virtual labs - need good doco

[cbtemp]

Right.. this is version two, the forum timed-out my login while I was writing the polite and elegant version and now I'm tired, frustrated and rushing before my next appointment.

I *could* create an isolated switch in vSphere and copy all my environment using up most of my available storage which I've done before but I would rather (I think) use veeam virtual labs to do a bit of testing.

Good doco is obviously a bit scarce. Yes, I've read the two paragraphs on pp39 of the current guide and I've read the virtual labs creation routine on page 181. I've also read a heap of forum posts, Ricks blogs, and anything else google can come up with. What I haven't read because it doesn't seem to exist is a good overview that explains how everything fits together. Why does is work the way it does? I want to know what the veeambackup_servername store is and why the virtual lab creation routine fails due to it's existence, I want to understand the infrastructure behind virtual labs because I hear they fail/disappear/reset (?) when a scheduled backup hits the base the virtual lab is working from. I still haven't seen any doco that explains how to clean up a virtual lab (probably just select and delete it but what happens behind the scenes).

Lots of questions, don't try and answer them (I think), all I really want is pointers to some proper doco.

cheers ../craigb

[foggy]

Craig, we have a pretty helpful doc written by our US support manager Ben Milligan covering most of the SureBackup configuration and operation gotchas. Could be a good reading for you: http://www.veeam.com/KB1651.

Also, just in case you missed it, we have a comprehensive FAQ topic on this very forum and a couple of additional resources on the website:

WhiteBoard Fridays video Virtual Lab Configuration & Networking
Directly from Backup Files via vPower white paper by openBench Labs
and a series of webinars:
http://www.veeam.com/videos/vpower-23.html
http://www.veeam.com/videos/surebackup-20.html
http://www.veeam.com/videos/veeam-sureb ... ks-22.html

Should you still have any questions after reviewing this stuff, feel free to ask them here.

[cbtemp]

Thanks foggy,
kb1651 is good, although I'm not trying to do a surebackup so it's not that great for me directly. There is a reference similar to an actual issue I'm having where creating a vlab fails due to the datastore already existing but that one I'll do via support.

I wanted a virtual lab to do some testing in. Not to do surebackup with. I'm pretty sure this was a major selling point but in practice I haven't even found a mention of it. Maybe the trouble I'm having is that I'm looking for something that doesn't exist.

here's one takeaway: there is no link on www.veeam.com, particularly under the 'resources' menu where you'd expect to find it, of a Knowledge base. Www.veeam.com/kb/ gives a 404. Google can't even tell me anything about it. A knowledge base sounds pretty useful, it would be nice to have access to it.

/videos/ .. I can see I'm going to have to go there.

anyway cheers.. I'll keep looking

[foggy]

I wanted a virtual lab to do some testing in. Not to do surebackup with. I'm pretty sure this was a major selling point but in practice I haven't even found a mention of it. Maybe the trouble I'm having is that I'm looking for something that doesn't exist.

Actually, it is mentioned in the FAQ. Is that what you are looking for?

here's one takeaway: there is no link on http://www.veeam.com, particularly under the 'resources' menu where you'd expect to find it, of a Knowledge base. http://Www.veeam.com/kb/ gives a 404. Google can't even tell me anything about it. A knowledge base sounds pretty useful, it would be nice to have access to it.

Here's the correct link, it is available by clicking Support right on the web site main page.

[cbtemp]

ah.. thanks ..mostly..

this is why I was looking for some good doco in the first place, trawling through the faq with "virtual lab" in my mind, "sandbox" obviously didn't even register. I'm still looking for a good doc that ties all the concepts together. I guess for people who do one or two things they have time to become experts, but out here in SME world we're all juggling 200 different things that need more or less maintenance and we would like the basics to be easily accessible. Hey, that link for the kb just leads back to the support page with it's query-box, does that mean there is no interface to the kb anywhere directly? You can tell from the questions I've raised that I don't have any clear idea of what I would put in a search box in the first place. Having said that much, I put "sandbox" in that query window and I get "Number of articles: 0" hence I'm trawling the forums trying to gather a picture of what other people can and cannot do.

(Not that I'd clicked on support, the implication being log-a-job. I've looked mostly under 'resources'. If these terms are interchangeable on the site, maybe they could both be put under the one one menu heading to avoid further confusion)

anyway thanks for the assist, I've also rung the implemation consultants and paid support time just for him to run me through a sample lab. Very useful, but money I'd tried to avoid spending. Lab is fixed (someone (i know who) had modified it in vShere and stoved it in) I nuked and recreated the app group with modifcations and my Surebackup load of the application group with AD controllers from two domains on two subnets in one vlan with mapped direct access and all the trimmings worked and cleaned up perfectly.

ps: we also ran it up to 6.5.. The new Exchange object recovery is really impressive.

[cbtemp]

ok, there are subject-specific faq's. That one at the top of the vmware posts is not simply another link to the one at the front. I only just spotted that.

[foggy]

Hey, that link for the kb just leads back to the support page with it's query-box, does that mean there is no interface to the kb anywhere directly? You can tell from the questions I've raised that I don't have any clear idea of what I would put in a search box in the first place.

You can just click Search without specifying anything particular in a search box to get the full list of all articles or simply search for "SureBackup" or "vPower" if you are specifically interested in these technologies.

[cbtemp]

Thanks for that ideat. I'll give it a run. I'm going to close this off with the thought that all the doco is around, it's just a bit scattered. I've got some good pointers so I'll wait till I break something before posting again. Cheers.