Agent Restore to VMWare

[Wocka]

Hello,

I have just trialed a restore of a Win 2008R2 server (running on VMWare) from one of our offices to our data center also running VMWare.
I found this process quite intensive and was wondering if I'm doing this right. From my Veeam B&R Console there is no method to restore the Agent files to a VMWare server, but you can to a Hyper-V Host?

Process:
1. Veeam Agent in branch office is backing up to the data centre.
2. Create a new blank server in VMWare with the same details, including disks and SCSI no#'s.
3. Boot the new VM from the Veeam restore media .iso.
4. Choose bare metal recovery.
5. Load the network drivers, set server IP, map a drive to the veeam.vib files.
6. Select manual restore (advanced), manually map the restore HDD's to the server as this was incorrect using the default method.
7. Let the server restore.
8. Edit the server change the LAN, boot the server.
9. Set the IP address back on server.

The server did restore in the data centre and booted fine. Is there an easier way to do this and is it 100% critical that I map the HDD's the same from one environment to the other?
My next task is to use this method to move / restore a Win Server on XEN to VMWare. The diffewrence is that once the server boots I need to remove all the Citrix drivers etc and install VMWare tools other wise the server BSOD upon boot.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Warwick,

Today you indeed need to do this type of procedure (which is a Bare Metal Recovery) since we are not a P2V tool. But there are maybe some things you can simplify?

I wonder (for example) why you need to map a drive to the Veeam backup files? If you boot from the iso, can't you directly browse to the B&R repository? (Maybe you need to give it an IP if there is no DHCP in play but mapping the drive should not be needed)

We are indeed working on a possibility to restore to a hyper-v host and later on restore to VMware will probably come into play also. That is to be decided

One final question: Did you try (from B&R) to restore the backup as VMDK files? That option is called Exporting to Disks

Cheers
Mike

[Wocka]

Hello Mike,

Thx for the reply.

I mapped the drive simply as this is what it requested. it wasn't pre-populated in the wizard.
Looking at my agent config, I have:
Desitination: Veeam backup Repository
Backup Server: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Backup Repositoy: the name seen in my B&R server

Yes my first attempt was to export the disks as .vmdk. This worked but it only gave me the .vmdk file and no .vmx etc to boot the server within VMWare. hence i tried the approach described.

[Mike Resseler]

Yes correct,

You will receive the VMDK file but you will still need to create an empty VM in VMware and attach the disks to it.

[Rascii]

This got me thinking.

Could you backup the physical Windows server with the Veeam Agent for Windows, create the Recovery Media iso. Then just create a new VM with the same specs and mount that iso and boot. Point it to the backup files and do a bare metal restore of some type (not sure what the options are) to the new VM you created (and are running the iso from)?

Would everything come out ok?

[Dima P.]

Hi Rascii.

Yes such approach should work. Thanks!

[Wocka]

Hello Dima and Rascii,

I can confirm that creating a blank VM Shell with the same specs as the original server works.
Booting off the Recovery Media.iso was easy, I enabled the network settings then I was able to browse to the network location where the .vib files were located to restore the server. The only issue I experienced was that the disk mapping was swapped around C: was trying to restore to the D: drive and vise versa. Manually changing that was easy and the restore process for a 280GB [70% capacity] server took about 14 minutes.

[rvlsolution]

Hello,

I'm facing a similar situation. I have one question. You are talking about booting a blank VM with the recovery media, but the recovery media is the one created from the client at the moment of the agent setup?
I saw that from B%R console, under "disk (imported)", when I right click on the client backup there is an option "Create recovery media" but is disabled (greyed out)…
Thanks for the help.

[Dima P.]

I saw that from B%R console, under "disk (imported)", when I right click on the client backup there is an option "Create recovery media" but is disabled (greyed out)…

From Veeam B&R recovery media can be created directly from full backup file but it requires agent backup to be created via Veeam B&R (as a part of managed agent job). For standalone agent please use recovery media creation wizard on the machine where agent is installed. Thank you.