NEW - Recover SAME file from MANY backup points in ONE go!

[Unison]

Hi all,
Maybe this can be done - or perhaps this could be more of a NEW FEATURE request....

Wondering if it is (or could become) possible to recover the same file from multiple backup points in one go?
You may understand what im asking but just in case....

Sometimes when a user reports that a file is 'damaged' or has been 'changed in a bad way' ("it wasnt me, i didnt do it"), that user or the owner of the file is not sure WHEN the file achieved its undesirable state - they just open it up one day and its bad.
Naturally when they report this to me, my first question is "WHEN did you last see this file in its correct form?" Unfortunately sometimes, the answer can be "Weeks/days ago" or even worse...."i dont know/remember".

As most of you will know, in the span of days/weeks - there could be literally hundreds of recovery points.....checking each of them or going through them one by one 'from the last good time known to now' for the file takes a bit of time.
As most of our recoveries are situations like this, what we have to end up doing is digging through many recovery points of the same server over and over, recovering the same file many many times over from all the different recovery points (takes ages) - then send all those files to the user so they can sift through them all and let us know which one is the 'good one'.

You must suffer from the same thing when ever you get a recovery request and no one knows when the file was last 'good' or get a date range days/weeks long?

Wouldnt it be great if you could tell Veeam to look at recovery points in a certain date range, specify which file/s to pull out - and then have veeam scan through each recovery point, find that file and recover that file (append the date/time of recovery point to file name) to a folder you define......once that is done, you will end up with a folder containing just the one file that is in question. Here you could see the modified date/time of that file and you could just go through and check the file before each time it was modified......out of a few hundred recovery points, it might have only been modified a few times - that would make finding the point in time where the file went bad extremely easy (and QUICK!).
What would even be more intelligent is if veeam only spat out versions of that file when ever it was changed!!! so instead of hundreds of copies of the same file being spewed out, we could just get the handful of files at each point it changed.


I don't know if this is at all possible now with Veeam - but if it is, please share with me how its done. If its not possible now - do you think this is something that might be built in as a new feature one day?

Not trying to make it sound like an 'easy thing to implement' but if Veeam knows about all the recovery points, knows what file your interested in, all your recovery points are of the same server and it knows where you want to dump all the files - surely this is not something beyond veeams development team when you see all the other improvements they have written in over the years!

Keep up the good work guys - hopefully someone can show me a way regarding this or someone from Veeam can comment on if this might be something that is looked at as a future feature?

[johnlong]

Great question/feature request.

Sub'd

[Fiskepudding]

Thumbs up!

That would be awsome!
I guess there are many in the same boat here.
Most of our recovery jobs are like this; get a file in a specific state/content, from "I don’t know when".
50% of the time, the users that request the file have no idea when the file was "ok".
Usually we don't restore 100 versions of the file, but we have to look at MANY restore points to "guess" what files to restore and let the user look at those.

As you wisely suggest, a function where Veeam only restores UNIQUE/modified files would be perfect!

[johnlong]

Another way to look at this, I just when through this right now, is to create a way to pull all folders into a view from all backups.

As part of the restore process, add another choice that says "Specific guest files (all versions)".
On the next screen select the backup job set.
On the next screen have a text box where you could specify a folder or file path and maybe below it a browse button where you could browse one restore point to find the path you are looking for.
Then when you finish the restore wizard you are presented with a window similar to the current one except on the left pane you have all the points in time for that folder or file and on the right a view of the selected point in time.

95% of the time the users know exactly where the file was located that was deleted/changed/corrupted. So this would be an excellent enhancement!

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

As most of our recoveries are situations like this, what we have to end up doing is digging through many recovery points of the same server over and over, recovering the same file many many times over from all the different recovery points (takes ages) - then send all those files to the user so they can sift through them all and let us know which one is the 'good one'.

Do you use Veeam backup console or Enterprise Manager to perform FLR restores? Have you tried using bulk restore option which is available in the EM now? It is not exactly what you're looking for, but I believe it can make your life easier, as you can pick up multiple files from different restore points and even different VMs, and then start the restore process.

Thank you!

[Unison]

Hi Vitality,
We just use the Console here - never really knew about EM as we are a single Veeam server site.
I just had a read through the EM user guide - on page 44 it seems to indicate that we can specify a guest file to search for and a range of backups to search in....

It seems that this might be a bit of overkill to setup EM just for this functionality - would you agree? I couldnt find a download for it - but found suggestions that it is included in our Veeam Backup/Replication license? Would we have to change all our backup jobs to 'index' the contents for this to work?

While EM doesn't quite do everything asked in my post - it sure is much better than what i can do right now! Looks like Veeam may have recognised this as a necessary feature based on what you can do with EM already.....will this 'search' function that is available in EM ever be coming to the Veeam console product? Will it ever be developed to do more like, not just being a search function, dumping all the files to a specified restore folder, only dumping files with different modified dates etc.

If there are no plans to bring this functionality to the veeam BR console product then the EM might be my only option - if we are already entitled to it and its not 'overkill' to setup just for this function then perhaps i will do it.

[Fiskepudding]

Hi

Vitality, you opened my eyes here.

Using EM I can actually accomplish this.
Only thing is that i cannot simply select 1 file and say "get all versions".

Just do a search and pick the the same file you want to restore from different restore points (you can then manually avoid picking files with same modified date).
Then you can have a restore list like this:


Hit restore and wait:


Then you will end up with this:


Just what i wanted! Using EM this way never crossed my mind...

We also have 1 Veeam server (+ 3 proxies), but I will not say that EM is overkill.
It is easy to set up and configure, and really helps you when the users have no clue where the files was.
You also get some nice reporting tools on backup status.
You can search across multiple jobs and VMs in one go.
The search is very fast, considering how much data we have.

Now i love the EM even more

[Vitaliy S.]

It seems that this might be a bit of overkill to setup EM just for this functionality - would you agree? I couldnt find a download for it - but found suggestions that it is included in our Veeam Backup/Replication license? Would we have to change all our backup jobs to 'index' the contents for this to work?

Just for bulk FLR restores? Maybe...but it has other very useful features, so even if you have a single backup server I still recommend installing Enterprise Manager. The setup bits of EM are included with your Veeam B&R download. Yes, you need to enable indexing on all VMs you what to search Guest files on.

While EM doesn't quite do everything asked in my post - it sure is much better than what i can do right now! Looks like Veeam may have recognised this as a necessary feature based on what you can do with EM already.....will this 'search' function that is available in EM ever be coming to the Veeam console product? Will it ever be developed to do more like, not just being a search function, dumping all the files to a specified restore folder, only dumping files with different modified dates etc.

Yes, it doesn't do everything you want, but still it is a good workaround, right? Right now I do not see the same functionality coming to the backup console in the nearest future. Thanks!

Vitality, you opened my eyes here.

You're welcome!

[Unison]

Thanks Vtality and to Fiskepudding for confirming that this works.

Im going to change all my jobs so they are all indexed, install EM and give this feature a go (plus look at the other EM uses).
This looks pretty close to what i was after so if i can get EM up and running, restores for me should be much easier going forward!

Thanks guys

[Unison]

Do you also need to install "Veeam Search Server" in order for EM to work (or work well?)?

Fiskepudding, did you install Veeam Search Server?

[Gostev]

Hey, this is actually the main use case for why we implemented guest file indexing - to be able to quickly find the required file across multiple VMs and restore points, and restore all the files and versions you need with a single click

Do you also need to install "Veeam Search Server" in order for EM to work (or work well?)

No, not really... we actually did much stress testing lately, actually found that our built-in search is more reliable than Microsoft Search Server component you are referring to. Built-in search might be slower, but at least it never fails, and always does the job... so, we are thinking about further optimizing built-in search, and scrapping the Microsoft Search Server integration completely in future releases.

[Unison]

Ok thanks for letting me know - will not bother with the additional Search Server install.

[Unison]

well.....
that was easy
Now have EM up and running....just too bad i never had indexing enabled on my backup jobs all this time because it seems i would be able to search back through all my current backups if that was the case.
At the moment, backup points are already showing up in EM since i enabled Indexing on them....and the search is indeed quite fast
This is going to be great....thanks for pointing out EM to me as a solution!

Best thing is that even though its built for 'enterprise' - it is included in a BR license so you can use it even in smaller shops!

Not sure if i will get any other real use out of EM - but this 'search' ability and multiple file restores from multiple recovery points in one go is all the use i need from it

[Fiskepudding]

Late answer, but I did not install serach server, and I am happy with the performance.

♥Veeam

[veremin]

well.....
that was easy

Glad to hear that nowadays you’ve finally achieved your goals. Should any additional help be needed, feel free to contact us.