Backing up Veeam- time changes?

[eweiner]

I am a new Veeam user and I have a few questions about Veeam B&R.

First, my configuration:
Vsphere ESXi 4.0.0 U2 (latest version). "essential edition"
Veeam B&R 4.1 (latest version from the website, I think there might be a more recent version available via special request?)
I have two VMware host nodes connected to an iSCSI SAN (scale computing)
I am using a local embedded SQL database (not an external one).

I am running veeam in a virtual machine, on server 2008R2. 4 procs allocated, 4 GB RAM
I am currently backing up a whole bunch of test machines (35 ) running XP, linux, server 2003 and server 2008.

I currently have it configured in the "virtual appliance" mode to back up most things (using VSS quintessence), and using the "network" mode to back up the problematic ones (a few linux boxes and XP boxes with crazy firewalls that won't let WMI stuff through).

My questions:

1) I have seen this discussed a little bit, but never saw a resolution. What needs to be done about backing up the Veeam server itself. In other words, if my primary storage completely fails, it sounds like I would need to:
a)install windows on a machine
b) Install Veeam on it.
c) Restore things from backup.

In other words, if I don't have the SQL database, can I still restore things?

Alternatively, how do I back up Veeam VM/sql database, other than by using an external backup program. I do have a license for backup exec but I really wanted to move away from that if at all possible.

I do have a SQL server available to me to use, if required. But I was planning on virtualizing that machine as well. It seems like I would still have a bootstrapping problem if I lost my primary storage. (i.e. I would need to restore the machine with the DB to get the DB to restore things from...)


2) I am seeing an odd problem when backing up using the quiescence. There is no error in Veeam, but there is on the machine that I'm backing up.
I noticed it because I am running an email server that is sensitive to time. (Communigate).
It thinks that there was a CPU hogging problem because all of a sudden the time changes on the machine by 5-15 seconds, so it throws an error. (non-fatal, but I am wondering if this could cause problems in emailing/queueing/etc.)

In the windows "system" log, I get this message every time that the VSS is run.
The system time has changed to ‎2010‎-‎07‎-‎09T18:47:30.145000000Z from ‎2010‎-‎07‎-‎09T18:47:26.041906600Z.

It seems odd that the system time would need to be changed. Do I just need to disable VSS in order to avoid this problem, or is there another workaround. I would prefer to get consistent backups, if I could.


3) Since I am new to this, and am starting out fresh, is there anything that I should be doing differently? Do you have a "best practices" type of document?

Thanks,

-Eric

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Eric,

1. Here is good post describing best practises of protecting the Veeam Backup server, please have a look:
What is the best way of protecting the Veeam Backup server?

2. If you want to have transactional consistent backups, I wouldn't recommend you to disable VSS. By the way could you tell us if you experience the same behavior while creating snapshot using vSphere Client with VMware Quiescence option enabled?

3. Yes, we have a very informative document called Evaluator's Guide, please look through it. Also I would recommend you to refer to the sticked FAQ thread of this forum for more infromation

Hope it helps!

[eweiner]

Vitaly-
Thanks for the fast response. Sorry it took me so long to get back.

1) I am trying the non VSS mode (non veeam and non VMware tools) right now, and it looks like it worked. I haven't tried to restore it, but I got no errors (and it didn't reboot the veeam server... ) Over the weekend I actually had the problem of it changing it to an independent disk, and I lost all of my veeam recent jobs, etc. (because the entire disk reverted to where it was a week ago). (same issue as this person:
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4736

2) I'm not sure I know exactly how to do this... Do I do this?
On the "backup destination" page, click advanced, and make sure the "enable VMware tools quiescence" is checked, and on the "backup consistency" page, make sure the "Enable Veeam VSS integration" is unchecked?

3) Ah missed this. I've been reading it. I had read the FAQ.

-Eric

[eweiner]

a quick followup-
I first tried what I said in step 2, and did not see the problem.
Then I noticed I didn't see it last night (when running the normal backup of my mail server and everything else).

And I just tried it back in my normal mode (Virtual appliance mode, all VSS options enabled) and did not happen.

So, it appears that either the Veeam server or my email server was in some sort of weird state for about 1.5 weeks. I may not have rebooted the xmail server during that whole time.
I can't make the problem occur now.

Weird.

Thanks for your help.
-Eric

[Vitaliy S.]

Eric,

I've searched for your error with the time being changed, it seems like the issue might be related to W32Time service that doesn't work properly. You may want to look through the links below for the resolution:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 351b21429b
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Micr ... 48601.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-disc ... rvice.html

Hope it helps! Glad that you're up and running now.

[eweiner]

Vitaly-
As I said above, I can't make that time error happen now, so I think a reboot solved it.

Thanks again.
-E