is Veeam Backup for GCP has application-awareness option?

[Archdragoon]

My company has AD domain controller VM on GCP and we want to backup them with Veeam if it has application-awareness option.

[Alec King]

Hello, We have not yet implemented app-aware (VSS) backup in VB for Google Cloud because currently Google does not support syncing VSS across multiple VM disks. When Google introduces this capability we will be able to add it.

[Archdragoon]

Understood, Alec. Thank you.

[srlarsen]

We also have a need for something similar. We have a DB2 on Windows database server that we sometimes have to restore data from. When we use the Google snapshot schedule, it creates the snaps at the same time and even though it may not be across disks we make use of the VSS application consistent option on the Google disk snap. The Google snaps allow us to restore without problems. When we try and use the Veeam snaps, DB2 goes crazy with errors. I believe Veeam also does the individual disk snaps serially (difference in time on the disk snaps vs the same time on disk snaps with Google). So between the timing of the snaps and not being able to use the consistent option, it fails for us with Veeam. Is there a way Veeam could snap the disks at the same time like the Google snap schedule does and also make use of the application consistent option even though it isn't across disks? We have asked Google about when the "across disks" option would be available, but even if they make it available soon, it will probably be some time before we can use it in Veeam. We would really like to be able to manage everything in Veeam but we have been forced to revert back to Google disk snaps for some items.

[Alec King]

Hi, the viability of Google snapshots (even with VSS option) depends on the application deployment config - i.e. is it spread across more than one disk? Because Google snapshots, even with VSS option enabled, only do it per-disk, so they are not truly application consistent.
Current Veeam snapshots are crash-consistent; so it's true you may get better test results when using the Google VSS option but it's really 'rolling the dice' because the whole system (app disk + OS disk) has not been quiesced together. Yes, Google will trigger all disks to snapshot at 'the same time' however this is not guaranteed to be in sync.

Veeam requires a true application-consistent approach, so we need Google to add the full featured APIs before we can implement it on our side.