The image below shows pre Veeam Backup & Replication v10 when you go to configure your application aware processing.

Configuration

Now in Veeam Backup & Replication v10 and specifically those orchestrated snapshots only jobs we can be more granular on what we protect as per below.

This option enables you to take a periodic log backup to a Veeam Backup repository, whilst using the storage snapshot as the baseline. This is only applicable to orchestrated storage snapshots (this capability is already there for image based backups) to achieve this in your storage snapshot only job you will walk through the wizard until you get to the guest processing option page and then confirm that you require application-aware processing and then you can select Applications.

Next and this will depend on how many machines you have in your job and the placement of those VMs will depend on if you are wanting to achieve the VMware Snapshot-less approach to getting an application aware and consistent storage snapshot. Select your VM and edit to make the relevant application log file decisions.

For this VM which is a machine with SQL present I can now set the appropriate configuration that I need here.

Oracle would be the same here on the next tab over.

When this job is now scheduled to run if you have adhered to the configuration in the previous blog post around VM, datastore placement and backup job configuration then you can now achieve an application aware storage snapshot, without the requirement of a VMware snapshot whilst also being able to create a periodic log backup and use the storage snapshot as the baseline for any restore functionality.

Recovery

From a recovery point of view obviously this means we can have a much better RPO for our database recoveries, we have the speed from the storage snapshot baseline and we have the transaction log backups stored on a Veeam repository as a .VLB file or files.

A common question I have been asked about this feature is will this work with secondary snapshots, for example with NetApp ONTAP, HPE Nimble and HPE 3PAR we have the capability of being able to leverage their storage replication to create and send their snapshots to secondary systems. This feature will work in those scenarios also.

Another thing to note here is that with HPE Nimble those VM Disks for snapshot-less processing must reside on the same volume collection.

Ok, so how do we recover this data using our Veeam Explorers for SQL or Oracle.

Firstly, you should select the ribbon at the top and choose Restore, choose Restore from backup as our option.

Next, we want to choose the Application items restore option.

You will then see the list of Veeam Explorer options that we have, for this example we will choose SQL but this is also applicable to Oracle recovery options.

At this point we are then faced with the Veeam Explorer for SQL and you should choose the machine that is relevant for your restore operation, specifically here you will see a list of backup jobs and storage snapshots. We will choose our storage snapshot and our SQL server.

You will then be faced with the available restore points, or you can choose the latest available snapshot with the option at the top of the wizard.

Then choose a location for a temporary VM will be registered but remained powered off, this will be automatically removed after the restore operation is closed.

To finish the wizard, give a reason for the restore for audit purposes and then select finish on the summary screen this will then open the Veeam Explorer for SQL with the mounted databases from the restore point you chose.

Up until this point this is not different you could always do this before but you would have created the snapshot whilst also taking a VMware snapshot and you only have point in time copies of your databases on your storage snapshot. What this new feature in Veeam Backup & Replication v10 enables is the ability to restore to a specific point in time using those transaction log backups that we put on our Veeam repository as the .VLB files on a schedule.

Getting down to the specific transaction can also be achieved by selecting the “perform restore to the specific transaction” at the bottom of the wizard above. You then have the ability to fine tune which transaction you wish to restore back to, this is a lab environment so not much happening, but I created a transaction to show you an example.

The transaction log backup job runs permanently in the background, shipping transaction logs to the backup repository at a specific time interval (by default, every 15 minutes). This process was once only available for backup jobs but now you can achieve this with your storage snapshots also.

The transaction log snapshot /backup session starts and stops in the following way:

• The initial session starts when the parent backup job schedule is enabled. After that, the session starts with every new session of the parent backup job.
• The session ends before the next session of the parent backup job, and/or when this parent backup job is disabled.
• When the session ends, Veeam Backup & Replication stops the runtime process and uninstalls it from the VM guest OS. When a new session starts, the runtime process is deployed again.

Hope that was useful any questions let me know here below or get in touch on twitter @MichaelCade1

This was a nice feature that was sneaked into V10 without many people realising.

A common challenge with High IO workloads with VMware snapshots is that it would or could kill performance of likely this mission critical system when a VMware snapshot takes place, which either means you take that risk and manage to get a backup to happen during a relevant window, you leverage crash consistent storage snapshots which also do not require a VMware snapshot or GASP! You just do not do anything and hope that nothing happens to this MISSION CRITICAL system.

Ok so what can we do? – The theory

What if I told you, you could take an application aware and consistent storage snapshot without having to take a VMware snapshot?

If you are running one of the many storage integrations that are supported by Veeam then you are in luck. You can configure a Storage Snapshot only job with your application aware processing configured within the wizard and that is it. Ok there are some caveats. The VM’s virtual disks must be located on the same datastores and they must be unique within the backup job.

Here are some examples:

If you have one Veeam orchestrated snapshot job configured and you have 3 VMs from the same VM Datastore then the traditional method of creating a backup will take place which will involve a VMware snapshot.

Example 1

If you have one VM on a datastore that has high IO and you do not wish this to be affected with VMware snapshots then create one backup job that contains only this VM and you will achieve this application consistent storage snapshot.

Example 2

Finally lets take a Tier 1 application that is made up of 2 virtual machines, these machines reside on their own VM datastores and storage volumes, they are also both added to the same backup job this will also achieve that application consistent storage snapshot.

Example 3

Things to remember

• VM must be the only VM in storage volume / datastore within the backup job.
• If the VM is not the only VM in the storage volume / datastore and backup job, then VMware Snapshot will still take place.
• All VMs that do not qualify will be processed in parallel.
• All VMs that do qualify they will be processed sequentially.

Walkthrough

I am going to pick 3 virtual machines for this test

To match these jobs with the examples above:

• Snapshot-less Orchestrated Snapshot – Same – Example 1 (2 VMs on the same datastore and same storage volume)
• Snapshot-less Orchestrated Snapshot – Single – Example 2 (Single VM on its own unique datastore)
• Snapshot-less Orchestrated Snapshot – Multi – Example 3 (2 VMs on their own unique datastores within the job)

The key to note here is that the datastores mentioned above all contain other VMs in the environment but they are not included in the backup job.

Ok let us walk through creating the orchestrated snapshot job to make this happen. Ok so this is pretty simple but it is important to know where VMs are being stored to take advantage of this functionality, if that VM moves then it will revert back to a VMware snapshot unless it is a VM in it’s own Backup Job. First of all as with all Veeam jobs, give it a relevant name.

Click add and choose your virtual machines, this can be straight via the VM name and remember there is a search function there that will help with choosing out granular machines. You can also use vSphere tags but remember where the VMs are placed in order to use that option.

Next up, because we are running orchestrated snapshots for this role, at this point you will have already had to install or add your storage system within Veeam Backup & Replication, this way depending on the storage system you are using you can select the option for Primary Storage Snapshot Only for your specific storage integration.

The next screen is for application aware processing, this is the whole reason for the enhancement, we could already do crash consistent snapshot orchestration prior to v10 and this does not have the same limitations. For crash consistent you can have multiple VMs residing on the same storage volume. Add in your credentials and hit the test here to confirm all is good.

Most likely you are going to want to schedule this to happen to sort your RPO requirements.

Summary, this is what the job looks like, you can either save this and exit or you can say start the job now.

The Results

Now its worth pointing out that the systems I have chosen for this demo are lab machines, if you didn’t guess they are an Active Directory Domain Controller, Veeam ONE server running SQL Express and Veeam Backup & Replication also running SQL Express. (not the Veeam Backup & Replication server running the jobs) none of these systems are actually running high IO workloads this is to prove the concept so please ignore the durations.

This first one is in line with example 1, we have two VMs stored on the same datastore and storage volume and clearly both within the same backup job, you can see I have highlighted that in this instance we are going to take a VMware snapshot.

The second example is of a single VM in its own backup job. You can see that there is no “creating VM snapshot” or “Removing VM snapshot” you only see “Primary storage snapshot created successfully”

Finally, we have example 3, this shows 2 VMs in one backup job but both VMs are stored on two different storage volumes / datastores. Much the same as example 2 above now you can see that no VMware snapshot is taking place just the storage snapshot.

And just to confirm that we are application consistent here we have the logs being truncated in the summary below. There were some also enhancement in this area when it comes to SQL and Oracle that I will have to get to in another post.

So, you could do this kind of prior to Veeam Backup & Replication v10 but they would be crash consistent and that’s a huge risk to take on such important systems. Veeam also has this capability already with the storage integration with Cisco HyperFlex as this uses the native VM snapshot engine and API available on the HyperFlex system to achieve this.

We seem to be heading fast toward VeeamON 2019, this year our conference heads to Miami and none other than the famous Fontainebleau Miami Beach luxury hotel and resort. I have never been to Miami, so I am really looking forward to being there but also there is nothing quite like the VeeamON feeling and that of your own conference.

The conference officially runs from May 20^th to May 22^nd all in the same resort. But the fun actually starts on the Saturday for the die-hard techies heading out to Miami they will be starting their VMCE course that runs from Saturday to Monday before the conference kicks off with a welcome reception on the Monday evening.

We then have two full days of conference, breakout sessions and general sessions both of which I am going to get into more detail on later on.

Obviously, it wouldn’t be a Veeam conference if we didn’t have the famous Veeam party to close out the conference, pretty excited to see Flo-Rida perform.

My Breakout picks for the conference

We have I think 60+ breakout sessions this year, lots of technical content, business decision maker content, alliance content it’s a full-blown packed agenda of sessions and I have no doubt that everyone has put an enormous effort in to get the right content for the audience.

The length of the sessions are 45 minutes, I think this is a great move as this means the content needs to be on point and resonating with the audience but also not too long to lose interest. An attendee can hit 7 breakout sessions, so you have to choose carefully and plan your agenda accordingly with that in mind. Below are some of my picks.

There is an App for the event you can grab that will show all the other sessions and what else is happening during the event.

1.    To Download the app, search for CrowdCompass AttendeeHub in the App Store or Google Play.

2.    Once downloaded, search the app for VeeamON 2019 Miami event.

3.    Log in to the VeeamON Event with the same First and Last name you used to register for VeeamON

I am pretty sure I won’t get to attend many of these sessions, unless I am presenting so anyone reading this, I would love an overview of the sessions you attend.

Day 1

10:20 – 11:05

Cumulonimbus – Cloud Tier Deep Dive & Best Practices – intrigued by what Cumulonimbus means but also the level of technical differentiation we have with our Cloud Tier feature that landed in the early part of 2019 is well worth seeing.

11:25 – 12:10

From the Architect’s Desk: Sizing of Veeam Backup & Replication, Proxies and Repositories – Now I have seen the presentation for this, and I know that this is going to get quickly get pretty technically deep, well worth the spot.

13:30 – 14:15

NetApp and Veeam: Deep Dive Into How Snapshots and Secondary Storage Can Help You Get More Out of Backup – This seems to be the Alliance 45 minutes, I am going to highlight the NetApp & Veeam story as one to attend, the end to end capabilities we have with NetApp is truly worth seeing.

Day 2

09:15 – 10:00

Activate Your Data with Veeam DataLabs – of course I am going to kick start day 2 with this one, and I will be making this one. I will be presenting on an end to end overview of Veeam DataLabs, what it is and how you can use it.

11:50 – 12:35

Now at this time there is a top-secret session and I cannot divulge what that is going to be about but that might be worth attending if there is room.

Architecture, Installation and Design for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 – This one will be a full on deep dive into Veeam offering with Office 365 and if this is your world or is going to be soon then it’s worth knowing how the parts fit together and how to architect VBO for your environment.

14:00 – 14:45

Veeam ONE 9.5 U4 Part 1: Monitor, Veeam Intelligent Diagnostics and Business View – Veeam ONE got a lot of love with the most recent release but it’s always been such a great product and really opens up the visibility into your whole environment not just your backup infrastructure.

Also, this slot has a session on Veeam Explorers another capability that is such a powerful differentiator and worth understanding some of the tips and tricks there.

15:05 – 15:50

Veeam ONE 9.5 U4 Part 2: Reporter, Heatmaps and Custom Reports – this is part two of the previous session so if that one got your interest then carry on listening to what can be done with Veeam ONE.

How I Stopped Worrying and Loved the Tape Media – There you go I have done it. I have suggested a tape session, and why not it’s still a massive strategy within many IT environments and still many require tape functionality this session will take a look into what Veeam is doing around Tape.

Technology General Session

The thing I want to close on is the Technology General Session where we will be live streaming out beyond the audience that are with us in Miami and we will be showing some technical demos. We then have an exclusive second half of the session where the stream will be turned off and we will share some of the futures that Veeam have coming later on in the year or sooner. This session will be live streamed from 15:30 Miami time.

With that I hope to see some of you there, if you are then don’t be shy and say hi, I will be the guy scrambling around between sessions and other matters probably wearing a funky vZilla t shirt or hopefully something if they arrive in time before I leave.

Hope you have a great VeeamON

The portability and flexibility of the Veeam Backup file (.vbk) that is created with the Veeam Agents for Windows and Linux as well as the VMware and Hyper-V backups is also the same format that we see with the Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV. This allows us to extend your availability options when we look at where we can store copies of our data offsite.

The 3-2-1 rule is a methodology that Veeam has been advocating for many years now, 3 copies of your data on 2 different media types and 1 of those being offsite. This protects your business against many different failure scenarios. That 1 copy offsite is the one I want to touch on in this post.

The focus of this post is how you can take your Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV backups and send them to one of the many Veeam Cloud Connect Service Providers for that offsite copy of your data and availability.

Adding your Veeam Cloud Connect Service Provider

It’s an easy process to start getting your data to an offsite location. Leveraging one of the Veeam Cloud Service Providers (VCSP) first within Veeam Backup & Replication we need to add in our Cloud Connect DNS name or IP Address.

Your service provider will have supplied the DNS Name or IP Address to use in the above screen, they would have also provided you with unique credentials that can be added here.

The Service Provider would have also setup available resources to you as a tenant. In the below scenario this is a repository to store those backups. This could also include the ability to leverage the Veeam WAN Accelerator technology if the links meet the requirements to do so.

We then apply those configuration changes and you will see the process running through on screen.

Providing you have given all the correct information you will then see the successful summary on the final screen of the wizard.

Creating a Backup Copy Job

The next stage is defining the Backup Copy job to start sending data to the Cloud Repository hosted by the Service Provider. From the drop down select backup copy and providing you are running Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 update 3a you will see the Nutanix Policy available if you have Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV jobs enabled and running.

For those that have created the Veeam Backup Copy job it is a very simple wizard driven approach and this job is no different other than the source being a Nutanix Policy, above you can see the other options that can be used for Backup Copy job sources.

At this screen we can now choose our Nutanix Policies that we want to include in this job to our new Cloud Repository.

If you happen to have several Nutanix Policies, we can choose multiple policies and include them in the same backup copy schedule.

For this walkthrough I am going to use just the one policy and include this as the object in the job.

Next is where do we want to store the backups, so we select the newly created Cloud Repository. This could be any supported Veeam Backup Repository.

In keeping in accordance to your companies regulation then you may get this warning if you are not tagging your repositories and their location, my system knows that my Nutanix policies are being stored in London but the Cloud Repository that we have added has no location if you are using this feature in accordance to compliance or just organisation then this prompt will warn you to make that change in configuration. More information on location tagging can be found here in these two posts.

Veeam Backup & Replication – Location Tagging

Veeam ONE – Location Tagging Reporting

I mentioned earlier on in the post about the Service Provider enabling the resources available to you as a tenant, if WAN Acceleration was a requirement due to poor connection link speeds then this is where you could configure the option to use.

The next is the schedule, when do we want this to run? For this example, I am happy for this to continuously run but you can see the granular time span that you can choose when things should be running and not.

Finally, a summary of the configuration we have made.

Sending Data Offsite

Now we have the new Cloud Repository configured and the Job to get that data offsite, the job should then be started, and you will see the first job progress run through with all details of data processed and transferred.

Once the job is complete you will see this job run in accordance to the schedule you have configured.

Recovery

If we ever need to recover from this data, then we can do so by navigating through Veeam Backup & Replication to perform the recovery steps as per <recovery post link> simply select the restore icon and run through the wizard.

Select the backup copy job you wish to recover from and run through the wizard that is explained in the link posted above.