Keeping data while upgrading Veeam MP

[cyaz]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently considering upgrading from v6.5 to v7r2 (or maybe directly to v8 since it seems it just got released), but there after reading the installation document there is one thing I'd like to be sure of.
Currently, we are using a dedicated server with every Veeam roles in it and a secondary dedicated collector as well.
These servers are not SCOM Management Servers.
The documentation says that we now need to deploy the VE Services on a MS, and that the upgrade path if it's not already the case is uninstalling and reinstalling Veeam.

I'm fine with that, except ithat it sounds like I'm going to lose all my historical/reporting data...

So, is there something I'm misunderstanding?
Or do you have some specific advices about this scenario?

Thanks!

[sergey.g]

Hi,

Historical data should be still preserved in the Data Warehouse, even if you uninstall our MP. At least till data is groomed according to the schedule.

And yes, I'm afraid you have to re-deploy VES on a Management Server, we are moving towards more tight integration with SCOM and eventually would like to install automatically via Management Pack. BTW, this is what we already are doing with Collector Autodeployment functionality. I would recommend you to check this feature, it could save your time by automatically upgrading collectors in the future.

let me know if you have any other questions regarding the upgrade and I'm sorry for a long response time.
And thank you very much for sticking with us since v6.5, this is very important for us, we really appreciate this.

[cyaz]

I understand that historical data will be preserved until grooming, but what I'm not sure of is how I will be able to access this data.

To be more specific : I believe that when I will reinstall the VEs and MP, every veeam-related object will get discovered again and therefore will be assigned a new UID.
Which means to me that when I'll want to generate a report, the objects I will be able to include in this report from the Reporting GUI will be the ones freshly discovered and not the old one; and also that all performance views/alert history/state change history won't be available anymore from the Operations console.

Am I right about this behavior?

[Alec King]

Hi,

No, the Veeam MP will not lose historical data, even if you upgrade from v6.5 to v8.0, or even reinstall.

All the objects (Hosts, VMs etc) will be rediscovered with the same ID. We control the object ID during discovery, and use our own unique (but consistent) ID. (e.g. Host FQDN)
And the MP class model has not changed between 6.5 and 8.0. Therefore all reports and charts will be continuous.(except for a small gap during (re)discovery while the upgraded Collectors initialise)

And you will find that using Management Servers for Veeam Collectors gives you much better performance and scalability. This is why we made the decision to use this as default option.

Hope that helps - any other questions on the upgrade, please let us know!
Cheers
Alec

[cyaz]

That's great news, thanks Alec!