Moving Jobs between servers.

[agoldenlife]

Hey,

I am trying to move jobs from one server to another to get our company's server setup better. I walked into this scenario

4 Veeam B&R servers setup independently all as VM's. 3 run jobs, one setup as a proxy for one of the other servers. I am trying to consolidate all jobs to server#1, then change a second server to a proxy and then get rid of server#4. This would allow Server#1 on esxi Host1, Server#2 (proxy) on esxi Host2, and Server#3 (proxy) on esxi Host3. There is a single backup repository for all these servers, to the catalog, backup chain, etc... should not be affected I hope.

I know this article (https://www.veeam.com/kb1889) about moving jobs to a new server, but we already have as server with Jobs. So it is not new. I could not find any docs on doing what I am attempting to do. If you searching skills are better than mine, feel free to post some links!

Thanks!

[PTide]

Hi,

4 Veeam B&R servers setup independently all as VM's. 3 run jobs, one setup as a proxy for one of the other servers.

In the first place - why do you have 4 VBR servers if only three of them actually run jobs? I'm curious about the reasons for such design, would you share the story, please?

If I got it right, what you're trying to achieve is to merge existing servers' settings into a single database residing on one of them, which is not a supported scenario at the moment. The best what you can do is to recreate all jobs with exactly the same settings on server #1 and map them to the existing backups.

Thanks

[Wocka]

Hello James,

The article you have there is for moving an entire B&R server including it's SQL DB. I have done this when rebuilding a server to new hardware.

The other option is to re-create the backup job manually on the new server and then map the backup chain to the job so that you can carry on without a need Full being required.
This article https://www.veeam.com/kb1729 is close to what you need to do, I thought there was an exact KB but can't find it at the moment. Start at Step 3

Basic steps are:
- Copy the files to the new repository (I don't like to move in case they corrupt during the move)
- Right click the new repository -> Rescan Repository
- Create a new Job with all the same settings -> Pick New Repository and map the job to the existing backup files

[agoldenlife]

Thanks for the assist everyone.

I can't tell you much about why it is setup this way. I just walked into it. I don't think I explained the setup well, though. Servers 1,3,4 run jobs. Server 2 acts as a proxy for 1,3 and 4.The person before me I am fairly certain did not understand Veeam as they should have. I think they were trying to spread the load, but not understanding the Veeam roles and concepts led to how it is currently setup.

The good news is that the repository is the same on every server. So I don't have to move data. However, I was hoping not to have to create the jobs manually, but all things considered that is not too horrible an option only about 20 jobs to move.

Maybe someone can confirm my thoughts on this. If I understand correctly as long as I recreate the job properly, and since the repository is the same between the servers, I should not have to do anything further. Or would I have to rescan the repository so the jobs show up on the one server?

Appreciate the assistance. Thanks!

[PTide]

Or would I have to rescan the repository so the jobs show up on the one server?

This. You will have to rescan the repo so the backups created by other servers in it will show up on the one server. Please also clarify whether "the same repository means" "the same folder" or "the same machine"?

Thanks

[agoldenlife]

Thanks PTide. Same Repository means the same folder on the same machine. They all backup to the same folder on a Synology.

[agoldenlife]

For anyone interested. This did not seem to work. I did a rescan of the repo, then created an identical job on the server I want to move all the jobs to. When the new job ran from the veem1 server it created a folder with "_1" in the repository. So looks like I will have to just live with this kind of move. Unless someone can think of something I might have missed.

Thanks!

[PTide]

The KB that Warwick has mentioned earlier also describes how to map new job to the existing backup, did you do that?

Thanks

[agoldenlife]

Thanks again PTide. Nope. Somehow missed that.

So, I am going through that process and noticing that a rescan does not seem to pickup all the directories in that share. Any ideas on that?

When I go to map the backup.. choosing the folder from the repository that was used by the old server that held the job, the folder is not there. I am wondering if this has to do with encryption. The job on the old server was encrypted. The new job will also be encrpted, but maybe that is why it is a skipped directory on the rescan.

I noticed when doing a rescan of the repository it skips 11 directories. However I could not figure out why it does that.

Thanks.

[agoldenlife]

OK, I figured that part. After the rescan under Backups --> Disk (encrypted), were all the folders not showing up. I specified the encryption password and then they were available to map!

Man, learning soo much. Thanks!