exclude vmdk files in backup job

[Henrik_Thrane]

Hi there.

I got a SQL2005 server with 4 disks attached. I use Veeam 3.01 network backup VSS (not VCB),and i want to exclude the 3 drives that holds the Databases (about 2 Tb - RDM).
Is there a way to configure Veeam/VSS only to backup the C:\ drive (1 disk)?, i cant seem to find it in the GUI interface.

Where does Veeam hold the configuration files for the jobs setup by the Gui?

regards
Henrik

[aseesing]

Try to hit the button "Advancend" on the "Backup Destination" page when you edit the job properties. Then you'll find the option you seek for under tab "VM disks".

[Henrik_Thrane]

Hi Aseesing
Damn your right
I've must have overlooked this option a thousand times!!!!

Thx

[Gostev]

Just FYI, we have also made some UI chages in version 4.0 to make exclusion options easier to locate.

[BearHuntr]

I'd like to add as a feature request that it would be nice to have a backup job with a mix of servers that need all VMDKs backed up and some servers that only need some VMDKs backed up. Also, not all of our servers have the same VMDK structure, so it would be nice to have individual disk selection per server in a job. Hopefully that made sense! Thanks!

[mpozar]

I second this.

I asked for this feature earlier to be available in the product and I was told that it would be in a future release.

The feature then became available but is USELESS to me in it's current format since i have multiple Virtual Machines with multiple Virtual Disks and there are only one or two VMs that I want a disk to be excluded from the backup.

Currently ALL the VM's will have the virtual disk I specify excluded. I can use another Backup Job which only contains the VM that I want the disk excluded but this then negates the de-dup feature.

Have FUN!

Michael Pozar

[AJ83]

Is this feature implemented in version 4?

[Gostev]

No, granular per-VM disk exclusion was not planned for v4. This has been lower priority feature since we have seen most customers having "standard" VM configurations for each server role as it comes to virtual disks, so per-job exclusions settings were sufficient in many cases. However, this feature is still planned for future releases.

[AJ83]

I don`t get that.
We have a about 40 VM`s in our environment, with all different purposes (roles). But they are all from the same base OS template, and we want to backup them all with the smallest footprint (deduped) But some machines have data disks we dont really need in backup every day. I wouldnt like to place those particular machines in a different job, because the footprint would be bigger (less dedupe).

The only real problem though, is the fact that the software will only dedupe against machines in the same job. It would be even better if we could split to different jobs and still have it dedupe against eachother. I reckon that would make alot of people happy.

[Gostev]

Thanks for your feedback. We've also heard quite opposite from some other customers - that global dedupe is extremely dangerous since you are putting all eggs in one basket. Single block gets corrupted in you storage - and you loose all of your backups at once. Besides, backup files larger than 1-2TB are quite hard to handle and move around anyway (and we have customers with tens and hundreds TB of VMs to backup).

That said, granular per-VM disk exclusion is still planned for future releases, as I mentioned earlier.

[PeteWalker74]

Is there a workaround for excluding disks inside specific VMs?

[Gostev]

Yes, you can mark disks you want to exclude from back as Independent in the VM hardware settings (using VMware Infrastructure Client).

[PeteWalker74]

Thanks, Gostev. I did read that, but I'm glad to get that notion ratified, if you will. I appreciate your help.