Feature Request: Surebackup and Windows Agent Backups

[it-infs]

Hi,

It would be great if we could choose Windows Agent backups to be used within an Application Group and Surebackup Job.

We have been testing backing up a number of physcial windows servers and would be very usefull to be able to restore and test against these types of backups.

Is this something that is on the Veeam Backup & Replication / Windows Agent roadmap ?

Kind Regards,
Neil

[EugeneK]

That'd be a great and logical addition to the features supported. The challenge I'd foresee there is the target options availability for machines tested like this, but those can be worked out with enough time for dev geniuses.

[Gostev]

This request is a bit premature, as at first we would need to support instant recovery of agent backups to VMware, which in turn requires P2V conversion logic with ESXi target. Today, we support this functionality with Hyper-V target only. Now, as soon as we have that, SureBackup should be almost "free" addition in terms of development effort hopefully.

[JoshuaPostSAMC]

+1

[pvr2002]

+1

[slider182]

This would be a great feature.
Have already been asked this by two customers within the last 2 months.

+1

[Dima P.]

Thanks guys. We have this request in the list of potential improvements.

P.S. A friendly reminder: try not post +1 without sharing your use case (i.e. what server/application you would like to test with SureBackup when talking about agent backups). Personal example brings much more value to the table

[lobo519]

This with proper Exchange support would be amazing.

[ayman.qaddoura]

Hi

is there any timeline when this feature will be available ?

[foggy]

No timelines at this moment.

[jochot]

This request is a bit premature, as at first we would need to support instant recovery of agent backups to VMware, which in turn requires P2V conversion logic with ESXi target. Today, we support this functionality with Hyper-V target only. Now, as soon as we have that, SureBackup should be almost "free" addition in terms of development effort hopefully.

It seems that it should be pretty easy then to include agent backups to surebackup with Hyper-V hosts?
As I only have Hyper-V in my environment, it would be great to push this feature if it's easy implemented for Hyper-V Hosts.
Also, as there is a free Hyper-V edition, people with VMware environments could use one of their servers with the free Hyper-V edition to use this feature? (There shouldn't be a problem with licenses on the Host dedicated to surebackup)

Ah yes use-cases:
I'd like to see this as our main DC's are Hardware machines and we will have a HW SQL Cluster and S4B on HW which would be nice to have in surebackup.
Also there are some other Hardware machines with different applications.

[msartor]

Hi all,
We have built a Windows 2016 Failover Cluster with SQL Server environment and we make a backup with Windows Veeam Agent (all works correctly also with Shared Volume)
Now we would like to prepare a SureBackup for this but can SureBackup works with the environment mentioned above?
We have serious doubts about the possibility to "handle" the Shared Volumes.

Thanks in advance for the answers.

Mirko

[DGrinev]

Hi Mirko,

At the moment a backup created by the Agent cannot be used in a Surebackup job, also it cannot handle the Shared Volumes.
I will merge your thread to the feature request in order to add one more vote. Thanks!

[msartor]

Thank you for the reply,
this feature could be really appreciates.

[Regnor]

+1

We need to build a lab for a customer which consists of VMware and Agent backups.
They have a database solution which is virtualized and some clients at a remote site which are necessary for testing/surebackup.

[itrabbit]

+1 We have all our webservers as physical servers and would like to use Surebackup to test our windows agent backups.

I do not see why veeam are dragging their heals on this, it already supports instant recovery, why cant we use Surebackup to test it??

[yakamoneye18]

+1
At the moment all our Domain Controlers are physical servers, and most of the systems where I would like to use SureBackup need AD to authenticate.

[nitramd]

+1. Our DCs are physical and would love to be able use them in the SureBackup enviroment. In fact, having the ability to test patches/updates on physical SQL& Exchange servers in an SB environment would be great also.

[kristofpoppe]

+1

Also here a big +1 request. Clients who have an hybrid environment with on-prem infrastructure combined with an external private cloud provider and secure their machines with agents + B&R must be able to test all their backups using SureBackup. This makes testing a lot more standard and universal.

[dmitryk8]

Another request here, just started to use SureBackup and realized that I can't really use it because all our DCs are physical backed up by Agent.

[Dima P.]

Hi folks,

Thank for you sharing feature requests, I’ve noted all your feedback and we will discuss it with RnD team. Thank you!

[jochot]

Hey,

I would really like to stress that this feature COULD be enabled on Hyper-V's already!
Additionally, there is the free Hyper-V version which someone in a VM-Ware environment could use to test his Hardware machines, so even tough it is not the best solution, this is definitely a "workaround" for people in VM-Ware only environments.

[markthenerd]

+1. Most of our DCs are physical and we need them restored to the SB environment for many things to be tested. SureBackup doesn't help us in most cases due to this situation. If this function worked it would help us out a ton with DR/BCP testing.

[Dima P.]

I would really like to stress that this feature COULD be enabled on Hyper-V's already!

Can you please elaborate how?

lost of our DCs are physical and we need them restored to the SB environment for many things to be tested. SureBackup doesn't help us in most cases due to this situation. If this function worked it would help us out a ton with DR/BCP testing.

Thank you for the request. Is there any other type of application that is currently protected by agents and should be checked by SureBackup job? Cheers!

[jochot]

Hey Dima,

when you scroll up to my post before that, you can see what Gostev wrote and why it should be possible on Hyper-V.
To explain how I understand this:
Surebackup runs the VM's from the Backuptarget (Instant VM Recovery) which is not supported for Hardware machines on VM-Ware yet(this I cannot confirm, as I do not have any VM-Ware Servers in my environment).
Now on Hyper-V that feature is supported (this I can confirm, as I am using instant recovery for HW machines on Hyper-V hosts).
So to my understanding (see Gostevs comment) this feature is being blocked for Hardware machines, because there is no Instant VM recovery in VM-Ware, and therefore Surebackup wouldn't work for VM-Ware environments
That shouldn't stop us from enabling this feature for Hyper-V hosts.
This also could be beneficial for VM-Ware environments, as there is a free Hyper-V Server Version which could be installed on spare Hardware to enable surebackup without additional costs as a "workaround".

I would really like to see this feature, as surebackup in the current form doesn't really help me & I think it's stupid to block the feature for Hyper-V Hosts because VM-Ware doesn't support it.

For me the most important checks would be our SQL Cluster & HW Domain controllers + some Finance tools that still run on HW machines (and the backup of them are audited, so that would be really helpfull)

[Anakha56]

+1 Vote from my side as well. I have two physical machines one of them being a domain controller that I would love to have this feature.

[techcure]

Another vote for this! Any updates on if this has made it on the road-map yet? Doesn't seem like it would be too far of a stretch since I can already perform instant virtualization to a Hyper-V host and in 15 days instant virtualization to Esxi as well.

[Dima P.]

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for updating the thread with your feature request! This feature is definitely on the radar but I cant comment on dates unfortunately.

[marieelieg]

+1 from me as well.

I have a client that has a SQL Always On Cluster with 2 nodes. 1 node is a VMware VM while the other is a physical server. They are used as active (VM) and passive (physical). I have created a SureBackup job for the SQL VM (the App Group also contains a DC VM and a few other unrelated VMs). However, the SQL script keeps failing for the SQL VM. I have opened a ticket with support and said to add the second node to the SureBackup as well (they didn't know that the second node is a physical server and I didn't specify it as it never occurred to me that SureBackups are not available for agent backups).

Fast forward a few months (COVID-19 situation starting and uncertainty), the client decided to continue with the configuration. Therefore, I installed the Veeam agent on the physical SQL node and created a backup for it. I then wanted to add it to the SureBackup job, and to my surprise I couldn't.

Also wondering if there is a roadmap for this feature yet? so I can get back to my client regarding this.

Thanking you in advance!

[Dima P.]

Hello marieelieg,

Just to make sure we are on the same page: you want to run a SureBackup test both VM and physical machine at the same time? SureBackup for agent backup is planned but I can provide any ETA at the moment. Cheers!