Veeam Backup of Hyper V replicas

[jfried81]

Hi,

I want to combine Hyper V replica and Veeam Backup. Is it possible to do the backup on the replicated site (and not on the production site)? How has this to be configured?

Thanks,
J

[nielsengelen]

You can add the Hyper-v host with the replica's on into Veeam Backup & Replication. Afterwards you can create a backup job which will backup these replicas.

[nathan.mcclintock]

And I note if you fail over the Hyper-V Veeam just keeps on working backing up either the actual of replicated version of the VM on the host. Nice!

[sarapinho]

Hi there,

We have 2 sites using Hyper-V 2012 and we are using Hyper-V Replica feature, to replicate VMs from the production site to DR.

At the moment, we would like to license only the DR site with Veeam and backup from the Hyper-V Replica VMs, because of higher costs in the production site (like more licenses, new storage, etc…)

In VMware we need to disable CBT and incremental backups take a longer time to finish, but what about Hyper-V? We have the same problem or any other observation?

Thank you.

[PTide]

Hi Sarapinho,

That will work, and we haven't received any reports regarding problems as of yet.

Thanks

[Craysus]

Hi all,
We have a simple 2 x server workplace.

Server 1 - Windows Datacentre 2016 - Approx 20 x hosts running on MS Hypervisor.
Hardware - 2 x 20core CPU's, 384GB ram, 4TB SSD, 6 TB SAS.

Server 2 - Windows Datacentre 2016, Approx 3 x live Hosts (DC2 / Veeam / WSUS) running on MS Hypervisor.
Hardware - 2 x 6 Core CPU's, 384GB ram, 4TB SAS, 8 TB SATA. - + 4 x External 2TB USB Drives

Network - Server 1 and 2 are in seperate buildings connected via a 1GB Fibre link, link is somewhat contended during the day, but clear overnight.

Currently we have configured Veeam B&R for replication from the primary server to the secondary server. We have 2 x pools for the replication (Critical and Lower Priority)
Critical is replicated every 2 hours from the SSD to the SAS primarily, with 7 days worth of replicants.
Lower Priority is replicated every Day from mainly the SAS to the SATA.

We currently have a weekly backup job running from Server 1, to the USB devices attached on Server 2..

I am looking to backup from the replicants on server 2, instead of creating new backups from the primary server. This will hopefully avoid the backup slowing the primary server, and will reduce the effects across the fibre link. Obviously the USB external drives are a bottleneck as well, so the backups run for an extended period..


Can we backup from the latest replicants? (Reverse archival from the replicants effectively?) How would we configure this?

Thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated.

[stimike]

In this scenario:

• Production Server
• Secondary Server (stores Hyper-V Replicas)

Are there any negatives to backing up the Hyper-V replicas with Veeam?

[DGrinev]

Hi Mike,

Yes, you can do that, just don't overlap replication with the backup job.
Can you clarify the purpose of the scenario, what are you trying to achieve? Thanks!

[stimike]

Thanks Dmitry.

In this situation, backups of the replica server are to keep I/O and extra software off the primary production servers.

[DGrinev]

Mike,

You're good to go, just keep in mind that it is recommended to keep backups on different types of media according to the 3-2-1 Rule. Thanks!

[robheffo79]

We have a production server that is using Hyper-V Replica to replicate our VMs to a Hot-Spare server every 15mins.
Is it possible for Veeam B&R 10 to do it's backup on these powered-down replica VMs rather than against the running production server?

Thanks,
Robert Heffernan

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

please see the answers above.

Best regards,
Hannes

[robheffo79]

Hi Hannes,

Thanks for that. I have read through and am happy it's indeed possible, I do have a query though regarding the following statement.

"Yes, you can do that, just don't overlap replication with the backup job."

Does this mean I need to suspend the replication process in Hyper-V while the backup is in progress?

Regards,
Robert.

[HannesK]

that's what it means, but I don't have further details on that.

[mxx]

I'm sorry about bumping this older thread.

There are many posts talking about the possibility of backing up hyper-v replicas, but nothing about whether or not this is a recommended approach.
I guess I'm looking for some kind of best practice info.


In the simplest scenario:
Server A (production): VM1 -> Server B (standby): VM1 (hyper-v replica)

In order to not stress the production storage or even Server A additionally, one could think it would be a good idea to just backup the replica on Server B.
But is it?
(can we trust Hyper-V Replica enough so that we don't have to fear backing up garbage or stalled replication state at some point? Etc...)
Is it always recommended to start a backup chain directly at the source instead?

I would be very happy if you could share your wisdom on this or point me to an article.
Thank you very much!

[PetrM]

Hello,

If you don't want to stress the production environment, why don't try out replication from backup? It will use already existing backup chain as a source of data.

Thanks!

[SarpeTronic]

I have a question bout backing up the replica.

Will functions like cutting off logfiles work?

From logic I would expect, that VEEAM would have to cut the logfiles from the source first, wait for the replikation and than save the cleaned image to the backup storage.

But I have no hint, if that really happens.

[PetrM]

Hello and Welcome to Veeam R&D Forums!

Would you be so kind to clarify which logs are you talking about? If you're talking about log truncation, it happens as a part of replication or backup job depending on how you configured jobs. However, I'm not sure that I understand your use case, what's the point to back up replica? You may try the replication from backup (see above in this topic) instead.

Thanks!

[SarpeTronic]

Yes I'm talking about log truncation, what happens if I backup the offline copy VM with it. Will it truncate the logfiles on the online source VM?

[PetrM]

No, it will not. Log truncation can work only for objects added to a job in which truncation is enabled.

Thanks!

[SarpeTronic]

So it means with offline copy there will be no truncation, that was my question, thank you for the information.