Can free edition backup Hyper-v vm's

[pstoric83]

I'm in the process of setting up a single Hyper-V host that will run one VM as the domain controller and possibly a second VM. If I install Veeam Agent on the host and let's say a bad Windows update breaks one my VM's, can I successfully restore that VM via Veeam Agent? Keep in mind it's a Domain Controller so AD must be in-tact. I know I may not be able to restore individual files from within the VM if I back them up this way but I'm only thinking of disaster recovery at this point.

[Shestakov]

Hello Paul,
You will be able to backup with free edition, but there will be no central management.

[pstoric83]

So what's preferred for a single hyper-v host with one or two vm's?

[Dima P.]

Paul,

You can use Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition 9.5 to backup your Hyper-V vms. Cheers!

[pstoric83]

Hmm I don't see a way to create a recovery ISO like I normally do with Veeam agent in case I need to do a bare-metal restore on the Hyper-V host. Is that possible with B&R?

[Shestakov]

With Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition you can backup up to 10 VMs for free.
If you want to backup the host itself, you can use Veeam Agent for Windows.
Thanks!

[Dima P.]

I don't see a way to create a recovery ISO like I normally do with Veeam agent in case I need to do a bare-metal restore on the Hyper-V host. Is that possible with B&R?

Yes it's possible. Recovery Media components are collected during the full backup of the operating system. Once you have such backup, you can create recovery media (in order to do that right click on the backup file and select create recovery media from the menu).

If you use VM backup - recovery media is not required as you can restore VMs from the backup directly to the Hyper-V host. Cheers!

[pstoric83]

Thanks. I've changed the repository for B&R to my NAS device and looking to create the nightly backup job. Would I just be creating a single backup job on the for the host that contains the VM or two backups jobs, one for the host and one for the VM itself?

[Dima P.]

Paul,

Can you please clarify which type of backup job was used (agents or vm backup)? Thanks!

[pstoric83]

None yet. I'm trying to plan out how I'll be backing up the host and VM that's running on there. There are no current backup jobs. If I choose to back up the host, that contains the VM as well but it's not a VM specific backup per say. If I create a second backup job for the VM only, wouldn't that be taking up unnecessary space as the host computer already contains the VM?

[Dima P.]

If I choose to back up the host, that contains the VM as well but it's not a VM specific backup per say. If I create a second backup job for the VM only, wouldn't that be taking up unnecessary space as the host computer already contains the VM?

Yes, you will backup the same VM twice and, as a result more repository space will be required. I'd rather backup entire host with agent or backup VM with vm backup job but not both at the same time due to the space saving. Cheers!

[pstoric83]

I went with B&R community edition to just backup the VM for now. I called Veeam yesterday and they basically said that B&R was built for backing up VM's and Agent was meant for physical computers. They said I can use agent within the VM for backup but it made more sense to use B&R. Currently not backing up the host at the moment. May just connect a USB drive to the host and use Windows server backup if anything.

Thanks for the help!