Application Aware Image Processing

[nick3young]

Hi All,

I have a few questions about "Application Aware Image Processing". I've had a look at this thread here http://forums.veeam.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8184 and whilst it loosely covers what I'm trying to find out it hasn't really hit the nail on the head for me!

1. I have 10 Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual servers. One of these is Exchange 2010. Aside from the forest root and backup root... the other 7 only offer services such as file serving, print server and IIS. We also have lots of other 'none-Microsoft' server applications. My question, would it really be necessary to enable 'Application Aware Image Processing' on all of these virtual servers? Or would it be more sensible to create a separate job for Exchange and only enable 'AAIP' for that?

2. If its more sensible to enable AAIP on all servers... why is this feature not enabled by default in Veeam?

3. Does having AAIP enabled create a significant overhead on your backup jobs (full and incremental)? Will I see them become much slower?

4. Will having AAIP enabled definitely clear my Exchange logs?

5. What would happen if I didn't have AAIP enabled for my Exchange server and then I tried to perform a restore of it? I've obviously done some tests without AAIP enabled and it all seems fine. Does not having it enabled just create a larger risk of corruption?

..... I think that's it!

Thanks in advance
Nick

[foggy]

1. I have 10 Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual servers. One of these is Exchange 2010. Aside from the forest root and backup root... the other 7 only offer services such as file serving, print server and IIS. We also have lots of other 'none-Microsoft' server applications. My question, would it really be necessary to enable 'Application Aware Image Processing' on all of these virtual servers? Or would it be more sensible to create a separate job for Exchange and only enable 'AAIP' for that?

I think the first Anton's post in the topic you've referred above answers this question thoroughly. We do recommend to use VSS for all Windows VMs, regardless whether they have Exchange or SQL server installed, since without VSS quiescence, your backups will be crash-consistent, not application consistent. Even clean Windows system has a number of VSS writers installed, so you do want to use them to quiesce those applications properly.

2. If its more sensible to enable AAIP on all servers... why is this feature not enabled by default in Veeam?

Probably because when you create a job, Veeam B&R does not know what kind of VMs you're going to backup (Windows or other OS) and you still have to specify credentials to access them for AAIP processing.

3. Does having AAIP enabled create a significant overhead on your backup jobs (full and incremental)? Will I see them become much slower?

There is some processing overhead required to perform proper application quiescence, however it does not seriously affect job performance.

4. Will having AAIP enabled definitely clear my Exchange logs?

If the corresponding setting is enabled in the job settings, logs should be truncated.

5. What would happen if I didn't have AAIP enabled for my Exchange server and then I tried to perform a restore of it? I've obviously done some tests without AAIP enabled and it all seems fine. Does not having it enabled just create a larger risk of corruption?[/b]

Yes, with crash-consistent backups the possibility of data loss considerably increases. Think of it as of restoring a system after a failure or power outage. This can have undesired consequences for the recovery process.

[veremin]

5. What would happen if I didn't have AAIP enabled for my Exchange server and then I tried to perform a restore of it? I've obviously done some tests without AAIP enabled and it all seems fine. Does not having it enabled just create a larger risk of corruption?

Also, having Application Aware Image Processing enabled guarantees that the restore of Exchange server will be fully automated; that being said, no manual intervention will be needed. During backup activity AAIP component applies application-specific settings to prepare each application to perform VSS-aware restore on the next VM startup.

Additionally, only with AAIP enabled will you be able to automatically truncate Exchange logs during backup and replication jobs.

Thanks.

[nick3young]

Thanks for both responses.

It confirms what I believed but I wanted to be sure. I will enable AAIP for all jobs.

[itig]

Using AAIP on SQL is breaking the differential backup chain. We have seperate SQL backup job define in SQL itself. When using AAIP, the VSS write into SQL the last full backup date and time. When SQL try to do is differential job, it doesn't find that backup and failed. I think the solution is to use the copy-only backup in VSS for SQL. "Copy-Only Backup. It is sometimes necessary to take a backup that is intended for a special purpose, for example when you need to make a copy of a database for testing purposes. This backup should not impact the overall backup and restore procedures for the database. Using the COPY_ONLY option specifies that the backup is done “out-of-band” and should not affect the normal sequence of backups. The SQL writer supports the “copy-only” backup type with SQL Server 2005 instances." (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966520.aspx). Is it possible you add an option in a future release?

Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, we have scheduled to add this option in the next release. See this topic for more info > SQL: Do not truncate logs ignored