Domain Controllers and Application Aware Processing

[jcofin13]

Is it still best practice to enabled application aware processing on all domain controllers you are backing up?

I see this blog post from 2016 suggesting that is the case but that is quite old. (https://www.veeam.com/blog/backing-up-d ... ction.html)

The situation i am seeing is im looking at a veeam backup that has SQL and Exchange items manually added for AAIP but nothing for any of the DCs and i want to make sure im following best practices.

Also....does this recommendation change if vmware tools quiescing is either on or off (enabled or not). I have seen jobs configured both ways yet still no DCs added to AAIP.

[ronnmartin61]

Yes. See https://www.veeam.com/kb2119

[jcofin13]

Thank you. Im reviewing one backup instance that has it enabled and another bacukp instance that does not. I dont see anything in the veeam history on the one that does have AAIP enabled that its doing anything extra. I see one line that says Truncating logs i guess. Not sure if thats part of the AAIP process or not. I was also under the assumption that it would likely put something into the the windows event logs but im not seeing any events in the system or application logs about VSS doing anything. Is there a specific event id i should be looking for when AAIP is enabled for the DCs?

[jcofin13]

i think we found it. A coworker found that if you look in the guesthelper file and "find" b2014c9e-8711-4c5c-a5a9-3cf384484757 it will show you "Notifying a VSS writer about the successfully backed up components. Writer name: [NTDS]"

[Seve CH]

Hi jcofin13
There are more interaction that just using VSS to take a snapshot. Veeam seems to set the DCs in recovery mode at the next reboot, takes the backup, resets to normal (This triggered our EDR antimalware, by the way). This ensures that if you recover the DC, it won't corrupt your existing domain.

So... enable APP aware for DCs or make sure that you never restore the whole VM.

Best regards