Are you experiencing poor performance for your Veeam File to Tape jobs? It is likely caused by your SQL Express database that the Veeam B&R server is running from. It may be time to upgrade to a licensed version of SQL Server just as this customer has done below, a job that took 25 hours has now reduced down to 5 hours.
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The new SQL Standard 2016 instance was installed on the same Veeam B&R server where SQL Express 2012 was running.
What do they do? VBM files are an XML dump of relevant backup metadata pertaining to the relevant backup job from the Veeam DB. A VBM file will be created for each backup and backup copy job.
Why do we create VBMs? Before VBM files, Veeam would read metadata information from the backup files themselves. As Veeam was deployed into larger and larger environments it soon became apparent that this method of reading metadata information was too I/O intensive and needed to be improved, so the VBM file was born.
Continue readingDid you know that Veeam ONE has a tool called deployment projects that has the ability to simulate how a task such as adding or evicting hosts and VMs impacts your virtual infrastructure? These simulations help us to review predicted resource capacities against future resource demand, provide practical recommendations and help identify potential resource shortages. It’s a quick and easy way to check your resources before making small or large changes. Think of it as a way to perform due diligence and gain insight before making any changes to your virtual environment.
Deployment Projects can be found under Veeam ONE Reporter, to access Veeam ONE Reporter we browse to the URL of the Veeam ONE Reporter website. This website runs on the machine where the Veeam ONE Web UI component is installed. Assuming you have are using the default port it would look similar to https://veeamoneip:1239
Veeam is giving away FREE 6-month subscriptions of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows licenses until the 30th of June for both existing Veeam customers and new users.
The “Any User” offer includes Evaluation Support, and does not require the user to be a Veeam customer.
To be eligible for the “Existing Veeam Customer” offer, the user must own Veeam Availability Suite, Veeam Backup & Replication or Veeam Backup Essentials by June 30, 2017 and must be current on maintenance. Offer is for full production license including Basic Support. Upgrade to Production Support offer is available to existing Veeam customers only. Only one registration per corporate domain will be accepted for existing customers.
These blog posts serve more as a reminder to myself than anything else, especially if I can’t find any other information regarding the problem encountered. So as is tradition, my next post is again about documenting an error I’ve witnessed that was simple and easy to resolve but easily forgotten (at least for me it is).
So my job involves a fair bit of demonstrating what features and capabilities Veeam has along with knowledge transfers. I especially love showing off the Veeam Explorer’s, they certainly making restoring application items a breeze for the most part. I find one of the easiest and quickest ways to demonstrate what the Veeam Explorer’s are all about is to demonstrate a quick restore using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory.
With full permission granted, I like to make a small adjustment to the ‘description’ field for an inactive user that lives on the domain, making a small typo for example. After making the change, loading up Veeam Explorer for AD, letting Veeam filter out the unchanged data between production and the restore point, finding the change I introduce and attempting to restore the original ‘description’ value back. Usually, this goes without a hitch but this time Veeam came up with the below error.
Hey Guys,
What a whirlwind the last couple of days have been, between the long haul flights to get to NOLA, jet lag, attending sessions, networking and catching up with old acquaintances it really all starts to blur together. All I can say is, Veeam knows how to put on a good show and they have certainly repeated their success from last VeeamON.
The sessions included a broad range of topics and for the ones I did make it to were always packed and full of great content. In regards to new features and announcements, there were several stand-outs for me
– Integration with object-based storage (S3,Glazier,Blob + More)
– Veeam Continuous Data Protection (Zerto should be worried)
– Veeam Backup for Office 365 v2 to support SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business
Instead of writing about all the newly announced features including the above, I thought it would be better to simply link to all the other wonderful posts done by fellow Vanguards.
Ran into this Veeam error today when demonstrating Veeams Explorer for SharePoint to a customer.
The customer was using a supported version of SharePoint and Veeam was configured to use a licensed version SQL 2014. After checking over the backup job settings and ensuring no errors or warnings were being thrown I hit the Veeam forums. Fortunately, someone else had seen the same problem which you can find here.
“The Application-aware logic uses NetBIOS names to locate corresponding SQL servers during backup and in some cases (where SQL server for the site collection is specified using IP address or SQL Server alias, for example), Veeam B&R still does not have the required information, even provided that application-aware backup was successful. If this is your case (I believe support will be able to verify that), you can configure SQL server mapping manually via the registry, as far as I know, there’s an ability to do that.”
Experienced this error ‘Collected SQL Server transaction logs do not match any existing database backup: [DB Name]’ recently for a customer, 
One of the tried and tested rules that can effectively address any failure scenario is called the 3-2-1 backup rule. This backup rule is becoming more and more important as organisations continue to virtualise their mission critical data, making the protection of that data becomes more vital than ever.
The 3-2-1 rule became a popular concept thanks to Peter Krogh, a well-known photographer who wrote that there are two groups of people: those who have already had a storage failure and those who will have one in the future.
In other words, the 3-2-1 backup rule means you should have 3 copies of your production data, on 2 different types of media and 1 offsite.
The purpose of this post is focused on getting your backup data offsite, and how we can leverage Microsoft Azure and Veeam together to help meet the 3-2-1 backup rule.
Well, there are currently three main ways to get your data offsite and into Azure Cloud.
Figure 1: Veeam to Azure
The first method is to utilise an on-premises storage appliance called a StorSimple. The StorSimple can be deployed either as a physical appliance or as a virtual software appliance which caters for the majority of organisations requirements. By utilising the StorSimple capability to automatically archive Veeam backup data out to blob based Azure storage, we can achieve offsite backups. The StorSimple is a great bolt-on solution for existing Veeam deployments with relatively quick deployments and easier to use interfaces.
The flexible architecture of StorSimple is ideal for customers who want to externalise more than just their backups and is ideal for large volumes with usage of Azure native storage.
Limitations that should be considered are the extra appliance that needs to be deployed and maintained. Also, consider that while there is a virtual software appliance available there is a cost for any physical appliances that are acquired. A faster internet connection is recommended to meet any established recovery point objectives (RPO).
Figure 2: Veeam to StorSimple to Azure
If Veeam requires access to the archived data within Azure, the StorSimple will automatically pull the data back. A fast internet connection is recommended to ensure your offsite backup requirements can be met. No additional Veeam licenses are required for this option.
Option two is to externalise with a dedicated link to an Azure site as Site to Site Link (Azure ExpressRoute), SSL Direct Link to Azure or using a private network (vNet) in Azure.
Offsite storage is made available by configuring a link between the on-premises Veeam server and the Azure storage which is used to store the offsite Veeam backup data. Optionally a virtual machine can be created in Azure to provide WAN Acceleration to improve performance.
The benefits of this method is available to all organisations, no appliance needs to be deployed taking up valuable rack space or consuming resources living on your hyper-visor hosts as a virtual appliance. This option also does not require any additional Veeam licenses.
Figure 3: Direct to Azure
Things to consider are the link that is necessary which may impact on performance and possibly workload that may share the link. Costs associated with the Azure ExpressRoute need to be considered as well. This option is not recommended for multi-location infrastructures as it can be complex.
The third option is to send backups offsite to Azure using Veeam Cloud Connect.
Veeam Cloud Connect is a technology that enables sending backup data to an offsite location managed by a Service Provider or the organisation themselves.
Figure 4: Veeam Cloud Connect for the Enterprise
There are two flavours of Veeam Cloud Connect:
a. Veeam Cloud Connect for the Enterprise
Veeam Cloud Connect for Enterprise allows enterprise organisations to operate their own Hybrid Cloud by acting as their own service provider, they configure the necessary infrastructure in Azure to receive and manage the off-site backup data.
There are several considerations for this option as it is geared towards enterprise customers. Veeam Cloud Connect for the Enterprise requires the organisation to own the Enterprise Plus edition of Veeam – also if the customer is not in an Enterprise Agreement (EA) with Microsoft, then there is a 100 socket minimum of Veeam Enterprise licenses. If the organisation owns an EA with Microsoft, then there is no socket minimum. In either case the customer must match licenses 1 to 1.
For example, if ACME company has an EA with Microsoft and owns 86 sockets of Veeam Enterprise Plus, they would purchase 86 sockets of Veeam Cloud Connect Enterprise. Without the EA they would be required to purchase 100 sockets.
b. Veeam Cloud Connect
A service provider will host the offsite backup storage in Azure which is presented to organisations with on-premises Veeam. The service provider’s backup data can be encrypted at the source (before it leaves your network perimeter), in flight and at rest. This method is the easiest way to externalise to Azure, its ideal for multi-site configurations and you keep the same interface and console.
Figure 5: Veeam Cloud Connect
Veeam Cloud Connect is included within the Veeam Availability Suite, Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Backup Essentials for all organisations at no additional charge and with no additional licensing required. However, organisations will need to acquire a subscription to the appropriate storage resources from a service provider of your choice in order to use it.
