>>> READ FIRST : [FAQ] FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS v5 <<<

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Table of Content

General
Licensing
Upgrade
System Requirements

vStorage API
vStorage API & Changed Block Tracking
Direct SAN Access Mode
Virtual Appliance Mode
Network Mode
Legacy Modes

Basics
Job Types
Backup
Replication
Deduplication
Application-Aware Image Processing

File Level Recovery
Instant File Level Recovery
Guest File System Indexing ad Search

vPower
vPower Engine
Virtual Lab

Instant VM Recovery
Instant VM Recovery
Manual Recovery Verification

SureBackup (Recovery Verification)
Application Groups
SureBackup Jobs
On-Demand Sandbox

Universal Application Item Recovery (U-AIR)
U-AIR Workflow
Universal AIR (Oracle, MySQL, etc)
Active Directory AIR
Exchange AIR
SQL AIR
User-Directed Recovery

Additional Information
Recorded Live Demo
Walkthroughs and Guides

Advanced
How to Setup Internet Access from Virtual Labs

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Licensing

Q: Do I need new license file to be able to install v5?
A: Yes, you need to obtain new license file for version 5.x. Your existing 4.x license file will not work.

Q: Is v5 a free upgrade from v4?
A: With VEEAM, all upgrades are "free" for customers on maintenance. All new license purchases include 1 year of maintenance. If you bought Veeam Backup more than 1 year ago, but did not extend your maintenance after 1st year, you need to fix this with your Veeam sales representative first.

Q: I am current customer on maintenance, how do I get the license file for v5?
A: Please use License Management Portal in the product download area to get your new license file, or email licensing@veeam.com for assistance.

Q: Which v5 edition do I get a free upgrade to?
A: All customers with active maintenance agreements in effect will receive the upgrade to v5 Standard Edition. In addition, customers who had maintenance agreements in effect as of June 18, 2010 are also be eligible for a free upgrade to v5 Enterprise Edition. We also had a few promo programs in Q3 2010 which allowed new customers to get free upgrade to v5 Enteprise Edition. If you are not sure of your eligibility, please contact your Veeam sales representative for more information about eligibility.

Q: Looks like I am eligible to free upgrade to v5 Enterprise. Will I be upgraded automatically?
A: No, you need to claim your free upgrade option within 3 months after v5 release. We do not upgrade everyone automatically, because upgrading to Enteprise Edition incurs increase in your maintenance costs, and we cannot make this decision for you.

Q: How do I claim free upgrade to v5 Enterprise Edition?
A: Please use License Management Portal in the product download area to get your license key, or email licensing@veeam.com for assistance. Note that you must be registered with Veeam as license administrator for your company in order to be able to perform this operation using the portal.

Q: What are the feature differences between the Enterprise and Standard versions?
A: Please see the Standard vs. Enterprise Edition comparison document on product page under Resources tab.

Q: I am using multiple different v4 licenses. How do I deal with centralized licensing feature in v5?
A: Please use License Management Portal in the product download area to get a consolidated license key, or email licensing@veeam.com for assistance.

Q: Can I install multiple v5 servers across multiple sites without any extra fees, using the same license file?
A: Yes, you can install any amount of backup servers across any amount of sites, and federate them with the Enterprise Manager server for centralized management/reporting/search. This is very typical deployment for many of our customers today. With v5, Enterprise Manager will ensure that you are in compliance by consolidating actual socket usage across all backup servers.

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Upgrade

Q: Do I need to perform clean install and re-create all jobs, or can v5 upgrade my existing Veeam Backup install?
A: We support seamless, in-place upgrade from version 4.x. If you are running older versions, please contact our support for assistance with performing an upgrade.

Q: Can I restore backup made with v4 using v5? Can all new functionality be used with backups made by v4?
A: Yes.

Q: Can v4 and v5 be installed on the same server?
A: No. You can however run v4 and v5 in parallel backing up the same VM, but they must be installed on different servers. This is what most customers choose to do for POC/testing new version before upgrading production v4 deployment.

Q: Does Enterprise Manager v5 support Veeam Backup 4.x servers?
A: No. Enteprise Manager v5 cannot collect data from v4 Backup Server, and Enteprise Manager v4 cannot collect data from v5 Backup Server, so you need to upgrade everything at once. Alternatively, you can deploy new (separate) Enteprise Manager v5 install, and connect new v5 Backup servers to it as you upgrade your backup servers, while disconnecting upgraded backup servers from Enteprise Manager v4.

Q: After upgrade, can I change my jobs to newly added backup modes?
A: We recommend that you create new jobs if you want to switch to new backup modes. In all cases, job mode change require full backup to be performed. However, changing backup mode for existing jobs may result in future issues with importing backups (as documented in the Known Issues section of the Release Notes).

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System Requirements

Q: What are the system requirements and supported configurations for Veeam Backup server, and for protected VMs?
A: Please refer to the System Requirements section of the Release Notes document that comes with your download, and available on product page under Resources tab.

Q: Is vSphere 4.1 fully supported?
A: Yes.

Q: Is ESXi fully supported?
A: Yes, licensed (paid-for) ESXi is fully supported since version 3.0 released in February 2009.

Q: What about free ESXi, also known as vSphere Hypervisor?
A: Free ESXi is not supported, because it has vStorage API for Data Protection and other management APIs locked down specifically to prevent ISVs from being able to backup/manage such hosts.

Q: Is vCenter Server presence required?
A: No, standalone ESX(i) hosts are supported as well.

Q: What is the minimum VMware licensing required?
A: vSphere Essentials.

Q: What are the benefits of using the 64-bit version of Veeam Backup over 32-bit version?
A: Using 64-bit version does not provide any significant benefits.

Q: Is running a backup server in a VM supported?
A: Yes, we fully support this, moreover we provide “Virtual Appliance” processing mode that is specifically optimized for this scenario.

Q: How typical is it to run Veeam Backup in a VM among existing customers?
A: This is typical for smaller, non-24/7 or low consolidation ratio environments, which have most ESX resources unused during the night. Larger, 24/7 shops with high consolidatio ratio prefer using physical servers and direct-from-SAN backups to completely offload backup processing activities from production ESX hosts.

Q: Where can the best performance be gained? With Veeam Backup installed as a physical or virtual server?
A: About same. Performance mostly depends on actual Veeam Backup server performance (number of CPU cores, and memory throughput). Veeam Backup running in VM on modern ESX host hardware is often faster than one running on older physical server.

Q: Does the product support backup directly from FC and iSCSI SAN?
A: Yes.

Q: Are there any TCP/IP ports required to communicate from the Veeam Backup server to the VMs in order to successfully back up the VM?
A: No.

Q: What storage does Veeam support for backup targets?
A: Any local or remote storage the Veeam Backup server can read/write files from, plus remote Linux servers. For a complete list, see the System Requirements section of the Release Notes document that comes with your download, and available on product page under Resources tab.

Q: If the Veeam Backup server is running as a virtual machine, is there a 2TB limit backup target for each backup server?
A: No, there is no such limit in the product. Limit solely depends on your chosen backup target.

Q: Is v5 compatible with Windows 2000 Server, and 2000 Pro guests?
A: Yes, we support any OS supported by VMware.

Q: Is processing of VMware vCloud Director provisioned virtual machines supported?
A: Yes. We tested B&R 5.0.1 with vCloud Director 1.0, and did not observe any compatibility issues on B&R side. Likewise, when restoring VM to original location over the existing VM, vCloud Director continues to work with the restored VM normally. No special settings or steps are required for either product, the combination works out of box (but please note DVS limitation described below).

Q: Is DVS (distributed virtual switch) supported?
A: For vPower virtual labs, DVS is fully supported starting version 5.0.1. However, DVS support is limited for full VM restore. If DVS is in use, it is advisable to check network settings after a full VM restore is done. To do that, select restored VM in vSphere Client, click Edit virtual machine settings, verify that Network Connection setting is correct and adjust if required by choosing the correct network settings.

Q: What are the minimum privileges for the service account?
A: Please refer to the following topic: vCenter Server Granular Permissions (v5)

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vStorage API & Changed Block Tracking

Q: Does v5 support vStorage API and Change Block Tracking?
A: Yes, Veeam was the first 3rd party vendor to support starting from version 4.0 released in October 2009.

Q: Does vStorage API support ESX(i) 3.x, or it is for ESX(i) 4.x only?
A: Yes, vStorage API supports ESX(i) 3.x and later hosts.

Q: Does changed block tracking work with ESX(i) 3.x hosts?
A: No, this functionality requires ESX(i) 4 and hardware version 7 virtual machines. Until you upgrade to ESX(i) 4 and version 7, you can continue using legacy, Veeam's proprietary changed block tracking mechanism for incremental backup and replication. However, fast incremental backup and replication do require changed block tracking.

Q: Will the changed block tracking "break" if I backup and replicate the same VM? Or, if backup the same VM with different jobs, or from different backup servers, or with different backup products or scripts?
A: There will be no issues, as changed block tracking is designed to handle such usage scenarios.

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Direct SAN Access Mode

Q: How does it work?
A: Veeam Backup retrieves source VM data directly from production storage over SAN fabric, thus providing LAN-free data retrieval mechanism that does not affect production ESX(i) hosts or management network.

Q: How to configure the new Veeam Backup server for direct SAN access?
A: Disable automount (done automatically by v5 setup), install and configure SAN HBA card (or iSCSI Software Initiator), give Veeam Backup server access and read permission on VMFS LUNs (if applicable to your SAN), and ensure that you are seeing your VMFS volumes in the Windows Disk Management snap-in. Refer to the following thread for more information specific to certain SAN makes and models: Configuring new VEEAM Backup Server for SAN.

Q: I have FC SAN and running Veeam Backup in a VM. Can I use direct SAN access mode via NPIV?
A: No. VMware supports NPIV for RDM disks in physical mode only. Veeam Backup does not support backing up pRDM disks, because VMware does not support snapshotting such disks. You can, however leverage NPIV to mount LUN to VM as pRDM disk, format it with NTFS and use as target for your backups, thus making you backups completely LAN-free.

Q: I have iSCSI SAN and running Veeam Backup in a VM. Can I use direct SAN access mode?
A: Yes, you need to configuring direct SAN access using Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator bundled with Windows. Our customers report best results with Windows 2008 R2. If your Veeam Backup is installed on Windows 2003, be sure to review the corresponding known issue in the Release Notes document that comes with your download, and also available on product page under Resources tab.

Q: I have never configured Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator, settings seem too complex.
A: See the following step-by-step guide: The Mission Manual Part 1: Veeam B & R Direct SAN Backups (courtesy of Justin Paul)

Q: Any tips on improving iSCSI network throughtput on Windows 2008?
A: See the following guide: Improving direct-from-SAN backup speed with iSCSI SAN (courtesy of our iSCSI guru joergr). If this does not help, you may want to try some other settings mentioned in this discussion Poor vStorage iSCSI SAN speed after Windows 2008 Upgrade

Q: Can I use SAN mode with NFS storage?
A: No, only block level access storage (FC and iSCSI) is supported for SAN mode. For NFS storage, consider the Virtual Appliance mode instead.

Q: What is the expected backup performance for SAN mode?
A: Typical full backup performance is around 45-90MB/s for iSCSI SAN (dedicated 1Gb Ethernet), and 75-150MB/s for FC SAN (4Gb Fibre Channel) for a single job. Lower performance is most oftenly caused by underpowered Veeam Backup (check CPU load while backup is running), issues with multipathing software, or backup target performance.

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Virtual Appliance Mode

Q: How does it work?
A: Veeam Backup uses SCSI HotAdd capability of VMware to attach disks of backed up VM directly to Veeam Backup server. As a result, data is retrieved from directly from storage via ESX(i) storage stack (bypassing network stack), which results in significantly better performance. Coupled with new, rewritten iSCSI initiator in ESX(i) 4.0 (I have tested and confirmed significant improvements personally), this allows to dish out very decent numbers.

Q: How do I configure VM for Virtual Appliance mode? What host should I run the VM on?
A: No special configuration is needed for VM. Host running Veeam Backup VM must have all datastores where processed VMs reside connected to it.

Q: What is the expected backup performance for Virtual Appliance mode?
A: Similar to direct SAN access mode. Can be 10-20% faster on 4 vCPU Veeam Backup VM comparing to average physical server, only because ESX hosts typically have better hardware (faster memory and more CPU resources).

Q: Can I use Virtual Appliance mode with any type of storage, including local storage?
A: Yes. Any storage is supported, as long as it is connected to the ESX host running Veeam Backup VM.

Q: Can I use Virtual Appliance mode with NFS storage?
A: Yes. In fact, it is the single best mode to use if your production storage is NFS. Customers report up to 3x better full backup performance comparing to the network mode.

Q: Virtual Appliance mode fails to process some of my VMs, any ideas why?
A: Click here for the complete list of current vStorage API limitation around Virtual Appliance.

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Network Mode

Q: How does it work?
A: Veeam Backup retrieves source VM data from production storage through ESX(i) over management network.

Q: When it is recommended to use Network processing mode?
A: Processing of VMs from multiple ESX(i) hosts with local storage by central Veeam Backup server (consider using Virtual Appliance mode and one Veeam Backup server per host instead). Replication with Veeam Backup server installed in the target site and ESX(i) 4.x hosts as source.

Q: Why this mode is so slow on ESX 4.0?
A: Network backup slow on vSphere ESX 4.0 (resolved in ESX 4.1)

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Legacy Modes

Q: Do you still support VCB (VMware Consolidated Backup)?
A: Yes, we have made the decision to still support VCB in v5, as some of our customers are still in the process of certifying vStorage API, and they have asked us not to drop VCB support until the end of 2010.

Q: How do I enable VCB processing mode?
A: Go to Tools > Options, and select the corresponding checkbox. Now, you will be able to select additional processing mode when creating or editing jobs. Note that we are only keeping VCB and Network modes for compatibility/upgrade reasons, and do not expect majority of customers to use them. In fact, we estimate that over 98% of our current customers are relying solely on vStorage API for all their jobs.

Q: How vStorage API, VCB and legacy Network modes compare to each other?
A: vStorage API is the single best choice for ESX(i) 4 hosts, as well as for ESX(i) 3.x hosts in case you have shared storage. vStorage API mode will provide better performance and functionality all around comparing to other processing modes. The legacy "Network" mode is usually slightly better choice for backups of full ESX 3.x hosts with local storage. And VCB is the slowest.

Q: Can I use changed block tracking in "VCB" and "Network" processing modes?
A: No, change block tracking is only available in the "vStorage API" processing mode.

Q: What are Veeam plans around legacy processing modes?
A: v5 is the last release Veeam Backup release with support for legacy processing modes. The next Veeam Backup release will support vStorage API based processing modes only. If you are not using vStorage API already, please plan for completing the required vStorage API certifications and switch all your jobs to this mode by the end of 2011.

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Job Types

Q: What are Backup jobs designed for?
A: Backup jobs produce highly compressed and dedupe backup files with production VMs data, which allows you to save significant amount of space required to host the backups. Full VM restore from backup usually takes significant time due to the need to extract and copy full VM image from backup to production storage, unless you choose Instant VM Recovery option.

Q: What are Replication jobs designed for?
A: Replication jobs produce exact replicas of production VMs on standby ESX servers. These replicas can be powered on immediately when production VM goes down, without any dependencies on Veeam Backup and Replication server and at full I/O performance. However, replicas require standby host, and much more disk space due to being uncompressed. Thus, replica are typically are only used for tier 1 VMs with low recovery time objectives.

Q: What are VM Copy jobs designed for?
A: VM Copy jobs produce exact copies of selected VMs on the selected storage, and can be used for scenarios such as datacenter migrations, creating test labs, and ad-hoc backups. VM Copy jobs support processing of running VMs. Unlike backup job however, VM Copy does not support "incremental" runs.

Q: What are File Copy jobs designed for?
A: File Copy jobs are designed to copy regular files (such as ISO, or VMDK) to and from hosts or any other storage, and can be used for various administrative tasks. File Copy jobs do not support processing of running VMs.

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Backup

Q: What are the benefits of synthetic full backup?
A: A few times less stress on the production environment, a few times faster full backup performance, a few time less backup storage space due to no need to keep multiple fulls (in select backup modes only).

Q: We have a policy in place that requires me to do real full backups. Are you saying I am forced to use synthetic fulls with Veeam?
A: No, you can configure the job to perform active (real) full backups instead. Also, you can schedule active full backup, for example, once a month (or once a quarter), while doing synthetic full backup for the rest of the time. v5 provides great flexibility around scheduling active full backups.

Q: Do you fully support thin-provisioning, on backup AND restore?
A: Yes. Veeam was the first vendor to add full thin-provisioning disk support with version 4 in October 2009.

Q: Does Veeam support writing backups directly to tape?
A: No, we support backup to disk only at this time. Customers who have requirement to store backup files on tape choose to use post-job script (see advanced job settings) to trigger their legacy tape backup solution to copy backup files created by Veeam to tape. Search this forum for "tape" for more info.

Q: What is the best way to perform offsite backups with v5?
A: If offsite storage is the only destination, best performance can be achieved by backing up to Linux target, and enabling WAN mode optimization in advanced job settings. If you backup locally, with offsite being secondary destination, we recommend using rsync to sync backup files offsite. Search this forum for offsite and rsync for more information from customers employing this technique.

Q: How can I make it so that only the latest backup file is copied over to another storage or tape?
A: You can use this PowerShell script, or leverage capabilities of your tape backup solution (example for BackupExec).

Q: How exactly does reversed incremental backup mode work?
A: Refer to the following post: Veeam Synthetic Backup Explained

Q: What backup mode should I choose?
A: This depends on your requirements. Please review Excel document attached to this post for pros and cons of each backup mode.

v5 Choosing Backup Mode.xlsx

Choosing backup mode in v5

(10.87 KiB) Downloaded 3280 times

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Replication

Q: How exactly does replication work? How failover to earlier time is possible?
A: Replication is very similar to backup in reverse incremental backup mode, except that compression and deduplication are not used, and virtual disks are created in native format (as normal VMDK files). Failover to earlier time is enabled by storing earlier restore points (rollbacks) along with replica. For more information, refer to the following post, towards the end: Veeam Synthetic Backup Explained

Q: Can I power on replica VM manually with vSphere Client?
A: Yes, absolutely, you can do that should the need arise in case of emergency - in the end, replica VM is absolutely normal VM. However, keep in mind that vSphere Client cannot leverage rollbacks, so replica VM can be started to the latest state only. Once you do that, your replica disks will go out of sync with source VM, so continuing replication job will result in corrupt replica. You will also immediately lose the ability to undo failover, and to perform failover to an earlier restore point through Veeam UI.Thus, we strongly recommended to always perform all replica operations through Veeam UI (whenever possible).

Q: How can I test my replica without disrupting replication job or corrupting replica disks?
A: You can test the latest replica state. Please refer to the following post for detailed procedure.

Q: What is the sense of using replication when v5 has Instant VM Recovery feature?
A: Unlike instantly recovered VMs, replicas are created in native format and can this can run at full I/O speed, and without any dependencies on Veeam Backup server. These capabilities are very important in case of major disaster with multiple VMs affected, as well as for high I/O VMs. These are the only (albeit very important) benefits of replicas over vPower-enabled backups.

Q: How does Veeam replication compare with SAN-based replication?
A: Our solution is storage-agnostic (any storage to any storage), granular (per VM versus per LUN), more network friendly, and is application-aware to ensure successful recovery.

Q: If we have a production site doing Veeam backups, can we replicate to a remote site without having Veeam at the remote site?
A: Yes, you can install Veeam Backup server in both source, and target site, or even in both - there is no extra charge.

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Deduplication

Q: What kind of deduplication do you perform?
A: Veeam Backup does source-side deduplication (data is deduped before it is sent to backup storage, which significantly improves backup performance). Veeam was the first vendor on the VMware backup market to add inline source-side deduplication in version 1.0 released in February 2008.

Q: How efficient your deduplication is?
A: Compression and deduplication ratios up to 10x and more of the original size can be achieved, but this depends on too many factors, of course (amount of VMs in the job, similarity of those VMs, content of virtual disks, etc). Please refer to the latest white paper about deduplication on our website, it has some real-world testing numbers.

Q: 10x is nice from software, but other software and hardware dedupe vendors claim to have 100x and more deduplication ratio?
A: Ask them to provide the formula the vendor is using to calculate dedupe ratio. With Veeam, 10x is pure deduplication ratio within a single full backup file (bytes in divided by bytes out). Other vendors often artificially inflate dedupe ratios to achieve impressive numbers for marketing purposes. This is typically done by assuming each backup is full. If you apply this approach to Veeam, then with most typical 30 days retention policy with daily backups, you will get up to 300x "marketing" dedupe ratio. This is because Veeam synthethic backup allows you to keep only one full backup on disk at any time (no matter of how long your retention policy is).

Q: To what level the deduplication is done?
A: We do block level dedupe with constant block size (configurable).

Q: How can I achieve the best deduplication ratio?
A: Group VMs made from the same template in the same job. Have fewer jobs with more VMs in each, rather more jobs with fewer VMs in each.

Q: My VMs are not made from the same template. Will dedupe work between them?
A: Absolutely. Because deduplication is done on block level, it does not matter if VMs were made from the same template, or provisioned manually. Any similar blocks between VMs will be deduped, even if these VMs have different operating systems.

Q: Have you done integration testing with other vendor's de-dupe technology? DataDomain, Falconstor, Netapp, etc?
A: We have started certification process with multiple vendors as soon v5 was released. Alpha code testing showed that incremental backup mode works well with 2 storage vendor we have tested it with.

Q: Should I disable built-in deduplication it I am backing up to a dedupe appliance (e.g., DataDomain or ExaGrid).
A: No, we recommend that you keep it enabled for better results! You will get faster backups, and more portable backup files.

Q: Does it make any sense to write Veeam backup files to storage device with hardware deduplication?
A: Yes, this way you will get global deduplication (between backup files produced by different backup jobs). Generally speaking, deduplicating storage devices are best choice for long-term archival of backup files produced by Veeam. However, not every deduplicating storage device is good as primary backup target, because unlike raw disks, these devices are not designed to provide good IOPS, and may become primary bottleneck for your backup performance, thus affecting your backup window. Likewise, very poor random read I/O performance certain deduplicating storage devices are exhibiting will affect all vPower-based functionality.

Q: Does deduplication work for replication?
A: No, because replicas are created in native format (uncompressed), deduplication is not applicable to them. However, we do compress and dedupe data stored in replica rollbacks (restore points).

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Application-Aware Image Processing

Q: What exactly do you mean by application-aware image processing?
A: Application-aware image processing is unique Veeam technology that allows creating image-level backups in application-aware manner. It is a multi-step process that consists of detecting applications running inside of the processed VM; using Microsoft VSS to perform application-level quiescence to ensure that each application state is transactionally consistent; applying application-specific settings to prepare each application to perform VSS-aware restore on the next VM startup; and finally performing transaction logs pruning for certain applications if backup was successful. The whole process is fully automated.

Q: Do I need to deploy persistent agent in every VM that I am backing up in order to be able to use application-aware image processing?
A: No, Veeam does not use persistent agents inside VMs. Instead, Veeam automatically deploys small runtime coordination process to each VM when backup starts, and removes it immediately after backup finishes. This frees you up from agents micromanagement (deployment, configuration, updates, monitoring, troubleshooting). Besides, actual VM runs without any 3rd party agents present most of the time.

Q: Sounds too good to be true. Does this require direct network connection and some port open between backup server and processed VM?
A: No.

Q: Does Veeam install its own VSS provider on each guest?
A: No, we leverage default VSS provider from Microsoft that is already available on each Windows guest.

Q: What is Microsoft VSS and how it can provide transaction consistency with image-level backups?
A: Please read the following beginners guide to Microsoft VSS: What is Windows VSS & why you should care

Q: Why application aware processing is important?
A: Please read the following article for some great insights on image-level backups of transactional applications with VMware, and what makes Veeam technology so important and unique: Hyper-V ahead of VMware in the backup race (nevermind the title).

Q: What applications do you support for application-aware image processing?
A: Any VSS-aware application running on Windows XP/2003 or later. All modern server applications from Microsoft are VSS-aware, plus many 3rd party vendors ship their server application with VSS writers as well.

Q: How do I know if my application is VSS-aware?
A: It should implement VSS writer and have it installed and registered in Microsoft VSS framework. Open command prompt on backed up VM, and run vssadmin list writers for complete list of VSS-aware applications on specific system.

Q: Do you know if Oracle has VSS writer?
A: Yes, Oracle 11g has a component named "Oracle VSS Writer" that installs when selecting Windows OCI Components on the Oracle 11g database install wizard. It does support Oracle 10g starting from patchset 10.2.0.3

Q: Do you support transactionally-consistent backups on Linux VMs? Linux does not have VSS!
A: Yes, we do. You should use application-specific VMware prefreeze/postthaw scripts to quiesce application before the snapshot is taken, and resume immediately after. Please refer to the following whitepaper written by one of our system engineers for more details: Hot backup of MySQL on a Linux VM. You can also search this forum for script examples for other applications directly from existing Veeam customers.

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Instant File Level Recovery

Q: Does instant file level recovery (FLR) require that backup file content is extracted and staged on disk or in RAM before recovery can take place?
A: No, file-level recovery happens directly from backup file, withour prior extraction. Veeam was the first vendor on the market to add instant FLR capability in version 1.0 released in February 2008.

Q: Does the VM have to have indexing enabled when it is backed up in order to enable the instant recovery feature?
A: No, unlike with other solutions, with Veeam indexing is completely optional and is not a requirement for instant (FLR). In fact, we did not even have indexing until v5.

Q: How does native Windows file level recovery work?
A: Native Windows file level recovery mounts the content of backup file directly to backup server (new volumes added under My Computer). You can even point any applications to files located on these volumes, and use them normally (backup file remains read-only no matter what you do).

Q: How does multi-OS file level recovery work?
A: Because Windows cannot read other file systems natively, we invented a patent-pending approach that uses special FLR helper appliance that runs stripped down Linux that is very small (20MB in size, 10 sec to boot) yet smart enough to be able to read the data from as many as 15 file systems. VMDK files of VM you are restoring from are mounted to FLR helper appliance directly from backup file (without prior extraction). Veeam was the first vendor on the market to provide Linux file level recovery capability in version 3.0 released in February 2009.

Q: Is VMware Player still required to run the FLR helper appliance, like it used to be the case with previous version?
A: No, with v5 FLR helper appliance runs directly on selected ESX(i) host and uses vPower NFS to access VMDK located inside backup file.

Q: Can you restore files with correct permissions?
A: Yes, this option is now available in the multi-OS file-level restore wizard when restoring directly to a Linux host.

Q: What operating systems are supported for instant file-level recovery?
A: 15 most commonly used file systems from Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD, Unix and Mac.

Q: Do you support instant file level recovery from NSS volumes on Novell?
A: We support file-level recovery from ANY file system, but FLR wizard driven recovery is only available for above-mentioned file systems . To restore individual files from other file systems, you should leverage Instant VM Recovery functionality to publish VMDK from backup on vPower NFS datastore (without actually starting the VM). With the VMDK files readily available, you can simply mount these VMDKs to any VM that can read the corresponding file system (including the original VM), and restore the required files using native OS file management tools. Alternatively, you can mount VMDK to a Windows VM, and use tools such as Portlock Explorer.

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Guest File System Indexing and Search

Q: I have multiple sites and more than one Veeam Backup server. Will the guest file search show results across all Veeam Backup servers?
A: Yes, as long as all your Veeam Backup servers are federated in the Enterprise Manager.

Q: Will turning on indexing slow down my backups?
A: No, instead of actually scanning through the whole file systems like some competitive solution do, we capture index data directly from NTFS MFT as a part of guest OS freeze process. Required MFT data is captured nearly instantly, which is we are calling it Instant Indexing.

Q: Does the indexing functionality require more CPU power on the Veeam Backup server or Veeam Enterprise Manager server?
A: No, creating the “catalog” of all files inside the backed-up image is done by Veeam Backup servers, not by the Enterprise Manager server. Enterprise Manager only displays search results, whereas actual catalog indexing and search is offloaded by Microsoft Search Server (we support both Search Server 2008 and 2010). The Microsoft Search Server Express edition is free and is sufficient for smaller deployments.

Q: Is Microsoft Search Server required to be able to browse guest file system?
A: No, browsing guest files for specific VM and restore point does not require Microsoft Search Server and is available natively.

Q: My index is too large, and single Microsoft Search Server no longer scales.
A: Just add additional Microsoft Search Server, and Enterprise Manager will automatically load-balance global catalog between them.

Q: Is Microsoft Search Server 2010 better than Microsoft Search Server 2008?
A: Yes, it has a few times better capacity at a cost of increased system requirements. To significantly increase capacity of any version, upgrade to licensed version of Microsoft Search Server, and use licensed Microsoft SQL server for Microsoft Search Server backend database.

Q: Would you suggest putting the Veeam Backup Search on its own server? Is catalog crawl CPU intensive?
A: This is not recommended if your Veeam Backup server hardware is fairly weak. Catalog crawl is quite resource intensive task that can consume significant chunks of server CPU, thus affecting backup performance.

Q: I have fairly large environment, but want to stick with free Microsoft Search Server Express edition, do you have any recommendations?
A: Index only those VMs you really need to index (for example, file servers only). Index only selected folders on your VMs (for example, only user home folders on your file servers). If you are still running out of capacity, just deploy additional Microsoft Search Servers.

Q: Is the Instant Indexing feature only available with Veeam Enterprise Manager?
A: You do not need Enterprise Manager to create the local catalog, but you have to install Enterprise Manager server to be able to browse and search for guest files in VM backups, and maintain global catalog across multiple backup servers. Also, please see the Standard vs. Enterprise Edition comparison document on product page under Resources tab for more information about slight differences in Instant Indexing feature set depending on your Veeam Backup license level.

Q: Where does the index database reside?
A: Local catalog is stored directly on the Veeam Backup server, in the location specified during setup. Global catalog (across all backup servers) is located on the Enterprise Manager server. Additionally, index is also stored in the backup file itself (and so is immediately available for all imported backups).

Q: What do I need to backup to protect index database?
A: You need to backup Enterprise Manager server, since this is what holds global catalog (across all backup servers). Backing up local catalog data on Veeam Backup servers is not required, since any new index data that appears there is automatically (and incrementally) replicated to the global catalog.

Q: It looks like guest file index is missing some files?
A: By default, we do not index Windows system and temp folders to reduce the index size.

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vPower Engine

Q: Do any of the new v5 vPower features depend on certain versions of VMWare, vCenter, etc.?
A: No, there are no dependencies on VMware product versions. We support all currently available versions of VI3 and vSphere 4.

Q: Do any of the v5 features depend on certain VMware license levels?
A: No, there are no dependencies on VMware license levels. But note that Storage vMotion is not included in some VMware editions, so you may want to get Acceleration Kit with Storage VMotion, and upgrade one of your hosts with it. Having Storage vMotion makes Instant VM Recovery a smoother experience.

Q: Will any of the new capabilities require the Veeam Backup server to be run in a virtual machine?
A: No, this is not required.

Q: Do I have to store our backups on NFS datastore in order to be able to use vPower?
A: No, you can keep using whatever backup storage you are using today. vPower engine is backup storage-agnostic. If you can backup to that storage, it can be used with vPower.

Q: How do I create the vPower NFS datastore?
A: You do not create it manually, the process is 100% automated.

Q: Where exactly vPower NFS server runs?
A: NFS server runs directly on Veeam Backup server. Because VMware ESX(i) uses vmKernel interface to access NFS storage, ESX(i) host you are using for any vPower functionality must have vmKernel interface on the same network as Veeam Backup server. You can simply add additional vmKernel interface in ESX(i) host configuration. Otherwise, mounting vPower NFS on ESX(i) host will fail.

Q: How does it deal with RDM disk? We use file servers and SQL servers using RDM to an Equallogic volume.
A: vPower supports vRDM disks (virtual mode), but not pRDM (physical mode). Because snapshots are not possible on the latter, pRDM disks are automatically excluded from backup.

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Virtual Lab

Q: Do I need to create virtual lab for Instant VM Recovery?
A: No. Instant VM Recovery feature is available even in Standard Edition, which does not provide ability to create virtual labs.

Q: What exactly this "virtual lab" is?
A: By virtual lab we mean automatically managed, fully isolated environment where VMs can be run directly from backup file to facilitate features such as universal application item recovery (U-AIR), SureBackup (Recovery Verification) and On-Demand Sandbox. Virtual lab uses isolated virtual networks that mirror production networks, and uses proxy appliance for routing between production and isolated networks, and between isolated networks. Each virtual lab places all temporarty VMs in the designated folder and resource pool. You can use resource pool to control resource usage of virtual lab VMs.

Q: How does the proxy appliance work?
A: The proxy appliance allows to route traffic between computers in the production network, and temporary VMs running from backup in the isolated network. Think about proxy appliance as your home router, which routes traffic between your home network and internet.

Q: Do you change temporary VMs IP addresses to prevent IP conflicts for VMs which are already running in production?
A: In fact, all temporary VMs in the isolated network have exact same IP addresses as in production network. IP address conflicts are simply not possible, as different VLANs are used for production and isolated networks.

Q: How is it possible to access temporary VMs in the isolated network from production network, if VMs in both networks have the same IP addresses?
A: Each temporary VM is assigned so called "masquerade address" from selected masquerade network (part of virtual lab settings). Routing table on Veeam Backup server is automatically updated, and proxy appliance IP address in the production network is assigned as gateway for masquerade network. Acting as gateway, the proxy appliance performs address translation and substitutes masquerade IP address with real IP address in the isolated network. Although this sounds pretty complex, all happens transparently for you as a user.

Q: What if i want all computers on the network to be able to access those temporary VMs running in the virtual lab?
A: You should assign the proxy appliance static IP address in the virtual lab settings, and update your production router settings to forward all request destined into masquerade network (as configured in virtual lab settings) to the proxy appliance IP address. Alternatively, if you only need to access select VMs in the isolated network, you can use virtual lab's Static Address Mapping feature and point specific IP addresses in the production network to selected IP addresses in the isolated network. Proxy appliance will grab specified production IP addresses for its production network interface, and will take care of routing automatically.

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Instant VM Recovery

Q: What is Instant VM Recovery?
A: Instant VM Recovery allows you to instantly recover any VM into your production environment by running it directly from backup file. Best analogy is that this gives you "spare tyre" so that you can get to a service shop. You cannot go at full speed, but you are still going instead of being stuck in woods. To complete the restore, you can use Storage VMotion to migrate the recovered VM to production storage without any impact on users (this is like changing spare tyre to a real one as you go). Alternatively, if your VMware license does not include Storage VMotion, you can move VM to production storage during off-hours with replication, VM Copy or File Copy (this is like pulling over to a service shop to change tire). Note that Instant VM Recovery supports bulk operations (publish/unpublish multiple VMs at once).

Q: As a percentage, what's the difference in performance when running a VM that has been replicated versus one that’s running from a backup file?
A: It depends on many factors (backup files location, storage speed of Veeam Backup server, number of concurrently running insta-recovered VMs). Generally, for all low I/O server (such as DC, DNS, DHCP, WWW, AV, PRING) the performance difference will be hardly noticeable. Impact on high I/O servers will be much more noticeable, because vPower NFS throughtput is limited.

Q: What will disable Storage vMotion when you do an Instant VM Recovery?
A: Choosing a VMFS datastore as the change storage location, versus storing the changes in temporary storage on the Veeam Backup server (which is the default behavior).

Q: Our VMware license does not provide Storage VMotion. What are my options to complete the restore?
A: Consider upgrading one of your hosts with VMware Acceleration Kit that enable Storage VMotion (well worth it). Alternative, simply perform failover during the next maintenance window. To do that, you can use FastSCP/File Copy/VM Copy/Replication functionality of Veeam Backup). Unlike with Storage VMotion, these approaches require some downtime. However, this is still beneficial as this allows you to convert unplanned downtime (which is what cost businesses money) into planned downtime during your regular maintenance windows.

Q: Will Storage VMotion, Replication or VM Copy carry over the actual, latest VM disks state (including delta from backup state)?
A: Yes, this happens automatically.

Q: What happens if Veeam Backup server fails when you have instantly recovered VMs running?
A: Just what happens when your production storage fails - nothing pretty. Although the chance of consequent failures of 2 different storage devices is pretty unlikely to say the least. It is like getting a hole in your newly placed tire...

Q: With the instant VM recovery feature present, why would you replicate?
A: 2 big reasons: not to have dependencies on Veeam Backup server to run the VM, plus full disk I/O performance in case of disaster (important for large-scale disasters).

Q: Will Instant VM Recovery work with RDM that have been backed up?
A: Yes. RDM in virtual mode is backed up as VMDK and are available directly in the backup file. RDM in physical mode is skipped during backup, however there is nothing preventing instantly recovered VMs from connecting and using it.

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Manual Recovery Verification

Q: I have v5 Standard Edition that is advertized to have "manual" SureBackup recovery verification. What is the process?
A: To perform manual recovery verification, you should use Instant VM Recovery feature. For example, for simple VM boot up test, just go through the Instant VM Recovery wizard and power on VM, but do not select a checkbox to connect VM to a network.

Q: I performed boot up test as described above, and while VM booted fine, most applications could not start?
A: This is expected because there is no network connectivity, so application cannot establish connection to domain controller, DNS servers, and other services it is dependent on. If you want to test application recovery, create isolated network and edit instantly recovered VM network configuration with vSphere Client before powering it on. Perform this for all required VMs which run dependent applications (such as DC and DNS), placing them all on the same isolated network, and start them in correct order (for example, DNS > DC > Application).

Q: This sounds very similar to what we are already doing during our monthly/quarterly/annual DR tests. What is the catch?
A: The catch is that with Veeam, you are able to run VMs directly from backup files, without spending many hours of extracting all those VMs from backup to production storage. Even finding free disk space alone (to extract all required backups) often becomes a challenge. So DR test that would previously take a whole weekend can now be completed in less than 30 mins.

Q: This manual process sounds too complex to perform for every backup, every VM, every time as your marketing materials state?
Q: That is right, which is why v5 Enterprise Edition provides fully automated recovery verification that performs all of the tasks described above automatically, including running required test scripts against each VM. It even creates and manages isolated test environment automatically for you. This allows you to perform DR test every single day, with review of email report showing recovery verification job results being the only manual activity in the whole process.

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Application Groups

Q: What is Application Group?
A: Application Group is our way to handling application dependencies for any VMs running in the isolated environment. Simplest example is Microsoft Exchange server - if you power it on in the isolated environment which does not have DNS server and Domain Controller present, mailbox store will not start.

Q: Can you give an example of what is typical Application Group looks like for small Windows shop.
A: Any application group should contain at least DNS server for name resolution, and directory server for authentication. In Windows world and smaller environments, both services are typically provided by Domain Controller, so application groups may look like these (put DNS before DC if DNS server is separate):
Exchange: DC > Exchange
FTP Server: DC > File Server > IIS
SharePoint: DC > SQL > SharePoint

Q: Can you give an example of what typical Application Group looks like for small Linux shop with no directory services used.
A: Any application group should contain at least DNS server for name resolution. Application groups may look like these:
CMS: DNS > MySQL > Apache w/CMS code
CRM: DNS > Oracle > CRM Server

Q: I have pretty static and small environment with just a few VMs. How should I configure application groups?
A: Simply put all of your VMs in a few application groups keeping in mind the required boot order. You can create one group per application, or you can have more than one application per group, or even all of them in a single group.

Q: I have a large and dynamic environment with many VMs created and deleted daily. Micro-managing application groups is hardly possible.
A: We have thought of that. In this case, you should setup your application groups to contain essential infrastructure services only (for example, DNS and DC is something almost every application in Windows shop depends on). Now, SureBackup jobs provide you with capability to "link" this application group and one or more of your backup jobs together. With such setup, SureBackup first starts the application group VMs and leaves them running for the duration of job, and then proceeds to powering on VMs from linked backup jobs one by one for verification. As a result, as you are adding or removing VMs from environment, they will be automatically added to backup jobs (granted you have backup job setup on container basis), which in turn will make them processed as a part of SureBackup job without requiring you to edit its settings.

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SureBackup (Recovery Verification)

Q: Can you please go over of the whole concept and what it is all about?
A: See the following high-level video (for desciption of concept and architecture), and more technical demo (contains pre-release UI).

Q: What is SureBackup job?
A: SureBackup jobs perform actual recovery verification by powering on one or more VMs in the isolated environment, and verifying recovery by checking if VM was started, OS was booted, VM responds to ping, and VM applications are running fine. SureBackup job is also the key component of U-AIR and On-Demand sandbox functionality.

Q: What exactly is verified by the SureBackup job? VM availability, OS boot up or also applications?
A: All of this. There are 4 steps or level of recovery verification:
1. Check for successful VM startup (API call results). For example, if virtual disk is missing from backup file, or if disk descriptor file is corrupted, VM will not start and vCenter will tell SureBackup the issue.
2. Check for successful OS boot up by checking VM heartbeat. If OS does not boot, then VMware Tools service will never start and heartbeat will never appear.
3. Check for network connectivity by pinging VM. If VM never appears on the network, this also indicates in some recovery issue.
4. Check VM applications by running test scripts against them. If application does not respond to test script with expected results, this indicates recovery issue.

Q: Are all of the above tests mandatory?
A: No. You can define which tests you want to use granularly for each VM, container, or linked backup job.

Q: Which VMs will be verified by SureBackup job?
A: All VMs from the selected application group (these run for the duration of the job providing required infrastructure services), and all VMs from linked backup jobs (these are simply started, verified and stopped one by one).

Q: I can see that it is possible setup SureBackup job without specifying application group to use. How so?
A: If you do not care to verify application recoverability, and just want to make sure VM can boot up, then you do not need to worry about some applications possibly not starting because of missing dependencies, and thus you do not need an application group to start and run those dependencies first. Just stuff your SureBackup job with linked backup jobs, and make sure application test scripts are disabled to avoid getting verification error reports.

Q: If I have not virtualized my Domain Controllers, how do you bring instances of those inside the virtual fenced lab?
A: You have to have at least one virtualized domain controller.

Q: I received report that verification had failed for one of the VMs. How can I quickly see what is going on?
Q: Open the corresponding SureBackup job session, locate the VM in question, right-click it and choose to restart it. Click the hyperlink under VM name to open its console (or use vSphere client), and troubleshoot the recovery issue manually.

Q: Verification procedure for some application we have is a manual process that cannot be scripted. What is our best option?
A: Create dedicated application groups for these applications. Create SureBackup job with this application group, select the Keep VM running checkbox, and schedule the job with the required period (say, once a week after full backup). VMs will sit there and wait for staff responsible for manual recovery verification to come in the morning and perform the required tests by connecting to VM with vSphere Client.

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On-Demand Sandbox

Q: How do I setup a sandbox?
A: Create new application group and stuff it with VMs you want to be available in sandbox. Create new SureBackup job, select the newly created application group, and select "Keep VMs running" checkbox. Now, simply run the SureBackup job. As soon all VM in the job start, your sandbox is ready! Use vSphere Client to open consoles to VMs running in the sandbox, and do what you need to do! Or, simply connect to applications running in sandbox with native management tools you are using to manage the same application in your production environment.

Q: When I start SureBackup job, it always runs using latest backups - but I need to go 1 week ago?
A: To start SureBackup to restore point other than latest backup, right-click the job, select "Start To" in the short-cut menu, and select the desired date and time to start the job to.

Q: I can ping and access sandbox VMs running in the isolated environment by masquearade IP address from backup server, but not from any other computer?
A: This is because routing table was updated automatically on Veeam Backup server as a part of SureBackup job. If you execute route print you will see one of routes pointing to proxy appliance IP address in production network. So, to make other computers able to access sandbox VMs, you should either update their local routing table (note that Universal AIR wizard does this automatically), or configure router in your environment accordingly to make this work for all computers at once (however, it might be easier to use Static Mapping feature of the virtual lab instead).

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U-AIR Workflow

Q: Can you explain the problem this functionality is addressing?
A: Please refer to the following blog post for more details: Separation of Permissions in Backup and Recovery

Q: I am the only admin in a small environment. Do I have to use this workflow in order to be able to restore application items?
A: No, obviously we do not want you to spend time creating and approving lab requests for yourself. As backup administrator, you can simply right-click any VM in the running SureBackup job session, and start application-item recovery procedure immediately. Just make sure AIR wizards are installed on your Veeam Backup server.

Q: How it works from end user perspective?
A: User perspective:
1. Install AIR wizard depending on the application you need to recover from.
2. Right-click the Virtual Lab Manager tray icon to create new virtual lab request.
3. Specify description, estimated time needed, required VM and restore point, and submit request.
4. Wait until the request is approved by backup administrator, and the lab is started.
5. Continue on in the AIR wizard and perform the restore.
6. If you need more time, just extend virtual lab lease.
7. When done, dismiss the lab (if you forget, it will expire automatically).

Q: How it works from backup administrator pespective?
A: Administrator perspective:
1. Receive email notification about new lab request.
2. Open Enterprise Manager, make desicion to approve or deny access to requested data to the user.
3. Go through request approval wizard. If necessary, adjust request settings (such as lab lease time).
4. Manage active labs if needed. For example, stop lab used by developers to let somebody else perform emergency restore using the same virtual lab.
5. No need to babysit lab, as they will automatically expire after requested time passes.

Q: How it works under the hood?
A: All operations described below are fully automated and "hidden" from users:
1. AIR wizard generates lab request and passes it over to Virtual Lab Manager (VLM), which and sends it over to Enterprise Manager.
2. Request is approved by admin, who selects SureBackup job to use as a part of approval process.
3. Enterprise Manager will automatically locate Veeam Backup server for selected SureBackup, and will have it run the SureBackup job for required VM only.
4. Once all dependent, and the selected VM are running and ready (ready means recovery verification wass successful), Veeam Backup server notifies Enterprise Manager.
5. Enterprise Manager notifies requesting VLM install, and provides network parameters for lab (proxy appliance IP address and masquearade IP address of requested VM).
6. VLM updates routing table on local machine, and notifies user the everything is ready with popup notification.
7. User is now able to proceeds through AIR wizard to perform application item recovery.
8. Lab automatically expires automatically as requested time passes (unless user extends the lease, or per user request to dismiss the lab).

Q: Do I have to install AIR wizards on Veeam Backup server?
A: No, AIR wizards can be installed on any computer. For example, you can install them on developers' workstations.

Q: Am I required to use Veeam AIR wizards to recover individual items? Unfortunately wizard X lacks feature Y which I really need.
A: No, if you prefer you can simply use native tools to get individual application items from applications running off backup files in isolated virtual lab environment. For example, Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint through OWA (see User-Directed Recovery below), and Microsoft SQL through Management Studio, Oracle through Oracle SQL Developer (video in Oracle session), MySQL through MySQL Workbench (video in Session 3), etc.

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Universal AIR Wizard

Q: How this "universal" recovery is supposed to work?
A: Once the lab is prepared, Universal AIR wizard will provide masquerade IP address of requested VM in the isolated environment, and update routing on current computer automatically to enable transparent access. You can then use native management tools to extract required items from the application, and put them back to production server. For example, you can use free Oracle SQL Developer to perform item-level recovery from Oracle database, or Microsoft SQL Management Studio to perform item-level recovery from Microsoft SQL database, or MySQL Workbench to perform item-level recovery from MySQL database, etc. - any application!

Q: I had never dealt with databases before. Is there a demo that can help me better understand the concept, so I can explain this to my colleagues?
A: Session #3 video shows example of item-level restore from MySQL server backing my very own WordPress blog using free MySQL Workbench tool starting at 31:00.

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Active Directory AIR

Q: What is the list of capabilities of Active Directory AIR wizard?
A: Restore both entire objects, or individual attribute values of existing objects back to production Active Directory.

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Exchange AIR

Q: What is the list of capabilities of Exchange AIR wizard?
A: Restore individual mailbox items (email, appointments, contacts) back into production mailbox, to Outlook PST file, or to individual files.

Q: Can I restore from other user's mailbox?
Q: Just like with other Exchange item recovery products, you need to make sure your account has sufficient permission to access mailbox it is injecting the restored data to. By default, domain adminstrators do NOT have permissions to other users' mailboxes. Full Mailbox Access permission on all mailboxes you want to be able to restore data for must be granted to account you are using to perform Exchange AIR .

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SQL AIR

Q: What is the list of capabilities of SQL Server AIR wizard?
A: Recover SQL databases, tables, records, schema etc. directly to the original SQL server, or to a SQL script.

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User-Directed Recovery

Q: How do I enable users to restore their own items from latest backup?
A: Essentially, you need to create ever-running SureBackup job with application in question, and provide convenient DNS name to it.
1. Create new application group with VMs running required application and its dependencies.
2. Create new SureBackup job with "Keep application group running" option selected, and schedule it to run after each backup.
3. Open settings for Virtual Lab used by SureBackup job, and edit static IP mapping feature to map isolated IP address of required VM to some unused IP address in the production network.
4. Update production DNS and assign simple DNS name to the IP address chosen earlier, for example "exchange-yesterday".
With that in place, any user in the production environment will be able to access the server running from latest backup in the isolated environment by this DNS name. Any VMs published in such a way will be running until the next backup job is started. The next run of backup job will stop any linked SureBackup jobs, and perform backup. Then, SureBackup job will start using the newly created latest backup file according to its schedule, and again runs for the whole day until the next backup. Effectively, you will have a copy of application running from last night's backup always available to users behind easy to remember DNS name - enabling them to logon to familiar user interface and recover any data they need. This system will require no maintenance whatsoever.

Q: What are some use cases for this?
A: Just a few ideas, I am sure you will find many more uses - please let me know!
1. User-driven application item recovery from selected applications featuring web UI. Publish Exchange from last night backup to let users logon to OWA and extract required mail items or other data from their mailbox. Publish SharePoint server to let users recovered deleted documents. Publish CRM server to let users to recover accidentally deleted or corrupted customer records. Remember, since it is a copy of production system, all permissions are still in place – the user will only be able to retrieve items he or she had access to.
2. Development shops. Publish yesterday's copy of Oracle database, and let your developers test new code, lookup previous state of any values, compare database schema, and so on. Every day, the server behind selected DNS name will run the latest copy of Oracle from last night's backup, making it extremely simple and convenient to access, with the system requiring zero maintenance. Any changes made to the database will be discarded once the SureBackup job running the VM is stopped.

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Recorded Live Demo

Q: What is the easiest way to understand new concepts and see new functionality in action?
A: Download and see recorded demos available at http://www.veeam.com/go/vPower-webinar (sign in to see all webinars available)