Incrementals ?

[MadDog2K]

Hi,

I have one ESXi (free version) machine in production at the moment, and am testing Veeam Backup. (looks very useful so far !)

Q1 : is it correct that the FastSCP utility includes a section 'Backup', but is not useable as such ? (
(Could not get it to backup anything, always failed on NFC connection while trying to fetch a -flat.vmdk)
So downloaded it through the proper 'Veeam Backup'-link, and that zipfile was bigger and has working Backup features.
Bit confusing, cause both executables are called 'Veeam Backup and FastSCP', and seem to be incompatible with each other.

Q2: Is it correct to assume that the 'Backup'-version has all the FastSCP features included ?

Q3: Is there any document (I missed) that gives me some more detail about incremental backups ?
I noticed I have a 106GB .VBK file from a VM that in total (3 VMDK's) is 273GB in space (used the default compression level).
Now I run the backup again, and I get a <id>-<some-timestamp>.VRB in the same backup folder.

What's happening when I run a job again (have not changed the 14 times setting)
Will it transfer the full 273GB (or is it 106GB) again, and do it's magic afterward,
or is the magic done before the transfer and will it really only download the changes it finds ? (And thus, should provide shorter backup time)
Cause at the moment it's .VRB file is already 4GB, while I'm very sure that the system has not had 4GB of changes since the previous backup run.
Note that I'm using agent-less backup mode, since that's the only option for ESXi.

Q4: If I want to re-install Veeam Backup on another machine, is it required to migrate the SQL Express database ?
What if I need to restore a backup that's created via the first machine (on a network share), is this possible without migrating the SQL Express database ?
If so, does that also works with incrementals ?
If it isn't, then the backup machine will be a big SPoF, so I doubt this is the case

Q5: Can I restore backups created with another license ?
(Created with trial, later upgrade to purchased license) ?

Thanks for any pointers & sorry if all is very obvious, but especially Q3 is of interest

[Gostev]

Hello,

Q1: Correct.

Q2: Correct, and it makes these features supported

Q3:
a) In case of ESXi, it will transfer 273GB from ESXi to Veeam Backup console, then only size of increment from Veeam Backup console to backup storage.
b) Incrementals are done on 1024KB block level, so in case of Windows system large incrementals are to be expected (swap file, constant registry files and temp files update make many blocks dirty)
c) More info on syntetic backup can be found here

Q4: No, you don't really need to migrate SQL (only job configuration and statistics is stored there). Yes, you can always restore backups created by other Veeam Backup installations easily (just use Import Backup command on main toolbar).

Q5: License is checked during backup only. License check is not performed during restores at all.

[MadDog2K]

Hi Gostev,

Thanks for your quick answers !
Now I know exactly what to expect, also regarding the incrementals.
I do the backup to an OpenFiler host (either via iSCSI or SMB, I'll test which one will be faster)

Still a question : I was under the impression that with FastSCP, you could use ESXi as a target host.
I read this is not possible in backup, so maybe I was wrong ?

Now I only need to convince management...
50% offer looks good, but that only seems to be valid if you
already have a program that is specifically targeted to backup VM's ?

[Gostev]

Yes, you can use ESXi as target host in FastSCP, but not in Backup (synthetic backup is much more complex that simply copying a file to target ESXi, like FastSCP does it). Yes, 50% discount is only given in case when you are performing an upgrade from a competitive VMware backup solution.

[MadDog2K]

Thanks again for your quick answers.

Maybe next month you'll have a new customer