Exploring Veeam: Unique names, tray icon and other questions

[George_Washington]

Hi Veeam-team and Veeam-enthousiasts,

As a potential Veeam-customer ( approx. 10000 servers ) I'm giving Veeam a try-out by discovering all the advantages and disadvantages. As far as I can tell Veeam's core focus is still on visualization, and while Veeam might be good at that, there's still that other part (Veeam Agents) that is in need of improvement.

For instance, I can't find a way or a solution for:

-- Managing all the work (stopping/starting/editing a Veeam Agent job) server-side.
-- Using a custom "agent-name". I know Veeam Agent uses the hostname when registering with VBR, but what to do when you have a lot of servers starting with "web001" and you would like each agent to have a unique name?
-- Installing the service as a background-service and without the tray icon. I don't want our customers to see or use the Veeam Agent GUI, but instead they should use the SelfRestore-portal.
-- Unified settings, such as a global exclusion list that can be modified or applied anytime, but from VBR. Don't want to log on to each server to modify the exclusion list.


I've also noticed that if you have UAC enabled on a server where Veeam Agent is installed on, the backup sometimes may not start or successfully complete. Does Veeam strongly recommend that UAC must be disabled prior to using Veeam (Agents)?

Hopefully the community can help me out with some of the questions above. Much appreciated

Sincerely,


George.

[nielsengelen]

Welcome to forum George.

In regards to some questions you have about central management/settings. This is actually coming very soon in Update 3 for VBR where you will be able to manage agents (both Windows and Linux) from a central VBR server. This way you can start/edit/stop jobs from the VBR server. On top of that u can install the agents in managed mode so they won't see the tray icon and GUI. The same applies for exclusion management, all can be done via the VBR server.

[George_Washington]

Hello vmniels,

Thank you for your response on such short notice.

Is there also a possibility to register with VBR with a custom name instead Veeam Agents using the (short)hostname? I don't want to be in a situation whenever I take a look at the list of agents, I'll hundreds agents called "web001".

Sincerely,


George.

[Dima P.]

George_Washington,

We leverage the set machine name for internal identification purposes, so unfortunately, it’s not possible to change it. However, the mentioned agent management functionality will use AD long names and it would be possible to use the IP address instead of the host name. Will that help you to identify the hosts, or you still would like to see some sort of description for every computer?

[George_Washington]

Hello Dima,

We have a few reasons we would like to use a custom name, but due to company policy I cannot disclosure any information.

However, If we could set a custom description for every Agent, then maybe we've solved "a disadvantage". Could you explain if this is possible and how to implement?

You also did mention that an IP-address can be used (in managed mode) instead of a hostname. Could you also explain how?


Sincerely,


George.

[Dima P.]

Just to be on the same page, I am talking about the upcoming Update 3 which is not released yet (so spoilers)

Could you explain if this is possible and how to implement?

Protection groups (folder with your hosts to protect) and backup jobs have a description field that can be used to keep any information you need regarding the protected hosts.

You also did mention that an IP-address can be used (in managed mode) instead of a hostname. Could you also explain how?

You can add host to Veeam B&R console via its hostname or IP address.

[mcz]

I also would like to have a "better name" for the agents. I think one way would be to display a certain field from active directory (e.g. description where you could store useful information)...

[Dima P.]

Michael,

If you are using Veeam B&R server to manage backup agents you can customize the name for backup job or policy

[mcz]

Dmitry you are right but if you have one backup policy for lets say 10 agents, you will only see the ad name of the object (e.g. dev01, dev02, dev03,...) and that's not always enough to identify the needed backup

[Dima P.]

Michael,

It is possible to add a description to backup job or backup policy via Veeam B&R Console. Will that work for you?

[mcz]

Dmitry, I'm afraid it won't be enough. As I said we have one backup policy for several endpoints and this policy contains e.g. dev01, dev02, dev03. Now I'm getting a request from Nikita, he needs some files from last week. Now I have to look in AD which endpoint Nikita uses and then I can start the restore job for dev02. So per default, I do not know which endpoint belongs to Nikita.

Do you know what I mean?

[Dima P.]

I understand the use case, thank you. May I ask if the regular users operate under local admin? If yes – it’s possible to use the self-service restore functionality of Enterprise Manager.

[mcz]

For security reasons, our useres do not have admin access and therefore they can't restore but thanks very much for sharing the article!