One time full backup of a VM for archiving

[eversys]

Dear Experts,

We have a daily VMware Backup job which runs M-F a reverse incremental and on Saturday an active full backup to a local disk repository.

This weekend we are performing a server migration and would like to perform a separate full backup of the source server before we start the migration. We would like to have a copy of it (as is) before it is decomissioned next week - for both archiv but also in a disaster recovery scenario should the migration fail.

How do I best set this one-off backup up in Veeam? Thanks for your help.

Oliver

[foggy]

Oliver, just perform active full manually (using the command from the job's shortcut menu) prior to migration. This active full will subsequently be used as the base for the new reverse incremental backup chain, old restore points will be removed according to your retention. Alternatively, you can use VeeamZIP for this. Thanks.

[eversys]

Surely if I do that, then I get a full copy of the VM... but this would then be overwritten the next time a full is run. What I would like to do is copy away the backup files for archiving purposes and/or potential future restoration of files. Even better might be a copy of the actual VMware files - so that the system could be booted in another VM environment if necessary.

[foggy]

Then VeeamZIp to the required location is the way to go.

[eversys]

I am unfamiliar with VeeamZIP. Just searched on my server with the Veeam Backup & Replication setup and can't find it. Does this come with my purchased software or do I need to purchase a new product?

[foggy]

Just select the required VM, right-click it, and select VeeamZIP. A separate independent full backup file will be created.

[eversys]

Great thanks. In oder oder to retreive data from this backup do I need to do this within Veeam? Is it possible to be able to extract the .vbk in order to restore the vmware files themselves - we might wish to run the old VM within an infrastructure that does not use Veeam.

[veremin]

You can use extract.exe utility that goes with every production installation in order to get access to the content of the backup file. Just copy the said tool to whatever machine you want to or store it along with backup file. Thanks.

[brupnick]

We use VeeamZIP exactly for this purpose. I have a separate folder on my Data Domain that has a corresponding repository (called "Archive") in VBR. In our case, we keep VMs until the end of the month, at which time they are VeeamZIPed and then deleted. I have a PowerShell script that recursively kicks off a VeeamZIP job for every VM in the folder specified, so I can archive as many VMs as necessary with a single command.

Also, if you configure the VBR plugin for the VMware web GUI, your administrators can run VeeamZIP backups of VMs without needing access to the VBR console.

Another example of the flexibility of this product.

[cfizz34]

I need to have a 5 year retention but I only see 3 years max. What are my other options?

[veremin]

As per our answer to you in another thread where you posted the same question, in this case you should disable VeeamZIP retention and control your specific retention goal manually. Thanks!