Windows Server 2019 & SQL Express 2017

[alcoutinho]

Hello everyone.
I'm new to this forum and to Veeam solutions. I've some basic questions and hope you guys don't mind my lack of knowledge on Veeam's basic functionality.
We are a very small company and we just bought a simple ERP solution that runs on a Windows 2019 Server Essential and the database runs on SQL Server Express 2017. I'm looking for a free backup solution that can backup the whole server. This server performs the Domain Controller role as well. My first option would be to use the Veeam Community software to backup up the whole server. There is a second option that would be using Hyper-V and create a Windows Server 2019 Essencial VM and have all the roles transferred to it. What do you think the best option would be? Would Veeam Community solution be enough to have the server and application backup covered? I'd really appreciate your comments on that. Thank you for your patience and fo your help.

[Gostev]

Imho there's absolutely no reason to add Hyper-V into the picture. Why complicate your infrastructure and reduce its reliability by introducing additional moving pieces?

[alcoutinho]

Thank your for your reply. So, do you think it'd be better to run a regular backup of the server (AD, SQL database, etc) using the VBR Community software? Do you think the free VBR version would cover our needs? Just curious: Wouldn't it be easier and faster restoring the whole server and application if it was running as a VM? Thank you again!

[Andreas Neufert]

From the above it is not clear how many servers you have in the mix.

If you have just one server that runs all the components and NO backup server then use Veeam Agent free edition. It supports Windows Versions as well and can help to restore the server in case of disaster.
If you look for something more flexible, install Veeam Backup & Replication community edition and roll out an Agent to the server. This give you some extra options.

Virtualizing both would give you some extra flexibility. In very small environments it can help. Usually Windows brings the license anyway.
Install 2 Servers with Hyper-V. Run you workload on the first server.
Add some extra disk space to the second. Then use Veeam Replication to replicate your workload VMs. In case of disaster you can just start (failover) the VMs on the second server with only a few minutes downtime. Add additional backup processing for longer retention.

Very important implement an "air gapped" backup so that you have an offline copy of the backup so no ransomware or hacker can affect this. For example RDX transportable media.

[alcoutinho]

Thank your for your insights Andreas. That gave me pretty good ideas.