd like to create a VM with Veeam B&R on it and have that do the replication. Eventually I'll move backups to this VM as well (the vSphere 5 ESXi hosts have more horsepower than the current backup server).

Long story short - what I'd like to know, is will I have issues with CBT etc., when using two different Veeam B&R servers running jobs against the same VMs? Try as I might, can't find much info about CBT and multiple backup servers - either on the forums or the VMware Community.. (cue a string of replies with searches I missed)..

Cheers, James

[dellock6]

Why do you want to use two separate Veeam Servers? You only need to install a Veeam proxy on the remote site and use it as a target for Replication jobs, while you can use the Veeam backup itself as a local proxy for the Backup jobs.

[Vitaliy S.]

Long story short - what I'd like to know, is will I have issues with CBT etc., when using two different Veeam B&R servers running jobs against the same VMs?

This is covered in our sticky F.A.Q., please review: VMware : [FAQ] FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

As to your configuration setup I would agree with Luca, you do not need additional backup server, just deploy a backup proxy to run replication jobs to the DR site.

[jimmymc]

I did say it was a long story short.. I'm migrating the backups from a physical server to a VM, and rationalising them as I go - hence the want for two backup servers on a temporary basis until they're all over.

Thanks for that Vitaliy.. appreciated. I've read the FAQ more times than I care to mention.. how I missed that I don't know..

[MIDAC]

A client asked me this today and I wasn't sure what the answer was...

The client was wondering if he could run two installations of Veeam B&R and have them back up the same servers (mix of VMware & Hyper-V). Basically there would be two time windows to ensure both Veeam installations won't overlap to try to back up the same host at the same time.

My concern is related to changed block tracking (which we want turned on as speed is greatly improved)... if one Veeam backs up a VM daily at 8pm and then another Veeam backs up that same VM daily at 8am, will each Veeam capture all changes since it last backed up that VM (24 hours ago), or will it only capture changes since the VM was last backed up (12 hours ago)?

My client is happy to purchase a second Veeam license if I can assure him that the above will not mess up either backups, and that he will have two sets of perfect backups.

Thanks for your input!
Mike

[foggy]

Basically there would be two time windows to ensure both Veeam installations won't overlap to try to back up the same host at the same time.

Make sure they really don't overlap as this would cause conflicts. As for CBT, it will work fine in this scenario.

[MIDAC]

Make sure they really don't overlap as this would cause conflicts. As for CBT, it will work fine in this scenario.

Cool thanks for confirming about CBT and sorry for the late reply.. I could not find my original post.. it said "The requested topic does not exist." Looks like someone merged my post with this one without notifying me..

[Tijz]

Hi All,

I was wondering if I ran into trouble when I configure two jobs, both using different repositories, but both backing up the same VM using CBT.

Both jobs will run on the same night.

Will the first job "reset" CBT so the second job cannot use it? Or how else would this work? Can someone explain a bit how CBT would work in this situation?

thanks!

[evander]

Hi - I have a question that is probably a stupid question but is nagging at the back of my head and I would like some clarity please.
I am currently running two seperate backup jobs, Job1 is to local SAN and Job2 is to remote DR SAN (LAN speed)

They both run at different times each night.

As the backups only backup the changes that have been made, will job2 backup only changes since Job1 has run or since the last Job2 the previous evening?

I guess I am worried that the two different backup jobs, of the same VMs, will interfere with eachother, especially when it comes to knowing what has changed since the last backup.
Like I said stupid question, I'm sure but....

[evander]

Thanks for the merge and the related info.

[imarie]

What is the best practice when creating two jobs for the same VM, going to different repositories?

- I have two repositories. One on site, and one off site.
- I want to backup on site every day, but off site every weekend.

Will Veeam take this into account regarding Incremental backups and Changed Block Tracking, or do I risk backup corruption with CBT between the on site and off site backups?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Imarie,

There are no issues in targeting two jobs to the same VM. See this topic for more info: VMware : [FAQ] FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Thank you!

[imarie]

Great, thanks!

[Nikolay]

Hi,

We have several Veeam installations (for vSphere and Hyper-V) and in some cases we have backup jobs and replica jobs for the same virtual machines. As I understand for both hypervisors Veeam uses CBT mechanism to calculate the increment since the last run. My question is: do these multiple jobs affect each other from the CBT point of view? As far as I understand there is only one CBT file per VM which is stored on the same datastore as all other VM files. And if I add another (second) backup job (to the separate backup repository) for the VM that already has one backup job and one replica job with different non-overlapping schedules will it affect somehow my existing backup and replica jobs since it will use the same CBT info?

Thanks in advance!
Nikolay

[foggy]

Nikolay, no issues with that, please review this topic for details.

[nicko82]

Hi All,

One of my customers have a requirement for us to clone one of their production web servers 5 times once a month, they need access to the 5 cloned web servers for just 24 hours then to blow them away.

All 5 servers would need separate ip addresses and would like them in one separate vlan different to the prod master web server. So no problem I thought I will just use Veeam Replication and create 5 replication job for the same source VM, I would replicate every 24 hours to keep the target servers updated with the changes, the jobs will be configured to re-ip the target servers and place them in different portgroups, however because I will be running 5 replication jobs against a single source VM, would that stuff up CBT, Change Block Tracking ?

[Vitaliy S.]

Not at all, CBT is stored on per-job basis, so no issues with that. Also since you need to separate these VMs from the production network, I would recommend leveraging SureBackup functionality that would do everything for you.

[itlad]

Hi all

Just looking for some advice on my scenario as set out below;

We have acquired a remote office with one VmWare host with a couple of VM's on it. For reasons I won't go right now there is no backup tape drive on-site and no plans to buy one. Instead I am implementing a cost effective backup solution using Veeam Std edition.

There was a weekly Veeam backup to USBHDD job every friday night but due to concerns about that USBHDD being out of the firesafe for the remainder of the weekend a second USBHDD has been sourced and now there's wednesday evening backup too, which goes in the firesafe and remains there all weekend. So in the worst case scenario of a fire, two days of data would be lost as opposed to everything.

Which brings me to my question; Is there any problem having two separate Veeam jobs backing up the same VM's on the one host.
So on a Wednesday night we take a Veeam (incremental with synthetic full) backup to disk of VM1 and VM2 on the host.
And on Friday night we take another separate Veeam (incremental with synthetic full) backup to disk of VM1 and VM2 on the host.

CBT is enabled on the jobs - I understand CBT works a bit like archive bits and I'm wondering will the Friday job will only see CBT changes since wednesday and only backup those differences, making the backup chain corrupt\useless? And the same for the other job?

If this is a problem I'm looking for suggestions how else we might always keep at least one USBHDD with a recent backup in the firesafe?

Thanks in advance
itlad

[foggy]

No reason to worry, CBT will work fine on both jobs, please see the thread above for details.

[itlad]

Thanks foggy, this the just the answer I was hoping for

[Gostev]

I keep thinking how to make the FAQ topic even more visible... no one reads one still

[Yanish]

Just wondering, If I backup a VM multiple time in different jobs will this in any way affect CBT?

For instance I want to backup my file server every evening with 30 restore points. (30 days)
I also want to backup the file server once a week with 12 restore points (3 months)
and i want to backup the file server throughout the day every 4 hours with with 42 restore points (1 week).

I know I can use backup copy aswell, this is just an example. The question is will this in any way badly affect CBT processing?
Is there any difference in this scenario between Hyper-V and VMware?

[foggy]

No negative effect in terms of CBT on either platform.

[dellock6]

I keep thinking how to make the FAQ topic even more visible... no one reads one still

Once upon a time, the preferred reply on usenet channels was "RTFM". Ah, good old times

Luca.

[masonit]

Hi

If I backup a vm from one vbr server and replicate the same vm from another vbr server at the same time. What will happen when the first job is done. WIll it then remove both Veeam Backup Temporary Snapshot on the vm?

\Masonit

[foggy]

Magnus, as mentioned above, you need to make sure the jobs from different backup servers targeting the same VM don't overlap, as this can cause conflicts.

[masonit]

Magnus, as mentioned above, you need to make sure the jobs from different backup servers targeting the same VM don't overlap, as this can cause conflicts.

Just did a test.

First I started a backup job of vm1 from vbr1. While that job was running I started a replica job of vm1 from vbr2. When both jobs where running there was 2 veeam snapshots on vm1 in vmware.

Backup job finished first and removed only one of the 2 snapshots. I verified with timestamps on snapshots that the backup job removed the correct snapshot. Backup job finished successful. When the replica job finished the last snatshot on vm1 was removed. Replica job finished also with success.

Only error I saw was when backup job finished. Veeam then saw that there was multiple snapshots on vm1 and tried to consolidate. But the consolidate failed with:

2016-01-05 10:01:44 Error Performing disk consolidation: VM1 on vcenter
2016-01-05 10:01:43 Performing soft consolidation failed: Disks consolidation failed for VM vm-31300: Unable to access file since it is locked
2016-01-05 10:01:46 Error Job finished with error at 2016-01-05 10:01:45

From my testing it seems like it would work even if backup job and replica jo would collide. Atleast the backup job and replica job will end up successful.

I will go ahead and run backup job and replica job of the same vm from 2 different vbr servers. But I won't take any risk and still specify fixed backup windows for backup and replica job so they don't collide.

\Masonit

[foggy]

I admit, in some configurations this can work fine, however still recommend to keep backup windows separate. There's no specific logic for handling such situations in Veeam B&R. Potential issues lie in using hotadd, for example, when one job might be confused by the the disks created by another one.

[Vitaliy S.]

Another potential issue to keep in mind is VSS process inside the guest OS. If you enable AAIP in both jobs, then overlapping is highly not desired.

[pverburg]

Hi,

I have been following this forum for over 6 months now and can't find a definitive answer for the best configuration for my setup.
Just upgraded to Veeam Backup & Replication Version 9.

production:
is V sphere 2 hosts 20 VM's 10TB of data. physical backup server with tape unit and separate proxy/WANaccelerator.

DRsite Cold standby.
is V sphere 3 hosts physical storage server physical backup server/proxy/WANaccelerator.
slow link 10MB by VPN between production and DR
to keep the traffic down I have the DR Veeam server to pull and replicate the VMS from production once synced that works only done some testsing.

Now I just realized that the main backup server is unaware of the "otherserver" and that the changed block system might get confused as did they change after backup one or replicated 2 ??

I'm sure that im not alone with this kind of setup ???

Can someone please guide me to the best solution.

Thanks,
Paul V.