U-AIR SQL Restore Workflow and Questions...

[chadtandy]

Hi all, I've used VB&R 4.1 at a previous employer and am currently evaluating VB&R 5.0 for my current employer. In working through and testing U-AIR capabilities (primarily with SQL as we have frequent SQL restore requests) I've come up with a few questions about how it works and what my workflow would be.

Workflow:
In traditional backup products I'm familar with (HP Data Protector and Commvault) restoring SQL DBs is a pretty straightforward process. Using Veeam 5.0 with U-AIR there are options I'm unfamilar with, primarily the separation of schema and table restores. So a common request I receive is to restore a DB to an alternate location because someone made a change that blew stuff up so they want to compare it to the pre-change DB. In Veeam my workflow appears to be:
1. Create a default DB on the default SQL server (wish Veeam could do this from within the wizard for me...)
2. Launch Surebackup and load version of backup of the server I want to restore from.
3. Now looking at the restore options it appears I have to perform a schema AND table restore to the new default DB I created. Is this correct?

How it works:
1. I've searched and I haven't been able to find an explanation for how Veeam passes VSS commands to a SQL server without direct network access and behind a firewall, just that it works. I'm looking for a short explanation of what this "secret" sauce is, I'm sure my network and security guys are going to ask, I had them under the impression we'd need 4.1 requirements of opening ports.
2. Due to a misconfiguration on my part in my Surebackup the isolated VM that boots up was booted without a NIC, but somehow I was still able to restore SQL tables... How does this work? I was under the impression that the data was restored via the Virtual Lab appliance via the isolated network.

Anywho, thanks for input, sorry if some of these have been answered I've just been unable to stumble upon them...
-Chad

[Gostev]

Hi Chad,

Re: Workflow, sounds correct to me. SQL AIR wizard was designed with in-place restore in mind, so there is no alternate location restore support. But thanks for the feedback, we may add this in future if there are more requests like that.

Re: How it works
1. We inject VSS coordination process in runtime using guest interaction SDK. Essentially, this happens on hypervisor level, so there is no connection needed to VM itself.
2. You understanding is correct, all AIR wizard work through the network. Looks like everything worked fine, otherwise SQL AIR wizard simply would not work because of being unable to connect to the sandboxed VM.

Thanks.

[chadtandy]

Re: How it works
2. But in my case it seems that I can perform a SQL restore with the sandbox VM not having a network adapter... Using the SQL AIR Wizard.

Thanks,
-Chad

[Gostev]

May be you are just looking at wrong VM. Hard to say without seeing this in live.