Veeam - restore SQL instances to a new SQL server (+version)

[Mgamerz]

I currently have a SQL Server 2008 installation that has some databases on the instance. Since 2008 is about to go out of service next month, I am moving this database to SQL Server 2017, which we just got licensed for. Currently our 2008 instance sits on a 2012 R2 Windows Server - which during this upgrade I would like to change to Server 2019. I am wondering if veeam can restore to a newer version of SQL Server, and then have the server have the ability to "upgrade" the database to the newest definition of SQL Server. (I'm not a DB admin so please excuse my poor terminology). I am changing the hypervisor and this VM's OS over to Hyper-V/Windows Server 2019 so it will be a completely new version of SQL and Windows. As far as I am aware, if I were to upgrade SQL server, it would offer to upgrade the database format into the newer one so you can get the benefits of the newer version of SQL server, but I don't know if restoring a database via veeam allows me to leverage that benefit.

I am curious about this process:
1) Should I upgrade our Windows Server 2012 R2 SQL Server version (2008) to 2017, and then take a backup, the nrestore that to a new 2017 instance?
2) Can I take my backup as it is now (on SS22008) and restore it to a new 2017 instance and it will be able to upgrade to the new format?

Anyone have any tips or guidance on this? I don't see any info in the documentation about version changes. I have the enterprise version of Veeam B&R.

[foggy]

You can take a backup of your current SQL Server 2008 and then restore to SQL Server 2017, restore to a newer version works just fine (databases are upgraded).

[Mgamerz]

Cool, thanks.