Full Restore Possible?

[vipclubber]

Trying out Veeam communinty version 9.5 for the first time to see if I can back up VMs running on vmware esxi 6.5
Question I have is one I backed up all the VMs how do I fully restore them.
In other words I am migrating all VMs to new server via the Veeam backup restore?
Is ti doable without any data loss?
After restore do I have to recreate Vms or register them again?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you

[Shestakov]

Hello Toni and welcome to the community!
With free(community) edition of VBR you can perform Full VM recovery, i.e. recover an entire VM on the original host or on a different host. Includes quick rollback functionality to restore changed blocks only.
Check full list of features available in community edition.
Thanks

[vipclubber]

Thank you. I do have a specific question about using Veeam 9.5 to MIGRATE VMs from old server to new server.
For example, perform full VM back up then shut down old server and RESTORE from the back up taken to new server?
Is it possible to MOVE all VMs in such fashion?
If so Are the files below adequate? Thanks in advance.

[foggy]

Hi Toni, in case of a migration scenario, you'd better go with replication/planned failover to avoid any data loss.

[Shestakov]

Do you mean old and new backup server?
If so, yes, you can restore the backups on another server. Just rescan the repository on the new server and backups will be restorable.

[vipclubber]

Just to clarify, I would like to take full VMs back ups of old esxi server on which my current VMs reside and then restore these back ups on new esxi server. By new server I refer to new hardware

Is it doable without any data loss?

[Shestakov]

Yes it is.

[vipclubber]

Thank you.
I have taken a full back of VM which created 2 files:
Server1.vbm
Server1_date_bla.vbk

Are these file sufficient for full restore on new server?

[dmontagna]

Yes, this is sufficient to restore the VM to another server.

.VBM is the metadata file, this file controls the information about the Backup Job, Restore Points, etc.

.VBK is the FULL backup file of this specific VM.

[vipclubber]

Thank you so much for such prompt and detailed responses. We are recovering from major outage and using veeam to migrate to new equipment so it is critical for us to know veeam meets our solution before we proceed.

After multiple full active backups it creates several VBK files differ by date. For example:
Server1_2019_09_21_bla.vbk
Server1_2019_09_25_bla.vbk

In order to safe space If I delete all older dated back ups and leave most recent date back up file. Is this ok to migrate?
This is not incremental but Full Active back ups.

During restore, do I first have to create VM on esxi and then restore or restore and then register?
Thank you

[Shestakov]

In order to safe space If I delete all older dated back ups and leave most recent date back up file. Is this ok to migrate?
This is not incremental but Full Active back ups.

Yes, that's fine.

During restore, do I first have to create VM on esxi and then restore or restore and then register?

You can perform a restore without prior VM creation.
Thanks

[vipclubber]

I have a large size VM with D drive the size of 12TB.
Is it possible to specify that for example I want to only back up C: drive (200gb) of the server and not D drive due to its large size?
If so how?
Thanks in advance.

[Shestakov]

Yes, you can exclude particular VM disks in backup job wizard.

[vipclubber]

Thank you.
How to exclude particular disk? Any instruction?

[foggy]

You need to specify the disks you want to backup (so all but the one in question). Some hints on how to identify the disks are given here. Thanks!

[Shestakov]

Toni, please check hyperlinks provided by me and foggy.

[vipclubber]

If I am backing up C and D drives where D is 12TB but only 1TB is used and 11TB empty does back up backs up empty space too or just 1TB on drive D?

[Shestakov]

Whole disk will be backed up, but empty blocks will be skipped.
Restore point size will be not bigger than 1TB.

[foggy]

Keep in mind though that 'empty' blocks could contain deleted data so might not be of zero size. They will not be backed up by default but thought I'd mention.

[vipclubber]

While trying to restore from external WD passport drive on my PC to ESXi host, at about 10% it fails and says:

Code: Select all

10/7/2019 11:36:05 PM Error    Restore job failed Error: Failed to open VDDK disk [[datastore1] VIPSTORE/VIPSTORE(1).vmdk] ( is read-only mode - [false] )
                               Logon attempt with parameters [VC/ESX: [10.1.X.XX];Port: 902;Login: [root];VMX Spec: [moref=11];Snapshot mor: [11-snapshot-2];Transports: [nbd];Read Only: [false]] failed because of the following errors:
                               Failed to download disk.
                               Agent failed to process method {DataTransfer.SyncDisk}.

Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks

[Shestakov]

Toni, please provide a support case number when asking about technical error, as required by the forum's rules.
Thanks

[vipclubber]

How do I get support case?

[vipclubber]

Solution the the error above:

https://anotheritguy.com/index.php/2017 ... -syncdisk/

[Shestakov]

Here is an article How to create a support case.