Is Veeam B&R 8 Patch 1 ready for use

[Alan_ORiordan]

All

I currently use V7 with patch 4 and Veeam One with two live servers and one DR ESXi 5.5 Hosts backing up about 15 VM's so a fairly small/simple setup in the scheme of things. I am about to setup Veeam on the DR server and create Virtual Lab, SureBackup jobs and replicate machine's to the DR site.

While the backup server is currently backing up nightly and then to tape I am considering the upgrade now before the environment becomes more complicated with replication jobs etc.

My question to you all is am I better to upgrade now or hold off until the upcoming DR test is completed? I have no test environment to practice the upgrade so it would have to work first time. I would use this upgrade method:

http://blog.christopher-glemot.com/step ... -v7-to-v8/

Are there replication speed improvements in the enterprise version of Veeam V8 or is that still only in the Enterprise Plus license?

I am interested in the built in backup explorers, failover planners, and SQL log rollback features, the CBT tracking etc.

As an overly cautious person with beginner level Veeam experience I don't want to have any issues with backup speeds or success rate.

Thanks

Alan

[foggy]

Most of the issues that have generated multiple support cases were fixed by Patch #1, so it is considered pretty stable. I also recommend to review the upgrade instructions given in the release notes document.

Are there replication speed improvements in the enterprise version of Veeam V8 or is that still only in the Enterprise Plus license?

There are some improvements apart from the WAN-accelerated replica (that is available in Enterprise Plus only), please review the what's new document for details.

[Alan_ORiordan]

Ok, I will use the upgrade advice in the release notes:

Code: Select all

Veeam Backup & Replication Server
To perform upgrade of Veeam Backup & Replication server to version 8.0, you must be running
version 7.0 or 6.5 on the supported operating system (refer to the System Requirements section of
this document). To upgrade from previous versions, contact Veeam Technical Support.
1. Download the latest version of Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 ISO from:
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup/download.html.
2. Ensure that the latest run for all existing jobs has completed successfully. If some jobs
have failed, re-run the failed jobs. Otherwise, job upgrade procedure may fail.
3. Ensure there are no running jobs, including restore sessions, Instant VM Recovery sessions
and SureBackup jobs. Do not stop running jobs, let them complete successfully instead.
Disable any periodic and Backup Copy jobs temporarily to prevent them from starting
during the upgrade.
4. Mount the product ISO and use autorun, or run the Setup.exe file.
5. Click the Veeam Backup & Replication tile.
6. Follow the upgrade wizard steps as outlined above. Be sure to select the same SQL
database and instance that was used by the previous product version.
7. Wait for the setup program to perform the upgrade.
8. Once the installation is complete, download and install the latest available patch from
http://www.veeam.com/patches.html.
9. Open the Veeam Backup & Replication user interface. If necessary, the automated upgrade
wizard will automatically appear, prompting you to upgrade product components
running on remote servers. Follow the wizard to complete the upgrade process.
10. If some remote servers are unavailable at the time of upgrade, you can run the Upgrade
wizard at any time later from the main product menu, or by closing and re-opening the
Veeam Backup & Replication user interface. Note that out-of-date product components
cannot be used by jobs until they are updated to the backup server version.
11. Reset CBT for all VMs in the environment. For more information, refer to Veeam support
article KB1940.
12. Enable any scheduled jobs that you have disabled before the upgrade

Points to note:

I have a Veeam Backup Essentials license and it wants to download Availability Suite V8.0.0.11 (new name for essentials)? I presume I can just install the seperate components (B&R and ONE Monitor)

Given that to install patch1 the build number needs to be V8.0.0.807 minimum then should I just install B&R from here http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup/download.html then do ONE Monitor after?


On the CBT reset step I am struggling to know whether I need to take any action. My VM's have never been extended and are on their initial build sizes even though some of them are larger than 128GB. Do I need to take corrective action in Step11?

[foggy]

I have a Veeam Backup Essentials license and it wants to download Availability Suite V8.0.0.11 (new name for essentials)?

Both products have exactly the same functionality, however Veeam Backup Essentials is available for SMB environments under 6 sockets, while Veeam Availability Suite is intended for larger environments.

Given that to install patch1 the build number needs to be V8.0.0.807 minimum then should I just install B&R from here http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-backup/download.html then do ONE Monitor after?

Yes, you can download and install them separately.

On the CBT reset step I am struggling to know whether I need to take any action. My VM's have never been extended and are on their initial build sizes even though some of them are larger than 128GB. Do I need to take corrective action in Step11?

If you're positive that your disks have never been extended, you do not need to perform any actions regarding that.

[Alan_ORiordan]

Upgrade to latest version complete and successful. Will see how tomorrow night's backup's go. Looking forward to the new features.

It was my first major Veeam version upgrade, smooth installers and good instructions, thanks

[foggy]

Thanks for the feedback, glad you were able to upgrade without issues. Feel free to ask for any further assistance required.

[Josh-VCAP]

On the CBT reset step I am struggling to know whether I need to take any action. My VM's have never been extended and are on their initial build sizes even though some of them are larger than 128GB. Do I need to take corrective action in Step11?

If you're positive that your disks have never been extended, you do not need to perform any actions regarding that.[/quote]

How would you know if you did have problems with this? Would there be some error message in the backup job?

[veremin]

Would there be some error message in the backup job?

Nope, as everything would look ok from VMware perspective, and we rely on information received from it. Thus, it's recommended to take the described actions, if you're not sure whether or not disks have been extended.

Thanks.