Backup Seeding Feature Request

[bhwong]

I have some suggestions:

1. Allow user to select the seed file itself so that there is no guessing which subfolders they should be pointing to. If it's due to permission issue, alert will be prompted immediately as well, without waiting for a full backup and a failure to find out.

2. Give some controls to user to decide if they want proceed with incremental backup after multiple failures, while the system can still suggest that a full backup is recommended.

3. It should not fail automatically after backing up for a few days. Will be great if it can resume from a disconnection or have the ability to pause the backup job during peak period.

4. Option to install an agent at remote site for WAN optimization.

[bhwong]

My Incremental backup is working now. But unfortunately, VEP seems to be unable to resume a backup job from a connection reset. Is there a way to overcome this?

FYI, we are using high speed fibre optic WAN connection and have no problem performing a direct file copying of huge 1TB file over the WAN connection successfully that take about 3.5 days at an average rate of 12GB/hr. Why can't Veeam resume the same even if there is indeed a connection reset? I also notice that VEP transfer rate is extremely low, at about 700MB in 9 hours. That's merely 75MB/hr compare with Windows direct copy at 12GB/hr. That's 160x slower!

Note: We are using file level backup which VEP indicate that it will be slower.


Endpoint Backup job: Backup Job NS4
Veeam Endpoint Backup
Error
Tuesday, 02 August 2016 10:07:13
Success0Start time10:07:13Total size698.6 GBBackup size1.4 GB
Warning0End time19:04:31Data read684.9 MBDedupe1.0x
Error1Duration8:57:18Transferred684.9 MBCompression2.6x
Details
NameStatusStart timeEnd timeSizeReadTransferredDurationDetails
NS4Error10:07:2019:04:31698.6 GB684.9 MB684.9 MB8:57:11Error: ChannelError: ConnectionReset

Veeam Endpoint Backup 1.5.0.306

[Vitaliy S.]

But unfortunately, VEP seems to be unable to resume a backup job from a connection reset. Is there a way to overcome this?

That's not possible, however if you want to have an ability to sustain connection resets, then probably it would be better to use local destination for VEB backups and then use backup copy jobs + WAN accelerators (Veeam B&R) to transfer backup copies to the offsite location. Thanks!

[bhwong]

Apart from it's inability to resume and backup reliably over the WAN connection, I realize that it has affected the shadow copies I/O too. As a result, the daily shadow copies we kept are wiped out because the shadow copy storage could not grow in time. In the Windows event log, I saw Event 25, volsnap:

The shadow copies of volume D: were deleted because the shadow copy storage could not grow in time. Consider reducing the IO load on the system or choose a shadow copy storage volume that is not being shadow copied.

[Pat490]

Hi,
I have 1 physical Server being backedup with VEB to it's local hdd. The path on local hdd is configured as repository in VBR.
Connection to physical server is very slow, so we want to seed the full backup to VBR repo and only copy incrementals over slow connection.

So, how do I start? Do I first copy files onto Veeam server and than create Copy Job? Which Folder Names to use exactly? How to create the copy job for incrementals?

[foggy]

Hi Patrick, please see this post for the seeding procedure. Thanks.

[akrietsch]

We have been installing the Veeam Agent on remote file servers at our branch offices, and then backing them up over the WAN to our central Veeam repository. This typically works quite well. The initial full backups can take a while, but the increments all run smoothly.

Some of our remote servers are quite big (750 GB to 1.25 TB) and the upload speed between them and us is just not good enough to get that initial full backup. Is there a method where we could back up the server to an external hard drive, then have the office ship us that hard drive, then we move those files onto the Veeam Repository and have the backup chain stay intact? I know it is possible to move those backup files around since they are the same no matter the destination, but it appears that the Veeam Agent job configuration lacks the "Map Backup" functionality that regular Veeam backup jobs have, so I don't know of a way for the job to properly see the backup chain once its moved to the repo.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Technogod]

Correct, Veeam Agent lacks the VM mapping functionality so it can't be done.

[akrietsch]

That's a bummer. Thanks.

[Dima P.]

Not correct. Mapping for agent backup copy is not working. Regular agent job works - its possible to take local backup (i.e. hard drive), move it to your primary site and map the full backup to the VAW job. Take a look at the post in this thread.

[Technogod]

I disagree, That post was written for VEB not VAW. There are multiple posts in this forum stating that it doesn't work with VAW.

[nilzor]

Hi,

I tried to setup a backup copy job to a remote site and tried to seed the initial backup on the target.

So far I've been using the free version and when creating the job I was not able to select "map backup" when selecting the target. Is that something I would be able to achieve with the full version of the windows backup agent? .

Thx

[Dima P.]

Mapping VAW backups to VAW jobs is supported and works as described for all the targets.
Mapping VAW backups to VAW jobs in Cloud Connect is supported and works as described.
Mapping VAW backups to Backup Copy (Agent platform) does not work.
Mapping Backup Copy (Agent platform) backups to Backup Copy (Agent platform) jobs does not work. Should be supported soon.

EDIT: KB dedicated to mapping procedure.

[Dima P.]

Hi nilzor,

Please review this thread. Thank you.

[Technogod]

Mapping VAW backups to Backup Copy (Agent platform) does not work. Precisely! That is what I'm talking about.

Quote from Veeam Backup Guide. Backup copy jobs processing Veeam Agent backups have one limitation: you cannot use backup mapping for Veeam Agent backups. As a result, if you have a full Veeam Agent backup on the target repository, you will not be able to use this backup as a "seed" for the backup copy job. The backup copy job will always copy the whole Veeam Agent backup chain to the target repository.

[ckuperstein]

Can you take a local copy of a windows agent backup and use it to seed a Backup Copy Job to a Cloud Connect tenant repository?

[Dima P.]

Hi Chris,

I've merged your post in to dedicated topic. Kindly, review this post