[FEATURES REQUEST] MSSQL Plugin Backups Enhancement

[PospiKM]

Hello,

I would like to prose several enhancements for MSSQL Plugin backups which would be - at least I believe - very useful for Backup and MSSQL administrators.

1. Possibility to exclude unavailable (offline, restoring) databases option in the Job policy settings - I know there are already threads for such feature but nothing has changed for several releases/patches and it became really frustrating.

2. Launch MSSQL plugin backups from the VBR console - it is very uncomfortable that it is not possible to launch backup of one specific MSSQL server/instance/single or multiple databases directly from the VBR console.

3. Move MSSQL settings into basic menu of Job policy (design proposal) - not very intuitive having MSSQL backup settings hidden in the Storage -> Advanced settings section. Would it be possible to withdraw it from there and move as a new selection in the Job policy?

4. Convert MSSQL incremental/log backups option into full backup (when there is no full) - haven't found such essential option, should be definitely part of configuration.

5. Automatic MSSQL restores function - as a backup/SQL administrator I would really welcome function in VBR which would allow to schedule automatic restores of certain databases/instances from already done backups to the same or different target server. I know there is some possibility of scripting but it's not very straight forward, especially in terms of security


We need such stuff for daily routine and would be very welcomed by us. For now the joy of using Veeam at enterprise level is not very good and we would like to move from disappointment to the better backup times.

Thank you.
Tom

[PetrM]

Hi Tom,

Many thanks for sharing these feature requests! This info is super useful.

1. Very high demand, but I cannot share an ETA.
2. I guess creating a policy per instance is not what you’re looking for?
3. We try to keep our UX more or less similar across multiple different workloads, but I will look into it in more detail.
4. Do you mean creating a full backup when it is not found in the repository file system? I don’t think it is technically possible to convert an already existing incremental backup into a full backup.
5. Could you please elaborate a bit more? What exactly is not straightforward from a security perspective?

Thanks!

[PospiKM]

Hello Petr,

sorry for late reply.

1. OK.

2. Yep, that's not very good. It would be very, very useful to launch any backup directly from VBR - basically in the same way how it is possible directly from the MSSQL server, using Veeam MSSQL plugin.

3. I understand but for some obvious reasons, it feels very uncomfortable to search some specific MSSQL settings in the "hidden" sections/or not very crystal clear at the first sight.

4. Not convert literally any existing backup piece but launch automatically missing full backup since there is no full backup detected/in place and there is request for log/diff backup at the same time.

5. I don't like scenario where I should expose credentials in any script, besides that I wasn't not able to finalize such script (for automation restores of MSSQL backups done by Veeam plugin) because I always got stuck on non-skippable prompt asking for SQL authentication credentials that we do not use at all. We use only dedicated a very restricted domain account for all kind of operations. I could not find any workaround as of now (true is that I put aside that project some time ago, not tried it again with the latest Veeam version), that's why I came with this idea.

Thank you.
Tom