HOWTO: Veeam Sharepoint Explorer Remote SQL Server

[mbakerr1i]

Everyone,

I have managed to get Veeam Sharepoint Explorer working with a remote SQL server this is not the prettiest setup but if you need it this is how we have managed to do it:

- Install Services for NFS on the Remote Server SQL
- Goto Network and Sharing Center -> Change Adapter Settings -> Advanced (If this isnt showing press Alt)
- Goto the Provider Order and move NFS Network to the top of the list
- On the Veeam Server ensure ports 111,2048,2049 are open in the firewall TCP & UDP
- On the Veeam Server either disable the vPower NFS Server or modify the ports it using
- Install a Third Party NFS Server I have tested this with haneWIN NFS Server
- Export C:\VeeamFLR as a NFS Mount
- On the Remote SQL Server upon a elevated command prompt
- Run the following command: "mklink /D C:\VeeamFLR \\VEEAMSERVER\c\VeeamFLR"
- Open up Explorer and navigate to C:\VeeamFLR this should now show the contents of the remote file share
- Run a Sharepoint Restore when the explorer opens goto Options and change the SQL server to be the remote SQL Server
- Close the Sharepoint Explorer
- Perform another Sharepoint Restore
- This should now mount the SQL Database on the remote server!

Notes:
- Ensure that you have the required number of CAL's on your remote SQL Server
- This has ONLY been tested on Server 2008 R2 running Veeam 7.0
- Ensure the Remote SQL Server has port 1433 open
- Due to a limitation of Windows File Sharing you need to use NFS as Windows File sharing returns permission issues when running DBCC CHECKPRIMARYFILE

What I would like to see is the vPower NFS Server extended to provide the NFS Mount for the VeeamFLR folder

Would like to hear feedback regarding this if you test it I have this running in a production Sharepoint environment with 20gb databases

[tsightler]

Pretty innovative approach. I would think you could probably use vPower NFS even now if you just symbolically link the C:\VeeamFLR into the vPower NFS path, then you could mount that path on the remote SQL. I'll admit I haven't tried that though.

I think the reason Windows File sharing doesn't work is due to the fact that the FLR processes mounts the volumes with paths like C:\VeeamFLR\<servername>\Volume0 and those "Volume0", "Volume1" links are actually mountpoints which are not automatically shared via the parent.

My approach to solving this problem is a little different. I usually just tell customers to install Veeam Free Edition on the Sharepoint SQL server (or really, any licensed SQL server). Switch to "Full functionality" mode and you can then add a repository and/or just import backups when you want to restore Sharepoint. If you put your Sharepoint backups into their own job, you can just share out that folder from the repository, and import those backups right into Free Edition. Or, if you want you can add a CIFS repository that points at that folder, rescan, and you're ready to restore. You don't have to configure vCenter or any of the other stuff to do Sharepoint restores.

If you want you can even install the Veeam license on this install. This gets rid of messages around free edition and, assuming you have enterprise edition, you can use a little Powershell one-liner via Windows Task Manager to automatically rescan the Sharepoint repo. This way to do a Sharepoint restore you just remote into the SQL server, start Veeam, and the restore points are right there, ready to go. Veeam doesn't require any additional license fees to install on your SQL server, and it's actually a very light install since you don't have to install SQL itself, just use a new DB on the existing SQL instant to store the very small DB required for Veeam free edition.

[mbakerr1i]

Pretty innovative approach. I would think you could probably use vPower NFS even now if you just symbolically link the C:\VeeamFLR into the vPower NFS path, then you could mount that path on the remote SQL. I'll admit I haven't tried that though.

I was thinking that but I would rather keep the vPower cache away though I am going to test this today and see how we go

I think the reason Windows File sharing doesn't work is due to the fact that the FLR processes mounts the volumes with paths like C:\VeeamFLR\<servername>\Volume0 and those "Volume0", "Volume1" links are actually mountpoints which are not automatically shared via the parent.

Nope :/ Windows can address the files fine its a permission issue, I have been using the file shating way to extract data from file restores baack into Windows boxes via a custom web interface on a Linux box using the exact same way over CIFS without an issue

If you want you can even install the Veeam license on this install. This gets rid of messages around free edition and, assuming you have enterprise edition, you can use a little Powershell one-liner via Windows Task Manager to automatically rescan the Sharepoint repo. This way to do a Sharepoint restore you just remote into the SQL server, start Veeam, and the restore points are right there, ready to go. Veeam doesn't require any additional license fees to install on your SQL server, and it's actually a very light install since you don't have to install SQL itself, just use a new DB on the existing SQL instant to store the very small DB required for Veeam free edition.

Clients wouldn't go for that approach a SQL server is a SQL server and that is it otherwise issues would be easily fixed!!!!

Cheers for the ideas I will give this a run today in a lab and see what the results are with using vPower NFS, if I get enough time I will try this lab in 2012 R2 see if I have the same file share permission issue will keep this updated

[tsightler]

Nope :/ Windows can address the files fine its a permission issue, I have been using the file shating way to extract data from file restores baack into Windows boxes via a custom web interface on a Linux box using the exact same way over CIFS without an issue.

Yeah, you're right, I was thinking of something else. What's strange is that if you manually run Sharepoint Explorer on the SQL server you can browse out to the shared FLR directory and mount the database right up, so it's not really a permissions issue from a sharing perspective. Seems like it would be something that could be overcome with the right code.

Clients wouldn't go for that approach a SQL server is a SQL server and that is it otherwise issues would be easily fixed!!!!

I certainly understand that as I've run across that as well, although it many cases they've already installed SQL agents from other products that I swear are heavier on resources than the entire Veeam product. However, I've been thinking of putting together a little "Powershell helper" that could be used in concert with Sharepoint Explorer by itself (it can be installed standalone) in the hope that perhaps clients would at least be willing to install that on a SQL server since it's very small and has no services.

I know a lot of clients use vPower NFS for sharing out ISO libraries and I've used it for other "interesting" stuff, so I think it will work with no problems. Looking forward to hearing your results.

[mbakerr1i]

If I have time today I will push it all out been thinking about the perms maybe it coudl be related to fsutil as that has permission seetings for Local to Remote symlinks ect thats the first thing I will try as that only takes 5 minutes!