Feature Request : backup only one VM in a multi-VM jobs

[MB-NS]

Hello,

I had several times the need to backup just one VM, which is already included in a multi-VM job.
The use case is when I plan some modifications on the VM (application or system updates, whatever) and a VMware snapshot is not enough (or not possible).

Currently runnning a Veeam job is not usable because it would take several hours for all the VM to complete (and I have no control over which VM would go first).
And this is despite my single VM taking only minutes to complete its backup.

The feature request is the following :
- be able to launch a job by selecting which VM(s) I want to backup
- to be able to do that whether it is a static or dynamic (folder-based) job. In the dynamic case, Veeam could either list previously backed up VM, or query vCenter.

Now, I think we could do that by reconfiguring (temporarily, removing the exclusions after the job has run) the job with VM exclusion, but it would take a long time for jobs with lots of VM, and would be very prone to errors.
I'm also not to sure about the consequences to VM retention (for instance, would it be possible some generations of excluded VM to be suppressed ?).
Implementing it as a feature seems a far nicer way to do it.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Mathieu,

Have you considered using on-demand sandbox to test VM modifications before applying those to production VMs?

Thanks.

[MB-NS]

Hello Mathieu,

Have you considered using on-demand sandbox to test VM modifications before applying those to production VMs?

Thanks.

Hello, are those available with Standard licences ?
Also, it is not always possible due to memory constraints on the host, or the need for the VM to be connected to production network during the operations.

[Vitaliy S.]

No, on-demand sandbox comes with Enterprise license only. For a complete set of differentiators please have a look at this doc.

Given the specifics of your backup policy and testing, you may want to create a separate backup job for VMs which usually require manual modifications, and then run this job before making any changes.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

[MB-NS]

The thing is, any VM is subject to changes, so I can't apply your advice because it would mean a job for each VM.
Also, it doesn't seem like a corner case of mine because everyone needs to do maintenance on their servers, and a reliable way to recover if there is an issue.
Furthermore, I didn't think of it before but an additional reason not to use VMware snapshots is that they are not application consistent like Veeam backups.

I think Veeam could fill the gap here.

[tsightler]

I agree, this is an issue for us all the time and being able to somehow run a normal backup for only a select few jobs would be a great feature. Perhaps some type of wizard that uses the existing job but excludes everything except for explicitly selected VMs. We end up temporarily editing jobs to be able to run a single VM backup, or having to create a special job and run a full backup just to backup a system or small group of systems as a one off for special maintenance events. We do use VMware snapshots sometimes, but because they cause such a performance penalty on the VM's I/O and some of our maintenance events write 10's and even 100's of GB's of data to the VM's, VM snapshot can make the maintenance take to long and removing the snapshot at the end is an ordeal that takes hours.

[Bunce]

Was one of the best features of our previous product.

[Gostev]

This sounds like a useful feature. Thanks!

[AJ83]

I would also love to see this feature, i have done one off backups for specific VM`s aswell, just for safety before running an upgrade (even when tested in a sandbox, in wich it is difficult to do intensive usertest of a software upgrade, you just never know for sure)

[JoshF]

We would also find it *extraordinarily* useful if we could perform a backup of a single host inside a multi-job task, I won't speculate as to how best to add this functionality however

[mrt]

this applies to replications, too. would be very nice to have

[Gostev]

But replication (unlike backup) already produces separate VMs on target (and not a single backup file with all VMs in it). What's the catch?

[mrt]

But replication (unlike backup) already produces separate VMs on target (and not a single backup file with all VMs in it). What's the catch?

if i've got a replication job containing 10 vm's, how do I replicate just one of those vm's if the need should arise? I can create another job for that one vm, but the existing replica won't be recognized by the new job and a second replica will be created.

[Daveyd]

[merged]

Is it possible to run a backup of a single VM that is contained within a job that consists of several VMs? I want to run a backup before I upgrade a server and it would be nice to not have create a separate job and do a Full backup but just to kick off the incremental. It doesnt seem possible though.

...and no I did not want to create just a snapshot before the upgrade in this paticular case

[Vitaliy S.]

Dave, there is no functionality to do that currently, but have you considered using a workaround mentioned above to verify your upgrade procedure?