Veeam servers not joined in AD?

[hyphen]

Hello,

I am trying to set up a Veeam server with all the roles in it to back up a couple of VMs. It's a very small environment. One VM is DC, the other is a SQL Server.

What would be the disadvantage of having the Veeam server joined to the domain? Ideally we would like to avoid having to purchase another computer to function as backup server if we can use a computer that someone else uses.

I've read that if the DC is down then we won't be able to login to the backup server, but wouldn't cache credentials work in this case?

Client is a non-profit with limited budget.

Thank you!

[HannesK]

Hello,
this topic was already discussed several times (just search for domain joined).

The general recommendation is to not join the domain. Not only for the reason you mention (do you really trust in cached credentials in a worst case scenario?). More for security.

Of course you should not use the DC or the SQL as backup server. Keep in mind that also Windows 10 is supported as backup server...

I don't know what your restore requirements are. But it you don't need application restore or instant VM recovery, then the agents without backup server could be a smarter solution

Best regards,
Hannes

[hyphen]

Thank you for your reply.

We don't need Instant VM Recovery and we have another application doing SQL backups. We would probably just need file recovery and bare metal recovery, but the domain wouldn't be so hard to rebuild if something really bad happened.

Do you mean installing the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows on both servers would be a better choice if we can't assign a non domain joined computer to be a backup server?

[HannesK]

I mean not having any backup server at all. Just the agents backup to "somewhere".

[hyphen]

Thanks, how about installing the backup server on the hyper-v host? I was reading your documentation last night and found this:

"If you decide to use a simple deployment scenario, you can install Veeam Backup & Replication right on the Hyper-V host where VMs you want to work with reside. "

[veremin]

Perfectly fine, just be sure to use different storage (other than one where VMs reside) as backup repository. Thanks!

[hyphen]

Thank you both for your time and help!

[HannesK]

Hello,
I strongly recommend not installing applications directly on Hyper-V. I already try to change that sentence in the documentation. Yes, it might work (actually chances are high that it works). But keep in mind that you do something like "installing a SQL server directly to the ESXi console". Many people ignore that the GUI you see in Hyper-V is a VM that has some special roles.

Please read this and make up your own opinion.

The recommendation is a separate VM. Not in the parent partition.

Best regards,
Hannes

[hyphen]

Thanks. So this goes against Vladimir’s affirmation. Correct? I see the documentation was updated two days ago.

[HannesK]

yes. See my comment & explanation from Microsoft before.

The "problem" is, that it really works for many customers and nobody cares as long as it works...

[veremin]

Thanks. So this goes against Vladimir’s affirmation. Correct?

It's supported configuration and there are customers that use it.

However, there are certain nuances mentioned by Hannes which make this scenario to be rather against the best practices.

Thanks!