Cross vCenter vMotion and backup resets

[pizzim13]

I need perform a cross vCenter vMotion on roughly 350TB of VMs from one vCenter to another. I am not decommissioning the source vCenter, just moving a small subset of its VMs. I have a Veeam instance that currently holds the backup jobs for these VMs. That Veeam instance is setup to communicate with the destination vCenter. I know that this type of move will cause the VM's MoRef to be changed, this causes Veeam to see the VM as a new object, which leads into a new full being created. I would like to avoid resetting the backups for these VMs. Can Veeam's vCenter Migration Utility (https://www.veeam.com/kb2136) be used to aid in this? Is there a "use at your own peril" set of instructions to manually edit Veeam's database? Open a support ticket?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello,

Yes, the migration tool might help here, as your use case seems like the same as described as the main use case for this tool (migrating to a new vCenter Server). Before using this tool, make sure you back up your Veeam B&R server configuration.

Thank you!

[DGrinev]

Hey,

We don't recommend to edit any Veeam's data files, however, if the Migration Utility doesn't help, you can raise a support ticket and ask for assistance. Thanks!

[pizzim13]

Hello,

Yes, the migration tool might help here, as your use case seems like the same as described as the main use case for this tool (migrating to a new vCenter Server). Before using this tool, make sure you back up your Veeam B&R server configuration.

Thank you!

Even with line 3 stating "3. Old vCenter should not be used by Veeam Backup & Replication any more after migration." ? I will be still backing other VMs from this vCenter.

[Vitaliy S.]

Ah, yes, didn't recall this restriction for the tool, but if you provision a secondary Veeam B&R (by importing the configuration backup and removing unnecessary data), then you will be able to keep incremental jobs running, however, the entire management would involve two backup servers and the Enterprise Manager tool for a single pane of glass view.

[pizzim13]

Wrote some quick code using an undocumented method to update the MORef and vCenter GUID of the Veeam VM object. Now I can perform cross vcenter vmotions without doing a new full. Use this code at your own risk.

Code: Select all

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'

##
$VBRServerName = 'veeam-01.local'
$SourceVCenterName = 'vc-01.local'
$DestinationVCenterName = 'vc-02.local'
$DestinationVMHostName = 'esxi-01.local'
$DestinationDatastoreName = 'datastore-01'
$VMToMoveName = 'vm-01'
$vCCreds = Get-Credential -Message 'Enter vC Creds'
##

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapIn -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Connect-VBRServer -Server $VBRServerName
$VBRvCSourceServer = Get-VBRServer -Name $SourceVCenterName
$VBRvCDestinationServer = Get-VBRServer -Name $DestinationVCenterName
$VBRServer = Get-VBRServer -Name $VBRServerName
$VBRSourceViEntities = Find-VBRViEntity -Server $VBRvCSourceServer -VMsAndTemplates
[void]$VBRSourceViEntities.Count

#Order of operations to avoid GAC issues
Import-Module -Name VMware.VimAutomation.Core
Connect-VIServer -Server $SourceVCenterName, $DestinationVCenterName -Credential $vCCreds

#Get source VM and original VBR VI Entity
$VM = Get-VM -Name $VMToMoveName -Server $SourceVCenterName
$MORefTrimed = $VM.Id.trim('VirtualMachine-')
$VBRSourceViEntity = $VBRSourceViEntities.Where({$_.Reference -eq $MORefTrimed})

#Get job and job object. Disable backup job
$VBRJobObject = Get-VBRJob | Where-Object {$_.isbackup -eq $true} | Get-VBRJobObject | Where-Object {$_.object.ObjectRef -eq $MORefTrimed}
$VBRJob = Get-VBRJob | Where-Object {$_.Id -eq $VBRJobObject.JobId.Guid}
Disable-VBRJob -Job $VBRJob

#Get destination object and perform Cross vCenter vMotion
$DestinationVMHost = Get-VMHost -Name $DestinationVMHostName -Server $DestinationVCenterName
$DestinationDatastore = Get-Datastore -Name $DestinationDatastoreName -Server $DestinationVCenterName
$MovedVM = $VM | Move-VM -Destination $DestinationVMHost -Datastore $DestinationDatastore
$MovedVMMORefTrimmed = $MovedVM.Id.trim('VirtualMachine-')

#The method to update the MORef and vCenter GUID
$VBRSourceViEntity.FindObject().Update($($VBRvCDestinationServer.Id.Guid),$MovedVMMORefTrimmed)

#Remove and add object to update location. Enable job
$VBRDestinationViEntities = Find-VBRViEntity -Server $VBRvCDestinationServer -VMsAndTemplates
$VBRDestiantionViEntity = $VBRDestinationViEntities.Where({$_.Reference -eq $MovedVMMORefTrimmed})
$MovedVBRBackupObject = $VBRJob | Get-VBRJobObject | Where-Object {$_.object.ObjectRef -eq $MovedVMMORefTrimmed}
$VSSOptions = $MovedVBRBackupObject | Get-VBRJobObjectVssOptions
$MovedVBRBackupObject | Remove-VBRJobObject -Completely
Add-VBRViJobObject -Job $VBRJob -Entities $VBRDestiantionViEntity
#Apply existing guest VSS process settings
$MovedVBRBackupObject = $VBRJob | Get-VBRJobObject | Where-Object {$_.object.ObjectRef -eq $MovedVMMORefTrimmed}
$MovedVBRBackupObject | Set-VBRJobObjectVssOptions -Options $VSSOptions
Enable-VBRJob -Job $VBRJob

Disconnect-VBRServer
Disconnect-VIServer * -Confirm:$false

[mkaaden]

Ah, yes, didn't recall this restriction for the tool, but if you provision a secondary Veeam B&R (by importing the configuration backup and removing unnecessary data), then you will be able to keep incremental jobs running, however, the entire management would involve two backup servers and the Enterprise Manager tool for a single pane of glass view.

I'm running into a similar situation:
Customer is migrating to vSAN using cross vCenter vMotion.
However, their Veeam repository does not have enough free space to safe new full backups.

@Vitaliy S
You imply setting up a second Veeam B&R server and preparing that server for making backups on the new vCenter ?
Is it possible to point 2 B&R servers to the same repository ?
And what about licenses ?
Does Veeam V10 have some improvements for this kind of situations ? Could not find anything in particular about it in the release notes.

[HannesK]

Is it possible to point 2 B&R servers to the same repository ?

you can, but keep in mind, that the two VBR servers do not know about each other. That means, both believe they have all tasks slots available. Also keep in mind, that software version must be the same everywhere.

Licenses: nothing special. If the enterprise manager manages them, you don't need to think about anything. If you only have VBR servers, then we trust our customers that they don't use the licenses twice.

No changes on this topic V10 (What's new is more interesting than release notes by the way ) .

Maybe this forum post can also help you to deal with the MoRefID post341855.html