Backup Integrity on SureBackup Application Group

[joloo]

v12.2

I have a single Hyper-V that I am backing up and then running SureBackup.

I have put that single VM into an Application Group by itself (so that I can run App check) and I leave the Linked Backup empty.

In the SureBakup job Settings, it has an option "Perform Backup Integrity Check" which I have checkmarked.

Under that, it has "Skip Integrity Check for App Group". This is checked and grayed out so that it cannot be unckecked (if I have the option enabled to leave the App Group running)

This makes it appear that Integrity check will not work for any VMs inside the App Group if they remain running.

How can I tell it not to skip the App Group if they remain running?

[Andreas Neufert]

Leave the application group empty and add it through linked backups.

The idea of the application group is that you first start all servers that need to be present in the lab before you can test your servers with the linked backups.
For example to start an DNS server VM before you can test a database server as the database service would not come up without DNS present.

[joloo]

That does not work for 2 reasons. If you don't use App Group, then you cannot use the Application check scripts. It only does heartbeat and ping. Also, you can't leave a linked backup running like you can an App Group.

[Andreas Neufert]

Yes, of cause you can use the Application check scripts. It works the same way.

Correct you can not leave it running. Can you please let me know for what reason you want to keep it running. I can then maybe advice.
I will check as well with the responsible PM on why the Integrity check is greyed out.

[joloo]

Your answers do not make sense. How exactly do I assign a role to trigger an application check if I am not using an Application Group? The role setting is inside the Application Group setting.

Then you say, "Correct you can not leave it running", but you also say "I will check as well with the responsible PM on why the Integrity check is greyed out". Why are you checking to see why the option is grayed out if you already answered "Correct you can not leave it running" ? That would be the reason right there.

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi please allow me to clarify and be more precise.

Application Groups are used for systems that need to be started before the SureBackup check runs for linked backup jobs.
You define in the Application Group wizard as well on what you want to check for these systems to ensure that these systems run well before the SureBackup Linked Jobs are checked.

In the SureBackup Job wizard you can as well define for the Linked Jobs the same settings when you hit "edit".
You can define this for the whole job, or you can add individual servers/objects/folders/... there and define the tests for this group or server.
It is in the end the same wizard.

Yes in case you want to build a lab that you let keep running, then you can only work with the Application Groups really (there is another way of working with "on-demand labs" but that looks to be a bit too complicated here for what you want to do).

So my ask was, why you want to keep the lab running. What is the usecase for this, instead of letting SureBackup do the testing and then automatically decommission the temporary lab? There might be some additional ways.

And I will ask the responsible product manager why you can not uncheck the "Skip Integrity Check for App Group" in the Application Group in your case to see if there is a technical reason behind this or we could change this in an upcoming version.

[joloo]

Ok, yes that makes sense now. So, it's nice to have a production-copy running to do testing against (like application or config updates, patches, etc), that won't actually affect anything because it is isolated. With SureBackup running daily, this running-copy is always fairly current, automatically.

[Andreas Neufert]

OK, so you want to perform SureBackup and daily let the lab running for potential testing. This means you need "twice" the resources.
Do you manually stop them or do you have a script ?

As a workaround maybe start a surebackup job that just performs the testing (it will complete 100%) and will warn you if something goes wrong and the source of the backup is somehow not OK.
Then start a second SureBackup job with the existing configuration that boots up your lab for testing.

[joloo]

They don't need to stop manually, the next SureBackup stops it automatically. That is one of the recommended configs that I read on the website.

Ok, yes, that is a good workaround that you have proposed.

[Andreas Neufert]

It looks like it is a bug that the checkbox is greyed out and can not be unselected. We will do some research in QA, and the plan is to address this in the next upcoming update. The reference number is 799084 if some Veeamers want to look it up.