Enable guest file system indexing

[Khue]

Hey all,
New user here. I am currently using Veeam 7.0.0.690 at a branch office as an audit to compare against HP Data Protector (current incumbent backup product for our data center). I have a rather beefy HP DL380 G8 running ESXi 5.1. The vSphere system houses both the Veeam Backup And Replication Server and the branch office's primary file server. Both VMs are 2008 R2. The Veeam Backup and Replication server houses everything (proxy, Backup and Replication software, Backup Enterprise Manager) and it uses a SQL 2008 R2 database server hosted on the same ESXi server.

So now I get to my problem (I have opened a support ticket but, I would like feed back from the community as well). I am trying to comprehend the purpose of indexing, specifically the option on a backup job that says "Enable guest file system indexing," under the Guest Processing section of a backup job. It seems that when I check that box, my backups hang. This morning's backup hung for 9 hours before I had to cancel it. It's my interpretation that indexing is useful when attempting to do a restore. If "Enable guest file system indexing" is disabled and I want to browse for a non specific file, wouldn't I have to mount the backup first prior to doing the restore? The scenario that I am thinking about revolves around when a user says, "I deleted a file and I need it back" but said user doesn't know either the file name or where exactly the file was stored. If I didn't have indexing turned on what would be the impact of trying to restore a request like this.

For reference, my file server is about 3 terabytes and I am backing up to a large ntfs volume delivered as an RDM to the Backup and Replication server.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi,

Indexing is only required when you want to search (using Enterprise Manager) through the existing backup files for the particular file to restore. General FLR capabilities have nothing to do with this option. Also be aware that under the hood, a FLR procedure is the same for either of the options. Backups are mounted to the backup server and then the restore starts.

Do you have the same odd behavior for all VMs that have indexing enabled?

Thanks!

[Khue]

Do you have the same odd behavior for all VMs that have indexing enabled?

Unfortunately, I do not really have any other VMs that I backup at the branch office. I have a few test boxes I suppose I could use. One thing support recommended was that I should really break the backup proxy role rule away from my backup management server. Right now I have all boxes rolled into one VM on the same ESXi server.

[foggy]

If your server stores millions of files, indexing could take a while, however I would continue working with support to check whether it is the indexing that causes the job to take that long.