Veeam Backup and Replication is a very powerful backup program. It was designed for use in VMware and Hyper V virtual machines environment. To understand the complexities of the program, requires a basic understanding of backup locations first. General backup locations can be found here:
- The computer’s very own C drive
- This is good for quick retrieval disaster/recovery. However, in a true disaster (fire, flood, and theft) you are most likely SOL if you attempt to retrieve your data from this location.
- The computer’s external drive
- This should be two portable terabyte Hard Drives that rotate weekly. They are usually labeled D, E, or F drive.
- Cloud based solution
- There are plenty of cloud backup solutions. We will build on this later.
The Computer’s C Drive
Below is the organized structure of a backup. Let’s break down the backed up folder and reveal some details of what we found.
- Backup Copy to Disk – Contains recent VIB extention files. It’s a keeper.
- Del Mar Med Onsite – One VMB file from 2016. This is a user folder and should be deleted if you have more recent VBM files.
- Veeam ConfigBackup – Recent .BCO files here. It’s a keeper
- Veeam Backups – One VBM file from 2014. This is a useless folder and should be deleted.
Let’s focus on #1 and #3 now that we understand what’s useful and what’s not
1 – Backup Copy to Disk
VBK is full and VIB is incremental. Sort by name to view backup chains. VMB is the record meta-data. It is critical file to copy too. This is the meat of your backup data and should take a significant amount of time to copy to another location. Our “backup copy to disk” is just under 600 gigs in size.
3 – VMware Configuration backups
Albeit much smaller in size, the configuration backup is a critical to your backup and recovery. Make sure you have a plenty of copies of it just like VBK, VIB, and VBM files mention in #1.
The computer’s external drive
This is the same story but different location for data to be backed up. Please make sure you rotate your external hard drives on a weekly basis… Possibly sooner depending how critical your real-time data is.
Additional locations to store your data.
- Backup to a NAS
- Cloud
How to setup Veeam Backup on a new server or workstation.
Stop and disable all the jobs on the current backup server. Then proceed with updating your current backup server to the latest and greatest version of Veeam. Utilize the KB article for performing a backup of the configuration file and migrating it to the new backup server.
Copy the Data
Copy all recent backup data mentioned in the prior segment to another Windows backup server as seen below.
But I can’t Find All Backup Locations
Start exploring within the Veeam Backup program. Configuration backup option under “main menu” is a good place to start
Configuration Backup Settings
There’s plenty of good information. Make sure the box is checked for “Encrypt Configuration Backup” and understand what the “backup repository” is.
Externals and Volume Mappings
Assign new computer’s external hard drive with same drive letter. Doing this plus “encrypt configuration backup” when save you a lot of time and spare you lots grief later. Otherwise, you have to recreate credentials for service accounts like seen below. Nobody wants to do that.
It saves passwords if encrypted. Worst scenario, need to retype service account password with in Veeam
View Default Repository
Check up on what’s being backed up to where by viewing the default backup repository. Note: Default repository changes when Veeam prompts if you like to make a new default repository. External repository it is important to have on the external hard drive during a disaster/recovery. Make sure you add the configuration to the backup of the external.’
Run the Manual Configuration Backup
Again, you need to update your Veeam to be on version 3 of 8.0 or later before proceeding with the manual configuration backup. Use the existing instance when you get prompted. I need to build this part of the post out more but yeah…
Copy the old backup Server Backup Configuration File
The backup configuration file as discussed in the introductory part of this Veeam Backup and Replication post is also known as the file extension . BCO. Copy the latest BCO file just created from the manual configuration backup and place it the directory of the backup and replication server path of c:\backup\VeeamConfigBackup. Then perform the restore function on the new Veeam Backup and Replication server. This will restore all you schedule tasks and other settings from the prior backup server.
Schedule Your first Veeam Backup on Your New Server
Veeam is all set and ready to backup on your data. Confirm your email is working for successful completions and possible failures of your backups
More Educational Resources
Are you not comfortable want you learned can get you through your next backup or recovery? Not to worry. We have a list of resources to educate on what is out there.
https://www.youtube.com/user/YouVeeam/playlists
In addition to this below is the user’s guide if you need it for reference as well:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/overview.html?ver=95
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