Retrieving a complete VBRBackup object using C#

[Lord_Gaav]

I've been trying to retrieve information about VBRBackup objects using PowerShell, so I can integrate it into a WCF SOAP service. So far I've been successful, but the resulting code is really slow. The reason for this, is that I have to call Get-VBRBackup four times to retrieve all the information I want. In normal PowerShell I can simply do:

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$obj = Get-VBRBackup -Name server.name.com
$storages = $obj.GetStorages()
$storages.Info
$storages.Stats

The above code only calls the (slow) Get-VBRBackup function once. The other function and field calls are instant. Total runtime is about 4 seconds in my setup.

The corresponding C# code is:

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Pipeline getVbrBackup = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
Command GetVbrBackup = new Command("Get-VBRBackup");
GetVbrBackup.Parameters.Add("Name", Name);
getVbrBackup.Commands.Add(GetVbrBackup);

Collection<PSObject> backups = PowerShellHost.invoke(getVbrBackup);

if (backups.Count == 0)
{
    return null;
}

Pipeline getStorages = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$backup = Get-VBRBackup -Name '" + Name + "'");
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$storages = (Get-VBRBackup -Name $backup.Name).GetStorages()");
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$storages");

Collection<PSObject> storages = PowerShellHost.invoke(getStorages);

Pipeline getInfo = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
getInfo.Commands.AddScript("$backup = Get-VBRBackup -Name '" + Name + "'");
getInfo.Commands.AddScript("$info = (Get-VBRBackup -Name $backup.Name).GetStorages() | % { $_.Info }");
getInfo.Commands.AddScript("$info");

Collection<PSObject> infos = PowerShellHost.invoke(getInfo);

Pipeline getStats = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
getStats.Commands.AddScript("$backup = Get-VBRBackup -Name '" + Name + "'");
getStats.Commands.AddScript("$stats = (Get-VBRBackup -Name $backup.Name).GetStorages() | % { $_.Stats }");
getStats.Commands.AddScript("$stats");

Collection<PSObject> stats = PowerShellHost.invoke(getStats);

return VBRBackup.fill(backups[0], storages, infos, stats);

PowerShellHost is a static class that handels the connection to the Remote PowerShell instance on the VEEAM server, and the invoke method throws PowerShell errors as Exceptions. As you can see, in this C# approach I have to call Get-VBRBackup four times to retrieve all information. I have been unable to extract the information I want from the first call in "backups". I have tried to cast the PSObject that Get-VBRBackup returns as a CBackup, by including the Veeam.Core.Model DLL. However, even though the PSObject that Get-VBRBackup returns in PowerShell seems to be a CBackup, I cannot cast it as such in C#.

Can anyone tell me if I've missed something obvious, or if a better approach exists to retrieve all the information in a VBRBackup using C#?

[Sethbartlett]

A CBackup object is actually from Veeam.Backup.Core.dll. Veeam.Backup.Core.CBackup is the full path to the class. Give me a few and I will test a few things in Visual Studio.

[Sethbartlett]

Add Veeam.Backup.Common.dll and Veeam.Backup.Core.dll to your project, skip powershell and you can do the following:

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Veeam.Backup.Core.CBackup[] MyBackups = Veeam.Backup.Core.CBackup.GetAll();

From here, MyBackups is an array of all of your backups and you can do as you need with them, I'm sure you can figure it out from there If you have any problems, let me know.

[Lord_Gaav]

How would I go about doing this if my C# project isn't on the same server as VEEAM? We have multiple VEEAM servers, and I can't deploy it on all the servers. I need to be able to retrieve them remotely, which is why I turned to Remote PowerShell.

[Sethbartlett]

Why not just do the $Storages line and then reference $Storages multiple times rather than doing Get-VBRBackup again?

[Lord_Gaav]

Could you give an example of that in C#? The way I tried it caused an error saying the pipeline had already been invoked. I didn't seem to be able to reference a variable from an earlier pipeline in a later one.

[Sethbartlett]

That's the beauty of the runspace you have open

Your invokes need to change so it looks like:

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Pipeline getStorages = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$backup = Get-VBRBackup -Name '" + Name + "'");
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$storages = (Get-VBRBackup -Name $backup.Name).GetStorages()");
getStorages.Commands.AddScript("$storages");

Collection<PSObject> storages = getStorages.invoke();

In your next piece of code you could do the following:

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Pipeline getInfo = PowerShellHost.createPipeLine();
getInfo.Commands.AddScript("$Info = $storages.Info);
getInfo.Commands.AddScript("$Info");

Collection<PSObject> Info= getInfo.invoke();

[Lord_Gaav]

Aha, that works. I was wondering how I could access variables from previous pipelines, this explains it. My function went from an execution time of 16 secs to <1 secs.

[Sethbartlett]

Awesome! Glad I could help