Can you run a job to copy a replicated VM?

[Blue407]

We are in a Hyper-V environment, running a Server 2012 R2 cluster, due to be upgraded to 2016 soon.

As well as backup jobs, we also run replication jobs to an old, spare server running Server 2012 R2.

Once a VM is replicated to the spare server, can a job be setup to copy this to a NAS solution? I appreciate the NAS cannot ever spin up or integrity check the VM, but it gives a great emergency backup that can simply be copied onto a new host in the event of a major incident.

[Shestakov]

Hello Paul,
You can backup the replicated VM or what's even better leverage Remote Replica from Backup option.
Thanks

[Blue407]

Thanks for this information.

I have a Synology NAS, I have a CIFS share that my backup server uses as a Repository.
I also run a Veeam Replication job that creates a Replica of the Hyper-V VM's on the backup server.

What I want to do is also have a Replica of these VM's, as a VHDx file, not as a backup file.
So in the event of a major issue, we can simply copy these VHDx files to a new Host and spin them up.

[foggy]

How is it better than restoring a VM from a compressed backup file?

[Blue407]

Admittedly I have not played with the restore side of things, but I assume that to restore a VM, you need to use B&R?

Whereas, simply having a VHDX file, I can simply copy it to any Host, on any location and spin it back up.
From a DR point of view, it just feels much simpler to me.

Unless you have other thoughts on this?

What I'm trying to achieve is backup copies on-site, effectively airgap'd on-site and also to another one of our off-site locations.
In addition I am using B&R replication to replicate my hyper-v VM's to the backup server and the off-site location.
I would ideally like to be able to also replicate, or copy the repolicated VM to the airgap'd backup.

When I say airgap'd, its a Synology on a dedicated backup network thats unavailable on the normal LAN, only accessible from the backup server with a complex login and password and thats only saved in the job itself.
By using a different O/S, limiting its accessibility from the LAN and the complex password, I believe that its as protected as I can sensibly make it.

[foggy]

Right, you need either Veeam B&R itself or at least extract.exe utility at hand to be able to restore from the backup file.

There's no special job that allows you to schedule such a copy of VM files, so should you decide to go that path, you'd need some external utility. This thread will give you more hints on how to do air-gapped backups.

[Blue407]

With that in mind, is it worth having an off-line Windows VM with another copy of B&R installed? simply ready to spin up as needed?

[foggy]

You can do that, however installing Veeam B&R takes just a few minutes, so I'd rather make sure I have configuration backups properly configured.