Nel mio laboratorio, il sito di Disaster Recovery è composto da un singolo host ESX 7.01.
Viene gestisto da un vCenter virtuale (denominato vCenter-DR), che afferisce esclusivamente alle risorse hardware messe a disposizione dallo stesso host ESX 7.01.
Lo scorso mese Veeam Software ha rilasciato l’aggiornamento di Veeam Backup & Replication 11A.
Tra le diverse migliorie introdotte, la mia attenzione si è concentrata sui nuovi driver (detti I/O filters) della componente CDP.
Se nel cluster principale, l’aggiornamento è stato semplice, immediato e indolore (vista la presenza di più host sotto un ulteriore vCenter), per il sito di Disaster Recovery si è generata una complicanza collegata all’architettura hardware presente.
L’aggiornamento falliva, poichè era impossibile porre l’host ESX 7.01 in mantenance mode senza di fatto spegnere anche il vCenter-DR che lo gestiva (vedi immagine 1).
Immagine 1
Come è stato possibile superare tale ostacolo senza modificare la configurazione del cluster? (Senza cioè aggiungere un ulteriore Host ESX 7.01)
Copia del pacchetto Veeam CDP nell’host ESX 7.01 (veecdp-offline-bundle.7.0.0.zip)
Installazione del pacchetto attraverso il comando “esxcli software vib update -d /yourpath/veecdp-offline-bundle.7.0.0.zip” (vedi Immagine 2)
Immagine 2
Terminata questa prima fase, è ora stato sufficiente ripetere la procedura standard di aggiornamento (vedi immagini 3,4 e 5).
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Immagine 4
Immagine 5
La verifica che garantisce che la procedura seguita è corretta è quella di realizzare un Job di Replica CDP, attendere che si concluda senza errori e che sia possibile avviare la procedura di failover.
Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) version 11 has a new feature and Mac users will fall in love with it.
It is now available for the backup and restores of your MACOS files.
It supports the last Operating Systems starting from High-Sierra (Big Sur 11.X.X / Catalina 10.15.X / Mojave 10.14.X / High Sierra 10.13.6).
Note 1: The Veeam Agent for Mac (VAM) version 1 supports the M1 processor via Rosetta.
Note 2: The VAM supports consistent data backup with snapshots for the APFS file system.
In the other file systems, the backup is created via a snapshot-less approach.
Note 3: At the moment it’s possible to perform the backup of user data (with a custom scope too). The image of the entire machine and a Bare Metal Restore are not available yet.
The configuration steps are quite easy as shown in the official guide:
To recap, the procedure consists of:
From the VBR console create a resource group using a flexible scope
Copy the files generated from VBR to the MAC to protect
Install the package to your machine and import the created configuration. (It allows the communication between VBR and the Mac)
From the VBR console creating the backup policy and apply it
The following video shows how it works in a managed VBR architecture.
In the last few days, I have been contacted by a Service Provider to design a solution to back up the Microsoft Office 365 environment.
Actually, four months ago, I wrote three articles to show how to set up the environment using a great job of Niels and Timothy, creators and deployers the Martini project.
Why the Service Provider needs a different way to implement this service?
I think that the two main reasons were:
1) SP has already a Cloud Connect architecture and it wants to use it in all possible scenarios.
2) SP needs always official support from Vendor before implementing any project and the Martini is not. To be clearer, the RestFul Api technology inside VBO is totally supported, the Martini portal isn’t because it is not a Veeam product.
Before continuing the read, there is one requirement to respect: VBR Cloud Connect and VBO-365 have to be installed on the same server (a Windows Server).
Let’s start!
Picture 1 shows the high-level architecture.
Picture 1
The service provider architecture is shown on the right part of picture 1 and it is composed of VBO-365 and the Cloud Connect architectures, while the left part shows the tenant architecture where VBR Server has been installed.
Which are the actions that can be performed by the Tenant?
– Backup: the tenant can’t access the VBO-365 console. It means the Tenat can’t set up or launch any sort of backup. In other words, the backup tasks are a managed services.
– Restore: The tasks can be driven by the administrator of the Microsoft Office 365 organization through the use of Veeam Explores. The Cloud Connect technology creates the tunnel to connect the two entities.
Note 1: When VBR is installed by default all Veeam Explorers are installed.
I mean that not just the traditional Veeam Explorers (for Active Directory, SQL, Oracle, Exchange, Share-points) are installed but also the Explorer for One Drive and Teams. that are specific for Microsoft 365 technology.
Note 2: Does this scenario require VBR license?
Yes, but you can use the free community edition.
The point to highlight during the setup is the authentication task that allows the explorer to communicate with VBO-365:
From the VBO-365 console selecting “General Options” (Picture 2) and from the authentication tab enabling the tenant authentication you can catch your goal (please for security reason use your own certificate) (Picture 3)
Picture 2
Picture 3
Let’s switch to my demo environment:
1. The Service Provider VBO-365 console, has three Microsoft 365 organizations with a backup job each (Picture 4). Two of those use modern authentication, the third the basic one.
Picture 4
2. The Cloud-Connect architecture has been set up in order to create a tenant called Demo-VBO (Picture 5).
Picture 5
The VBR Tenant Console shows how the connection towards the service provider has been set up (Picture 6).
Picture 6
The following video shows the tasks performed by the tenant to restore his data (Exchange/Sharepoint/One-Drive/Teams items) located at the Service Provider site.
The DR plan is a sum of more Orchestration plans. This article is going to explain how to create them.
Just a small and important note before continuing: it’s mandatory to have already completed the steps described in the last article.
Let’s start!
From the main menu of the VAO server select the Manage button.
Now click on New as shown in picture 1.
Picture 1
The easy wizard is going to ask to choose a scope.
In our example, we use Linux-CDP as shown in picture 2.
Picture 2
Now fill up the plan info with the Plan Name, the description, the contact name of the plan (picture 3),
Picture 3
Select the type of Plans. In this article choose the CDP replica (picture 4)
Picture 4
In the next step please check if the correct “VM Group” appears.
If it doesn’t, it’s necessary to go back to the setup phase (please read the previous article) and fix the issue.
In our example, it appears correctly (Ubuntu-CDP) as shown in the next two pictures (5 and 6).
Picture 5
Picture 6
The next step shows the VM Recovery options (picture 7).
It gives the operator control of the plan. For example, stopping the plan if something goes wrong.
Picture 7
In “New VM Template” menu the VAO user can add additional steps to the orchestration process; for example, starting the CDP replica job first and shut down the source VMafter (Picture 8)
Picture 8
Tips I: I created a customized script to change the IP Address of the VM.
Tips II: it’s possible to set up the accesscredential directly from this page by clicking the button on the bottom of the page. It is available for Windows VM only.
The next step defines the RTO & RPO.
The most important thing to remember here is that the RPO has to be equal or major than the RPO set in the CDP replica job (picture 9).
Picture 9
The last steps define when the plan report shall be automatically generated (picture 10) and if the readiness check has to run at the end of every single wizard (recommended option) (picture 11).
Picture 10
Picture 11
The result is shown in picture 12
Picture 12
The next article is going to be a video to see VDrO in action.
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