Change a VBR server to Proxy

[mrholm]

Hi
We have situation with lot of remote offices globally. We have a design with central VBR servers controlling Proxies in the remote offices. The design is implemented now and on some of the remot offices there's a VBR server installed and we have just added those servers into the new central environment as proxies. It works fine but in SCOM it shows al lthese remote servers as VBR server and throwing licens warnings etc.

We like to remove the VBR function but still keep the proxy without loosing data. Is this possible without uninstallation of VBR and reinstall of proxy? If no how do we handle data so we don't get a new chain? Import after the proxy is reinstalled?

//Mats

[DGrinev]

Hi Mats,

Can you elaborate a bit about the remote backup servers, do they act as repositories?
I am asking because Proxy is the component responsible for compressing and transferring data and cannot affect your existing backups. Thanks!

[mrholm]

Hi
The remote backup servers were setup as full VBR with local repositories. When we added them to the central solution they are added as proxies with new local repositories. The old repositories from temporary setup was removed.
One thing I thought of was just to disable backup and copy jobs from the remote server. Unistall Veeam on the remote server and then just do a local install of the proxy (and all components) and then see if Veeam is OK with it?
What do you think?
Or should I remove the proxy in Veeam first, uninstall and reinstall?

[DGrinev]

Hi,

The uninstall process of Veeam B&R will remove necessary components for Proxy\Repository, thus you should initiate re-deployment within the central server.
As you may understand this isn't the right workflow, it would be better, if you had removed Veeam B&R before adding Proxies\Repositories to the central server.

I'd recommend you to use separate VMs for Proxy and Repository roles, but it mostly depends on the workload\amount of backups.
Another important thing is to set up Proxy Affinity on the repositories, that allows you to avoid the wrong Proxy selection. Thanks!

[mrholm]

In a perfect world everything goes as expected in this case we had to do temporary installations of VBR in remote sites before we had the central design setup.
If I remove a server as a proxy in central VBR and then locally (remote site) uninstall all Veeam and then re-deploy the server as proxy within VBR that should work and Veeam should know about all backup done in that site or are backup chains dependent on other then name of the proxy?

[DGrinev]

All information about backup chains is contained in the local\remote DB. Thus, central VBR isn't going to obtain the information by adding remote servers as a Proxy.
When you complete removal of remote VBRs, you should add these servers as Repository and initiate Rescan\Import of backups in order to assign new backup jobs to them. Thanks!

[mrholm]

Think I found a way.
We don't need the data left on the remote VBR since we cretae new repositories and start new chains. So when I have added the remote server as a proxy and setup new repo fro backup and copy, I simply uninstall VBR and distibution service and leave mount, vpower, transport and gateway as is.
This seems to be fine and the server is left as proxy.

What do you think about this?

[DGrinev]

I'd recommend to uninstall VBR first, this way you will be able to deploy mandatory components through the adding process of those servers in backup infrastructure as Proxy\Repository.
Just to stay on the safe side. Thanks!

[mrholm]

Evrything working fine after removing VBR and the client installation packages. The servers are working fine as proxies.

[DGrinev]

Hey Mats,

I am glad that you've nailed it without additional issues.
Thank you for the follow up!