Backup of Filemaker Pro server

[jorgen.b]

Hi all,
I have run in to a problem there the support Team for FileMaker says that we can´t run snapshot backups on that server, becuse it messes up there DB. Any one here that runs FielMaker Pro on a Server 2012 R2 and Veeam Backup?
How do you run backup on that server? Do you have any issues with it and how did you solve it?

[veremin]

I have run in to a problem there the support Team for FileMaker says that we can´t run snapshot backups on that server, becuse it messes up there DB.

What does this mean exactly? Could you elaborate, please. The db cannot be restored due to inconsistent backup having been taken? Clients loose connection to application server during snapshot commit? Something else? Thanks.

[jorgen.b]

Hi Vladimir,
We have no restore problem, it was just because we have been in contact with Filemaker Support because we could not login to Local Admin Console on the server (new install)
They told us that they saw in the logs that some backup has destroyed there DB and configuration. Veeam have work perfectly on there old instance of Filemaker Pro and we had has no problem to restore anything to that server.
We have followed there advice to upgrade to v 15.3 and increase disk to from 60 GB to 90 GB and so far everything work, we was mostly surprised that they told us that they saw in the logs that a backup had destroyed the DB (flatfile)

[veremin]

The described issue looks suspicious, more detailed description would not harm. What was the root cause of destruction? Snapshot or VSS freeze done by Application Aware Image Processing? Both technologies are not related directly to Veeam, so, if one of the said functionalities is meant here, it means that application itself either cannot be run on VM or cannot sustain a VSS snapshot - each case sounds quite strange to say the least. Thanks.

[tdewin]

Like Vladimir says, it is kind of strange that it would not survive it. IMHO, in a power outage scenario, there is a high risk that you will loose the db as well.

You could however shutdown the application in a prescript and restart it in a postscript (assuming it is some kind of service or there is a clean way to shut it down via a script). In this case, the application would not be running and it should have flushed all the data to disk. The service would only be down for the time it takes the snapshot (so not during the complete backup).

[jorgen.b]

Hi,
Yes it is a kind of strange, I peronally think it is just the support team for Filemaker will protect them self. We have run the old server whit Veeam for atleast 3 years whitout any issues. We gone run it for a couple of days and then test a SureBackup on it and see if we have any issues on the server.
I will also ask them how they suggests to run a backup on there products and if the best soloution is to shut it down then we will set up a script that do the job, the good thing is that we can close the server it is only in use from 6 am to 10 pm

[Mike Resseler]

Jorgen,

If you get feedback from them, please let us know. You will most probably help some other community members with it also

[jorgen.b]

Hello Mike,
No response from Support department for Filemaker Pro, but we have run some restore tests and can not see any problem. Tests we have run is SureBackup and resore directly to ESX host whitout any problems for local connection.
Shortly just give the server disc around 100 GB and we at least have a working backup for disaster recovery.

[Mike Resseler]

Thanks Jorgen! Glad that you don't have issues with restore.

What type of DB does it actually has? Some DB's do require a prescript (for getting it in a consistent state). Maybe it could be interesting to investigate this depending on the type of DB just to make sure for the future

Mike