Snapshot backup of VBR server to be used in SureBackup

[johannesk]

Hi,

I'm preparing to upgrade our Windows VBR from 12.3.2.42.65 to 13.0.1.1071.

I would like to try the upgrade within SureBackup, but to do that I will need to make the VBR server backup itself. The VBR server is a VM that is also the SQL server for VBR.

In Kb2645 it's mentioned not to do it, both because you should not rely on that for VBR recovery and that it could result in the VBR service to crash.

https://www.veeam.com/kb2645

But I wonder, is anyone doing this and has had success? I guess the worst outcome would be that VBR would need to be rebooted.

Regards,
Jóhannes

[david.domask]

Hi Jóhannes,

KB2645 is specifically about how to properly protect the backup server long term and the potential effects of hypervisor snapshots & VSS on Veeam operations -- if you're doing a one-off backup of the server to test upgrades and are prepared to do the backup when no other operations are running, it should be fine for that purpose, just be aware it may take a bit longer and may encounter issues.

The main idea of the KB article is that you should not use regular jobs to protect the backup server and the configuration database, instead use the built-in Configuration Backup.

While SureBackup in troubleshooting mode can certainly help with this, if your backup server is a VM, a native hypervisor snapshot will do the trick as well for testing and probably more simple.