Add vcenter server to two Veeam B&R Servers

[noorani92]

I have vcenter 5.0 running some critical machines, added in Veeam B&R Server v6.5 for replicating those VMs.

Now I have recently installed vcenter server v6.5 and Veeam B&R v9.5. Just wanted to know is it possible to add my old vcenter (i.e. v5.0) server to new Veeam server inventory without removing it from old veeam B&R server. As I would like to replicate my critical machines to new infrastructure without any chance of error in case my VM doesnt work on new infrastructure. I will still have my VM and its replication jobs in the old infrastructure.

TIA.

[Andreas Neufert]

Yes, this is possible. If you add an Enterprise Manager with your licenses and add both B&R Servers there, they share the licenses. This means a VMware host/VM that is processed by 2 B&R servers need only one license.

[veremin]

Also, make sure that two backup servers do not attempt to back up or replicate same VMs at the same time - conflict issues are expected in this case. Thanks!

[noorani92]

Yes, this is possible. If you add an Enterprise Manager with your licenses and add both B&R Servers there, they share the licenses. This means a VMware host/VM that is processed by 2 B&R servers need only one license.

Thank you will look into Enterprise Manager as I have Veeam Enterprise Plus license.

[noorani92]

Also, make sure that two backup servers do not attempt to back up or replicate same VMs at the same time - conflict issues are expected in this case. Thanks!

Thank you. It worked. Yes I disabled the old jobs prior to starting the new one.

[Andreas Neufert]

Enterprise Manager is available in all Veeam Editions. Just the functionality depend on Edition similar to Backup & Replication.

[noorani92]

I was able to perform the above operation but there is one problem the size of replica is double than the original VM. Although I deleted/consolidated the snapshot on the replica VM but the size doesn't shrink.

Original VM: Provisioned Storage 500GB
Replica VM: Provisioned Sotrage 1016 GB

During the replication job I set only one restore point and after the job was completed i deleted the snapshot and started the VM.

Is there any other way I can copy the original VM to new vcenter while keeping the original VM as it is for emergency purpose.

[Andreas Neufert]

This is strange. The VM should have same size.

But the failover was done wrong.

Replicate the VM again and at the storage selection, you can modify the VM disks to the needed type. I guess you need to choose "thin".
When the VM is replicated, "failover" the VM and then "permanent failover the VM". This will delete all relevant Veeam metadata.

As well where do you look into the filesize?

[noorani92]

So after digging out, it was actually due to vsan technology. If I replicate it to normal datastore the size was similar.

Thank you all for your support.

[Andreas Neufert]

Yes, this is correct. vSAN show the raw capacity before any data redundancy technology. So the VM will consume additional data for it.