Better choise to test VM backups without affect production environment

[M4Biz]

Hi.
I'm newbie to Veeam.
I've just purchased Veeam Backup & Replication Standard Edition.
I've installed it and it seems works fine with backup of whole VMWare VM machine on VMWare ESXi 7.0 host.
At this point I'd like to verify and test if backups would works in a disaster recovery scenario.
Obviously I'd like to do the test backups without affect in anyway the production network.
For this purpose I would also at my disposal a second server that support, unfortunately, only ESXi 6.5 (and not 7.0 as that in production environment).
I'd like to know wich are options that I have to do my tests in the best possible way.
Any idea?
Thanks in advance.

[Mildur]

I see one issue.
If the vm hardware version from the vms on the new ESXI 7.0 is incompatible with ESXI 6.5, the vm will not boot in the surebackup session.

You need to have a esxi version, which is compatible with the vm hardware version to boot up a vm.
A possible solution is to downgrade the hardware version, if you face this issue:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1028019

[foggy]

The best would be to use SureBackup but you're not licensed for it. Provided VM hardware version is supported by destination host, you can use Instant Recovery for the test scenario. Thanks!

[M4Biz]

Hi foggy, thanks for you reply.
You mean that may I change the VM hardware version so that it can start on the 6.5 ESXi host?

[foggy]

Yes, as Fabian has mentioned above, you may need to downgrade the hardware version.