how are backups created?

[mibu]

Hi,

I read that vCenter Server is not neccessary for Veeam Backups. How do backups work without vCenter?

and reversed....

How do backups work with vCenter? Or are the backups created the same way as without vCenter?

I always thought that vCenter is responsible for creating VM snapshots for Veeam.

Regards

Michael

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Michael,

Backups are created via vStorage API for Data Protection, and it doesn't matter whether you have vCenter Server or not. If you have vCenter Server it is recommended to add this object to Veeam B&R console, this makes your backup jobs "vMotion-aware".

Let me know if you have any further questions!

[Gostev]

Snapshots are always created by hosts, regardless of vCenter presence.

[mibu]

i see... then vcenter has no affect of creating backups. what do you mean by vMotion aware?

Does vCenters wide management have no further impact on Veeam B&R? For example when failing over to a replica... Is this procedure also working via VADP?

Thank you and regards

[foggy]

i see... then vcenter has no affect of creating backups. what do you mean by vMotion aware?

This means that being explicitly added into the job, the VM will still be backed up after being vMotioned (since its unique moref ID will be preserved). In case of standalone hosts, the VM will be registered on the target host anew and subsequently treated by Veeam B&R as a new VM.

[Vitaliy S.]

Does vCenters wide management have no further impact on Veeam B&R? For example when failing over to a replica... Is this procedure also working via VADP?

Yes, vCenter Server is not required when you initiate VM failover operations, all you need to have in VM backup/restore/failover situation is access to ESXi hosts.

[mibu]

thank you for your answers so far. right now I have some more questions...

are veeam backups/replications always created by snapshots?

Is there a difference betweeen the creation of an incremental and a full backup? (my thoughts are that incremental is made by snapshots and a full backup is just a copy of the complete datastore.) i know that the incremental method is just saving the new data since the last backup.

could you describe a basic backup job in more technical detailed steps? or are there some technical references where i can check it by myself? haven't found some yet.

[veremin]

are veeam backups/replications always created by snapshots?

Yes.

Is there a difference betweeen the creation of an incremental and a full backup?

Snapshot is required in both cases. Only changed block are copied during incremental run, though.

could you describe a basic backup job in more technical detailed steps?

Please, check out the corresponding section of our User Guide. Feel free to ask for additional clarification, if needed.

Thanks.

[mibu]

Thanks this link gave me some further information.

But some questions couldnt be answered by that. Is any kind of authentication needed for basic backup/replication jobs? Or is it just neccessary for application-aware image processing?

What is SOAP used for in Veeam?

thanks and regards

[veremin]

Is any kind of authentication needed for basic backup/replication jobs?

Yep, credentials are required to interact with VMware infrastructure. Please, see this document if you're after giving minimal permissions to your vSphere account.

Thanks.

[Vitaliy S.]

What is SOAP used for in Veeam?

This protocol is used to communicate with vSphere environment.

[mibu]

Ive got another question...

can you explain to me how the change block tracking is working in a backup process?

especially when is it beeing used?
- after the creation of the vm snapshot? so that the changed blocks are filtered out of the created snapshot
- or at the same time so that just changed blocks are stored in the snapshot?
- or maybe before the creation of the snapshot? so that the changed blocks are marked before and then the snapshot is created

thanks and regards,

Michael

[Vitaliy S.]

CBT is used to track VM changes and is used throughout the entire backup process. Please check out this VMware KB article for further reading. Thanks!