Semi Permanent Sandbox?

[ITesus]

I would like to setup a sandbox for an application server. I created a Sure Backup job and configured a virtual lab to masquerade the IP and it all works perfectly. Only problem is that I run backups nightly so the sandbox will not run for more than one day. In this case, I need about a week of access. I did a full restore of the VM and assigned it the vLab network/port group. My thought was that I could manually turn on the vLab appliance through vSphere and then turn my VM on and the appliance would perform it's proxy functions. Unfortunately, when I start the appliance manually it will not connect its NIC to the vLab port group. Is this because it needs to be started from within Veeam? So I tried to fire it up from within Veeam, but I cannot do so without creating a SB job and assigning at least 1 VM to it, which I don't want to do.

Is there a way to get the vLab running correctly to proxy my restored VM connected to the vLab port group? Is there simply a better way to go about this?

I've read this post but do not want to setup and run another instance of Veeam B&R. http://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-re ... t6669.html

[haslund]

I would suggest you simply create a replication job containing the virtual machines you want.
Add the virtual machines to an Application Group (if you didn't already do this).
Then create a SureBackup job with this Application Group (containing the replica machines).
Make sure to check the keep application group running checkbox.

Hope this helps.

[ITesus]

So just replicate it once or on demand and then attach and application group with that replicated VM to the SB job... okay. I think that will work. Thanks for the idea.

I am curious, for my own working knowledge of Veeam, why doesn't the virtual appliance work as a proxy when I turn it on manually?

[PTide]

Hi,

Also please take a look at this thread as it might be helpful.

why doesn't the virtual appliance work as a proxy when I turn it on manually?

Could you elaborate on that please?

Thank you.

[ITesus]

PTide, that was exactly what I was looking for. I figured that the proxy appliance was getting it's settings from Veeam each time an SB job turned the appliance on. Manually configuring it was just what I was initially looking for.

This gives me two nice options. I can use a manually triggered replication job like rhaslund mentioned which has the benefit of being able to trigger the replication job anytime I want the sandbox to reflect the most recent production data, or leave it turned off as long as I need the sandbox up and running per use.

Or, I can clone or restore the VM permanently and configure the routing in the proxy appliance manually.

Perfect. Thanks for the advice and ideas!

[BorgIndak]

I am trying to create a more permanent sandbox so I started out using Surebackup, but my backup will fail at night if I were to leave it running. When I run my Surebackup job my backup server can ping the masqueraded IP's of the machines in my virtual lab just fine, so I tried this to create a long term test environment.

I created a new Virtual lab network with the same settings as what I used for the Surebackup except I changed the masquerade to use 192.168.255.x instead of 192.168.200.x. I then created a replication job to restore the machines to the newly created virtual lab. Once that job finished I pointed the network adapters of the 3 VM's that were created from the replica job to the new lab test environment. I then powered up the test labs proxy appliance and then booted up the 3 VM's. I can get to the internet just fine through the proxy appliance, but for some reason I am unable to ping the masqueraded ip addresses from the backup server like I was able to when I used the Surebackup job.

What am I missing or is there an easier way to do this using Surebackup without affecting my nightly backups or risk losing changes when powering off the Surebackup job?

[PTide]

Hi,

I am unable to ping the masqueraded ip addresses from the backup server like I was able to when I used the Surebackup job.

Please check whether you have the route to that address defined in VBR routing table.

Thanks!

[BorgIndak]

Where exactly do I check the route you are asking about? I have the virtual labs setup the same for both the Surebackup job lab and my Virtual Lab Test Environment except for the masquerade address for one is using 192.168.200.x and the other is using 192.168.99.x.

[BorgIndak]

Thanks P.Tide I see I needed to do a route add on the backup server. The Surebackup job must do that for you when it gets run. Thanks for your help I think that solved things.