Migrate to new VM keeping the roles in the old VM.

[Giacomo_N]

Hi all,

I'm planning to move the actual Veeam VM from 2008R2 to a new VM 2012R2.
Actually the Veeam VM have also a roles of tape server (scsci card in pass through) and proxy.
The idea it's to move the Veeam to a new VM and leave the tape and proxy roles to the old one. (there is a reason for this choice)
I used in the past the KB1889, after complete the guide is it necessary to uninstall the Veeam product in the old server and deploy the roles from the new server?
If yes, the tape media pools and catalog will all be keep?

Thanks in advance

[veremin]

All catalog specific information is stored in configuration database, so, if you migrated the db successfully or backup and restore server configuration, you won't lose your tape catalog. Thanks.

[Giacomo_N]

All catalog specific information is stored in configuration database, so, if you migrated the db successfully or backup and restore server configuration, you won't lose your tape catalog. Thanks.

Hi Eremin, thank you for the reply.
Ok, the tape catalog will be keeping i nthe new server, but if I leave and rename the old veeam server to use only for proxy and tape server is it necessary to uninstall the product and deploy the two roles from the new one?

Thanks

[marieelieg]

Hi Giacomo_N, I am a Veeam partner and here's what I think:
1- Install VBR on the new server.
2- Take configuration backup from the old veeam server and put it somewhere the new veeam server can reach it.
3- Create a new repository on the new veeam server pointing to the location of the configuration backup (of step 2).
4- Restore the configuration backup on the new veeam server --> all the jobs/tape config will be restored.
5- Uninstall VBR from the old server.
6- Add the old veeam server as a proxy in the new veeam server's console --> will deploy veeam services on the old server.
7- Here is the tricky part as I am unsure of what will happen next. On the old veeam server, you have configured the tape server as the veeam backup server itself. So it is registered in config database. Therefore it should be visible under Tape Infrastructure on the new Veeam console. Right click the tape server > Properties (Edit the tape server) and follow the wizard till the end. This should re-deploy the Veeam services on the old Veeam server where VBR is now uninstalled. This way the tape config (volume pools, tapes added ...) should remain and you won't have to re-create anything. But again not sure as I have never tested it before (no customer required this before).
8- Re-configure each job to use the old Veeam server as backup proxy and test the backups. They might not finish successfully on the first try so you might need to do some troubleshooting.

Hope this helps you and hopefully Veeam can confirm the above or suggest a better procedure to achieve your needs.
Have a nice day!

[Giacomo_N]

Hi marieelieg,

very thank you for the exhaustive reply, I've complete the migration last week and I used the same steps you mentioned except the step 3.
After restore the config on the new server all settings was restored, also our two repositories (2XNAS in different building), only tape was offline.
I've disabled all veeam services and renamed the old server, after reboot I've re-deploy the proxy and tape roles from new to the old servers and tape library was online in 10 seconds.
I preferred to disable the services in the old server instead uninstall to be sure that all configs in the new servers are equal to the old and was useful.
Some days after I've remove all Veeam packages except: Veeam Backup transport, Veeam installer service and Veeam remote tape access service.

Thank you and have a good day too!

[marieelieg]

Glad to see that the move went successfully
Cheers!!