Categoria: VBR – To Know

Tips using VBR

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Veeam VBR DB Moving with SQL – Management Studio

In these last days, I had enough time to analyze my personal lab performances.

For testing purposes, I launched the backup of the whole architecture at the same time; the VM that suffered more was the backup server (VBR) and in particular the SQL Service.

This article will explain the steps I followed to move the VBR Database SQL Express from Backup & Replication to a SQL Server standard using SQL-Management Studio as a migration tool.

Before continuing reading the article, please watch at the following Veeam KBs and contact the Veeam Support

To make the description easier I’ll use the following acronyms :

  1. VBR = Backup Server
  2. SQLServer = Target Server where SQL Standard is installed
  3. SQLExpress = Source DB
  4. DB = VeeamBackup
  5. DBFile = VeeamBackup.mdf & VeeamBackup.ldf

The main steps to get the goal are:

  1. Stopping the Veeam service on VBR server
  2. Detaching DB from SQLExpress
  3. Copying DBFile from VBR to SQLServer
  4. Attaching DB to SQL Server
  5. Using the Veeam Migration tool
  6. Changing the service account name on VBR Service (optional)
  7. Checking up the register key
  8. Launching Backup and Restore tests

Let’s go!

  1. The first step is quite easy. Just connect to VBR, click on service and stop the SQL instance (Picture 1).

Picture 1

2. The second step is detaching the DB from SQL Express using SQL Management Studio (Picture 2).

Picture 2

If you need a good and short video guide to install SQL Management Studio please refer to the following link:

Another interesting video guide to understand how to enable the remote connection with SQL server is available here

Remember:  for enabling SQL Server to talk via Network (1433 is default port) you also have to set-up the firewall correctly.

3. Now it’s time to copy DBFiles from VBR to SQLServer

Pay attention to the default path where the files have to be copied and pasted.

Generally, it is in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQLServer\ MSSQL.xx.INSTANCENAME\MSSQL\DATA (Picture 3).

Picture 3

4. Next step is attaching the DB to the new SQL server following the easy SQL Management studio menu ((Picture 4).

Picture 4

5. Now from the programs menu of VBR server, just select the voice Veeam and then “Configuration DataBase Connection Settings“.

Now choose which DBs you want to move to the new architecture. It can be Backup & Replication or the Enterprise Manager or both (Picture 5)

 

(Picture 5)

Now fill in the Database Name and Server/Instance and proceeding with the final step migration (Picture 6).

Picture 6

If everything is correctly configurated you have finally migrated your DBs.

Troubleshooting:

TS-1

If you see that the process runs out of time (600 seconds), it means that the VBR service account can’t access the database

How to solve it?

Please contact your DB experts before doing any tasks!!!

6. The first thing is creating a user able to manage the SQL services.

The procedure is quite easy using a Domain Controller (Picture 7-9)

Picture 7

Picture 8

Picture 9

Now you have to add the new user to Domain Users and Domain Admin groups (Picture 10-12).

Picture 10

Picture 11

Picture 12

From the Veeam Services window, select the Logon Service tab and set up the right user (and for all services that need it) (Picture 13 & 14)

Picture 13

Picture 14

Re-apply the procedure shown at point 5.

In my case, I’ve had another issue.

TS-2

The issue I unlucky met during my setup was the following:

When I tried to connect to remote DB with the “Configuration DataBase Connection Settings” command appeared the following error (Picture 15).

Picture 15

This issue happens when the SQL Server driver on a client computer that uses integrated security and the Windows security token, can’t connect to the SQL Server

If you want to have all details please refer to the following Microsoft article:

Cannot generate SSPI context

Please contact your DB experts before doing any tasks!!!

After some google research and test, I found a solution that addressed my issue always working with Domain Controller.

The AD console needs to be switched to advanced (Picture 16).

Picture 16

Now left-click on the SQL server and  select “attribute editor”

From this menu, you have to delete all the entries with the writing MSSQL.svc (Picture 17)

It also needs a server reboot.

Please contact your DB experts before doing any tasks!!!

Picture 17

For the last two points (7 and 8),  check-up, if the procedure followed, has solved the request.

TS-3

If you are not able to discover the SQL server, please check on the target Server if the SQL Server browser is up and running

Picture 18

 

From VBR Server open the register key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication) and check up if the items SqlDatabaseName, SQLinstanceName e SqlServerName are correctly filled in (Picture 19).

Do the same check-up for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Veeam\Veeam Backup Catalog)  (Picture 20).

Picture 19

Picture 20

Now start backup Jobs and do some restore tasks to be sure that your Backup architecture is up and running.

In my case, the Backup Server can manage more tasks without any issue.

One more recommendation before ending the article:

Before doing any activities please read the official documentation and ask Veeam support

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Replicas from Backup

27th July 2020 Update:

From now on it’s possible to create a replica Job from a backup copy job set-up as immediate copy mode.

https://www.veeam.com/kb3228

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In my last article, I talked about how to throttle the network when you need to perform replicas Job (click here for more details).

In this second article, I will show you how to replicate a VM using a Backup as a source.

The main three points are:

  1. Setting up a Backup Job
  2. Setting up a Backup Copy Job
  3. Setting up a Replication Job

Let’s go!

1. It’s quite easy to create a new backup job. If you didnìt read the guide, the next pictures will show the more important points:

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture3

2. Now it’s time to configure the backup copy Job selecting the just created primary backup as a source.

Picture 4

Picture 5

To simplify reading the article, please pay attention to the name of the second Repository (XFS-Repo-DR)

3. Now it’s time to set up the Replica Job

Picture 6

Picture 7

This is the main point of the article:

Click on the “Source” Button (yellow row) and select the Repository XFS-Repository-DR as a source of the Replica, as shown in Picture 8.

Picture 8

The last steps are:

  • Completing the Replica Wizard creation
  • Running the job

Picture 9

To be sure that everything is working fine you can use any tools that check up the I/O on Repository.

In this article, I choose IOSTAT because it’s light, powerful, and easy to use on Linux Repositories

Picture 10 shows the disk status before the replica job is launched while Picture 11 shows the disk status when it runs.

Picture 10

Picture 11

Take care and see you soon!

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Replication and network throttling

One of the lesser-known VBR features is replication.
In this article, I’ll cover a special use case: how to throttle the network use.

There are several examples where this option is required.
Probably the most common is when you need to create a DR strategy to an external site and it is not possible to use all the band to transfer the source Data.

From the VBR console just select the “Network traffic rules” as shown in picture 1:

Picture 1

Now it’s possible to add a rule just selecting add Button (Picture 2)

Picture 2

In this example, I just input a network rule between the source proxy (192.168.16.72) and the target proxy (192.168.16.73) and set the amount of data (1 Mbps) that can pass through (Picture 3)

Picture 3

Picture 4 shows how to set  up the throttling rule during any hour of the week

Picture 4

It is also possible to set up a number of streams. It helps to configure a multi-thread strategy to accelerate the data transfer (it specifies the number of ports that will be opened on the target device) (Picture 5)

Picture 5

The next two pictures show how the Hot-Add protocol works. It mounts the disks that have to be copied from the source (Ubuntu-02) to target (Ubuntu-Proxy). It is faster than using a Network protocol.

Picture 6

Picture 7

Now you can configure a Replica Job and check if the network throttling  works as expected  (Picture 8)

Picture 8

and yes it just works!

One more tip: if you have more than 1 Network adapter on your proxy or Repository VBR architecture, you can select which network has to be used by clicking on the Networks Button  (Picture 9)

Picture 9

See you soon and take care!

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Object Storage & VBR integration

This is the second article and we are going to discover how to integrate Wasabi with Veeam.

If you want to know how to configure Wasabi, please refer to my previous article (Wasabi configuration)

The two steps we’re going to follow are:

  1. Adding Wasabi Repository
  2. Creating SOBR

Let’s start

Figure 1,2,3,4 are images showing the wizard:

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

In figure 4 you can find two interesting options

The first sets the software capacity limit for the object storage. This check is performed at the beginning of the job not when it is running.

To use Object Storage you need to create a Scale-Out Backup Repository (from now SOBR) that is composed of 2 different physical items.

The first one is called performance tier and it could be any classical Veeam Repository like Server, Network share, Deduplication appliances.

The second is the object storage we have already configurated.

A good suggestion: try to use a repository with good reading performances. In this way, you avoid having a bad performance of offload to Object Storage.

5 pics to understand how to easily configure the SOBR

Figure 5

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

Figure 9

Some good points to remember:

As you can see from picture 9 there are different options.
Move and copy seem to do the same work but it is not.

The move is the option (already available with version 9.5u4) to empty the Repository. The idea is to have an on-premises repository without any capacity limit (because blocks are moved to Object Storage)

On the other hand, the copy mode is a way to have the same Data in both repositories.

You can add both the two options to gain all the advantages of the integration.

Their main difference is when you need to perform a restore in the unlucky case you lose VBR (Veeam Backup & Replication).

Why?

If you select the move option you have to rebuild SOBR.

If you select the copy option you just need to add the Object storage, importing the bucket and start the restoration tasks.

you can find all detail here

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Object Storage Integration – Wasabi

Object Storage is probably the main Backup & Replication feature used by Veeam Customers since his release (9.5 u4)

Today I’m going to cover the improvment now available with version 10 and I’ll show you how it works when it is coupled with Wasabi Object Storage.

Why Wasabi?
The reason is quite easy.
Any Veeam SE has 1 TB of available data to work with and this is a very appreciated gift because I can test VBR features in my personal lab.

So thank you in advance Wasabi guys.

This is the first of three articles where I’m going to show how to implement the Object Storage integration with VBR

  1. Configuring Wasabi Bucket
  2. Implementing Backup and Replication
  3. Performing test of backup and Restore

Let’s start with the first point !!!

After registering to wasabi site (https://wasabi.com/), sign-in and discover the main menu. What surprised me immediately is how easily you can work with the platform.

From “Users” just create a user following the wizard where you need to type name (Picture 1), optionally create a group (Picture 2)  and in the select the right permission in page three  (Picture 3) 

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Now move on to the Access key menu and create the two keys. One good suggestion is to save keys on your PC downloading it. (Picture 4) 

Picture 4

Now it’s time to work with the Bucket menu and see how easy it is to create a new container (Picture 5).

Picture 5

Now we are ready to use it with VBR (Veeam Backup & Replication)

See you soon

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XFS – Performace

In the previous two articles, I explained how to configure and set up an XFS Repository with Veeam Backup & Replication v.10 (VBR)

In this new article, I’m going to cover why this is a very useful technology and should be adopted as soon as possible.

The main reason is:

“XFS linked-clone technology helps VBR to transform the backup chain” 

Let’s see what happens with Synthetic Full.

What is Synthetic full?

It’s a smart way to help VBR to create a Full Restore point downloading just an incremental backup from production.

The process is composed of two phases.

Firstly it creates a normal incremental backup.

Then it creates a full backup file stacking all previous backups (full and incremental).

This process normally needs a lot of work because VBR commands the repository to copy, paste and delete the data blocks.

The XFS integration, allows the system to do not move any block. In fact, the filesystem is able to re-point his metadata creating a Full Backup in One-Shot.

The result is super fast Full Backup creation.

Let’s see with an example:

A classic Full Backup has lasted 7 mins (Picture 1).

Picture 1

An Incremental Backup has lasted 2 mins and 30 sec (Picture 2).

Picture 2

What about a Synthetic Full? 

Picture 3 shows that it needs less than 30 seconds (plus the time needs to download the incremental data).

So Amazing technology and Veeamzing integration!!!

Picture 3

That’s all, for now, guys, see you soon and take care.