Few questions about Veeam backup 4 AWS

[dariusz.tyka]

Hi,

currently we are using CPM from N2WS and looking into new Veeam backup 4 AWS. I went through user guide and have few questions:
1. Is it possible to automatically add EC2 instances to backup policies via tags?
2. How about application consistent backups on Windows EC2 instances via VSS? No agent is mentioned anywhere.
3. It is not mentioned anywhere if AMI are created for EC2 Windows instances when using snapshots? According to AWS you need AMI to restore whole Windows EC2 instance.
4. Is Internet access for Veeam backup instance mandatory? Is proxy supported or direct access is required?

Dariusz

[nielsengelen]

1. Tags are supported.

4. We leverage API’s by AWS. We work with workers for backups which are dynamically deployed and destroyed so they don’t run all the time. Internet access is only needed for the UI.

[dariusz.tyka]

Hi nielsengelen,

thank you for prompt answer. See my comments below:
1. Tags are supported when searching for EC2 instances when manually adding to policy. I was asking if it can automatically add new EC2 instance to policy based on specific tag (when all resources are unselected within a policy).
4. Can the UI be accessed using private DNS or IP address? We do not require to access it directly from Internet without VPN.

[nielsengelen]

1. I will have to double check this.

4. In the deployment u can define which IP or ranges have access to the UI so you can filter this.

[Mike Resseler]

Dariusz,

1. That is how it works. Each time a task is triggered we will check the inclusion criteria. If new instances are added with a tag that is included in that policy, it will be added
2. Correct, today we use the native Amazon snapshot technology which means it is crash-consistent.
3. Every time we restore, we try to use the original instance AMI to restore the instance

[backupquestions]

If the backups are only crash consistent then how can you restore sql database or granular sql items? Veeam has always wanted people to use the app aware stuff and said how important it is and now crash consistent is used for this product?

[nielsengelen]

Alabaster, for now, we advise using the native tools provided by SQL prior to the backup.

[Mike Resseler]

@backupquestions Veeam hasn't changed his idea around this. But in a cloud, bringing app-consistency is a bit different (and difficult). For example, there is no Vix or PowerShell Direct. Which means we need to have access to VMs and have some sort of agents (either persistent or not...) That also means they need to have network access to the worker and so on and so forth.

Niels has done a suggestion above. Others are using the native backup but still a agent guest backup inside (with one of our agents) specifically for a database or similar.

[backupquestions]

Thanks. Understandable that there are some technical challenges with this. Not a big deal I suppose to use native sql backup for now.

[Brad.linch]

Hi there, this is now supported. Here is the how-to.

https://www.linchtips.com/post/protecti ... on-aws-ec2

[mfongemie]

This is great but what could a customer do to ensure application consistency for Sybase, Oracle, and HANA DBs?
Would they install a traditional Veeam agent inside the EC2 instance?
Thanks.

[nielsengelen]

@mfongemie For now, they would have to use the traditional agent with scripts however it is on our roadmap to bring this to VB for AWS soon.

[mfongemie]

Much appreciated