Veeam Agent for Windows to a Private Cloud

[gmele]

Hi, we are using Veeam Endpoint Backup and will be migrating to Veeam Agent for Windows to protect two Hyper-V host machines. We are currently taking backups to a set of 3 2TB USB drives which we alternate offsite. Is it possible to setup a private cloud (not via a Veeam Service Provider) and take backup offsite via the Internet? If yes, which Veeam products would we need to install on the on-site and off-site servers? My client is a SMB with only 2 small Windows servers. Client's budget is around $1000 - $1500 for backup software.
Thank you.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi,

Do I understand it correctly and are you going to be the "service provider" for this customer? Because in that case you can become a VCSP and offer this very easily for the customer. We even have this option as a VM running in Microsoft Azure so that you don't need to make investments to start with this type of services.

Let us know
Mike

[gmele]

Hi,
in reality my client (who is really a good friend for whom I am helping out pro bono) does not want his client data in the public cloud for regulatory reasons. He runs a small insurance brokerage bureau in Montreal. He insists on setting up his own offsite server at home and he wants his office system to transmit his nightly backups to his home server. Currently he is rotating 3 daily and 2 weekly USB backup drives offsite (takes them home). I am not a backup service provider although the idea of providing such a service to SMBs has crossed my mind.

Thanks.

[Mike Resseler]

In that case I would advise your customer to create a VPN to his home server. That will cost him nothing additionally as he will deploy the repository role on that home server (no additional licenses needed) and then he can create a backup copy job for his nightly backups to that home server.

Mike

[gmele]

Mike,
which Veeam products would we need for such a setup. Currently we're running Veeam Endpoint Backup of a Hyper-V host with two VMs.

Joseph.

[Mike Resseler]

Ah, my apologies, don't know why because you clearly stated it in the first post but I was thinking about Veeam Backup & Replication.
Before I give another wrong answer, does the customer want to have those backups onsite also? Or are they only required offsite?

[gmele]

Ideally backups would be taken onsite to a USB drive and a copy transmitted to private offsite server via the internet nightly.

Thanks.

[Mike Resseler]

Ideally then you would have a license for Veeam Backup and Replication and store the backups on a USB repository. From there you can do then a backup copy job to the other repository offsite.
You can use Veeam Backup free edition as a repository for your Endpoint backups but I doubt if that works with a Backup Copy Job. I would need to ask.

I will ask a colleague of mine that will know better

[gmele]

Hi Mike,

with a licensed version of Veeam Backup and Replication then I could backup to a fixed local USB drive and then have the incremental backup file transmitted to another offsite computer with the Backup Copy Job option? Can this be scheduled to run nightly?

What Veeam software would I need on the offsite server to support this. I assume that there is WAN acceleration for the offsite transmission of the backup and that it's encrypted.

The offsite computer would write the backup to a USB drive. In a DR situation we would take the USB drive from the offsite location and bring it to primary business location to do a restore.

This is what we'd like to achieve.

Thanks.

[CarlMcDade]

Hi Gmele

with a licensed version of Veeam Backup and Replication then I could backup to a fixed local USB drive and then have the incremental backup file transmitted to another offsite computer with the Backup Copy Job option? Can this be scheduled to run nightly?
.

The backup copy job will auto detect when the local backup completes and ships the copy to the secondary location.

What Veeam software would I need on the offsite server to support this. I assume that there is WAN acceleration for the offsite transmission of the backup and that it's encrypted.

.

You license Veeam for protected hosts/vms. You dont need any additional Veeam license at the offsite server. The role you will issue will be 'Backup Repository' at the offsite server

I assume that there is WAN acceleration for the offsite transmission of the backup and that it's encrypted.

.

Wan Acceleration is available in the enterprise license for backup copy. This requires a WAN Acceleration cache at each site to cache the backups. Encryption is available

[gmele]

Hi Carl,
thank you for the information. If my understanding is correct then as far as products goes I would be able to achieve the desired architecture with a single license of Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5. Standard Edition (without WAN acceleration). For WAN acceleration I will need the Enterprise Plus edition.

I would have to setup a WAN between office server and home server via a VPN connection.

When you speak of 'Backup Repository' role are you referring to a Windows Server Role? On Windows 2012 R2 I have not found such a role.

What if any Veeam software would I need at the offsite server?

Thanks.

Giuseppe.

[Mike Resseler]

The Backup repository is a Veeam Role, not a windows server role. So if the Veeam B&R server is deployed at the customers side, and the VPN is up and running, you will deploy a small package to the server at home and that will become a repository. So that small package is kind of the Veeam software you need at the offsite server. Not much actually

I'm still not certain about the licensing part. Technically everything here is doable, but for licensing, it might be best if you contact one of our reps in your area to be 100 percent sure that everything is OK.

PS: Throwing another option at you... If you would need to buy a license for B&R, then why still work with VAW? You said you have VM's running on a HV host. My preference would be to protect the VMs with B&R to have all the functionality and restore possibilities for those machines

[gmele]

Hi Mike,
don't laugh but we have been using VEB successfully for well over a year. Actually VEB is running on the Hyper-V host and also within the VMs. Works like a charm. We has an incident where the UEFI boot environment got corrupted on the main VM and it wouldn't boot anymore. I attached the Veeam recovery .iso file to the VM, booted it and repaired the UEFI boot files. This was great because we avoided having to restore the entire VM to a prior day backup. Users would have lost a whole days work!

VEB is a great product and we will still be needing it to backup the host machine so that we can recover the boot files and Windows OS rather than having to reinstall Windows 2012 R2 from scratch. However we are worried about ransomware and client is tired of rotating USB drives offsite daily so now we need a solution like B&R where we take a local backup of VMs to a non rotating USB drive nightly and then the incremental backup needs to be transmitted to the offsite server during the night.

The VEB host backup drive (4 USB drives) will be rotated on a weekly basis which is better that rotating disks daily.

I needed to understand the architecture so I can give my friend an estimate of the software licensing costs. As I understand it, we can get away with licensing B&R standard edition for a two socket server. Wan acceleration is not included in the standard edition but the VMs are small so there should not be a large volume of backup data to transmit nightly.

Thanks for your help and have a good day.

Giuseppe

[Mike Resseler]

Hey Giuseppe,

Not laughing at all actually.

I agree that you can still use VEB (or VAW as the new name) would be a good fit for your host. But from my point of view I think it is still interesting to have VBR standard (there is also a special license for less then x sockets which will be a fit for your case) and backup the VMs through VBR. On the other hand, the server edition of VAW (which will be out very soon) will give you the same application awareness processing as VBR does so it might not even be needed for you.

[gmele]

Hi Mike,

Veeam Backup Essentials 9.5 seems to be a better fit for our requirements.

From what I have read on the Veeam web site VAW Server edition is meant for physical servers so when it backs up a VM it will treat it as any other file. If one is familiar with the file structure of the Hyper-V Virtual Machines then it's possible to restore a VM by restoring the vhdx, avhdx, xml files etc. I have done this with VEB but now we want a simpler solution so that it's easier for someone who is not familiar with the Hyper-V VM file structure to restore a VM.

Thank you for pointing out the Backup Essentials option.

Regards,

Giuseppe

[Mike Resseler]

My pleasure!

And don't forget, you can use VEB or VAW on the host (exclude the storage location that holds the VM files) and you can also do a BMR of the host itself

Cheers
Mike

[Mike Resseler]

Awesome! Let us know if there are additional questions!

Yes, essentials is the name (for some reason I couldn't think of the name yesterday... And I did had my share of coffee already )