Tag: VBR

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XFS – Resize the immutable file system

In the Veeam Backup & Replication environment, it may be necessary to expand the allocated space of a Linux repository.

In my environment, there is an Ubuntu 22.04 server to which a second disk(dev/sdb) was added, formatted as xfs, and made available as mount point /mnt/backup/ .

The server is used in hardened repository mode (immutability)
(https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/hardened_repository.html?ver=120).

Let’s look at the simple procedure:

  • The packages to install are cloud-guest-utils and gdisk:
    “sudo apt -y install cloud-guest-utils gdisk”
  • To find out the structure of the file system use the command:
    “sudo lsblk”

      • The result shows the sizing, and mount point of Ubuntu server file system:
        NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
        sda 8:0 0 16G 0 disk
        ├─sda1 8:1 0 1M 0 part
        ├─sda2 8:2 0 1.8G 0 part /boot
        └─sda3 8:3 0 14.2G 0 part
         └─ubuntu–vg-ubuntu–lv 253:0 0 10G 0 lvm /
        sdb 8:16 0 100G 0 disk. └─sdb1 8:17 0 80G 0 part /mnt/backup
        sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
  • To find out if the file system has additional space to allocate:
    “sudo growpart /dev/sdb 1”

    • The result shows the item changed
      CHANGED: partition=1 start=2048 old: size=167770079 end=167772126 new: size=209713119 end=209715166
  • The final command that widens the file system is: sudo “xfs_growfs /mnt/backup/”
  • Check the result through the command already seen: “sudo lsblk”
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Veeam + ReFS: How much space you save

ReFS is the advanced file system from Microsoft that improves data availability through technologies that can:

  1. Ensuring greater resilience of data stored on the file system.
  2. Increase the performance in reading and writing.
  3. Improve the scalability (we are talking about millions of TB).

One of the most useful and widely used features in backup is the technology of Block-Cloning which allows Veeam Backup & Replication to create full backups equal in size to an incremental.

The operation logic is simple and consists of 3 phases:

  1. TheBackup copies to the target Repository (ReFS), the incremental data of the VM / Instances / Physical Servers/ Clients To be protected.
  2. The File System ReFS will take care of storing the new blocks and creating the metadatarelated to the newly written data.
  3. The option “create a Syntethic-full” actually triggers anoperation at the level of metadata. ReFS adds to the metadata just created, those related to previous backups, thus creating a new full child of the union of all the necessary metadata. To further simplify, a logical full is created without any block being copied/moved.

Note 1: The result is not only a saving in space but also in the time it takes to make the full.

Well, how is it possible to quantify the disk space saved in the repository (ReFS)?

Timothy DeWin has made a tool (blockstat.exe) perfect for this calculation, to which I refer you for all possible options.

In my case, I solved the client’s need through:

  1. Creation through powershell of a text file (Unicode format) that would search all the Backup files generated by Veeam Backup & Replication within the ReFS repository. (See image 1)
  2. Captured the output of the bloclstat command. (see image 2)

Picture 1

picture 2

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Tips VMware – Module MonitorLoop power on failed

During laboratory maintenance operations, suddenly a Virtual Machine was no longer able to start.

The vCENTER console reported an error in initializing the server swap file.

Like any good system engineer, before making any changes to the environment, I tried to back up the aforementioned VM.

The job stopped due to the following error: (” An error occurred while taking a snapshot: Invalid change tracker error code “).

Troubleshooting:

  1. Since the swap file handles memory over-commitment, I tried to change the allocated amount of RAM.
  2. I added space to the Datastore on which the VM resided to make sure VMware had enough space to manage the swap file.
  3. I searched in the configuration file ( vmx ) for differences with respect to the configuration of the other VMs.

All tests and changes made did not solve the problem.

Aware that I would have to change the VM configuration, I implemented a simple strategy to:

  • Backup the VM through the Veeam Agent for Linux (The VAL operates at the Guest-OS level and not at the hypervisor level).
  • Write down all the changes that I would have made to the VMs (editor’s note: I had worn Hop-o’-My-Thumb‘s hat, that is, able to return to the initial configuration in a short time).

The methodical ” change, note, check and turn on” approach allowed me to discover that the problem was related to the CPU configuration of the Virtual Machine.

In fact, by resetting the ” CPU reservation ” values to Zero and ” CPU share” to Normal (see image 1), the problem went away, allowing me to start the VM and back it up.

Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probet (A wise man says nothing that he cannot prove)

Picture 1

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Veeam & Google Cloud Platform – Part 1

The first article of 2022 is dedicated to how to secure Google instances ( GCPs ).

The flow and protection architecture is shown in image 1 where there are two Veeam components.

  1. The Veeam Backup for Google Platform ( VBGP ) instance is responsible for making backups and restores of GCP instances.
  2. Veeam Backup & Replication ( VBR ) has the responsibility to centrally manage the movement of Backup data to and from the cloud (Data Mobility).

Picture 1

  • Note 1 : VBGP can be installed in stand-alone mode or using the VBR wizard.
  • Note 2: This article will show how to hook a VBGP instance already present in GCP from VBR.

Let’s see the steps in detail:

From the VBR console, we choose the Backup Infrastructure item.

By clicking with the right mouse button, select add server and then Google Cloud Platform (see image 2)

picture 2

The next step is to enter the login credentials to the Google Service Account (image 3)

Picture 3

The wizard continues asking you to enter the name of the VBGP server already created (image 4)

Picture 4

After selecting the type of network present (image 5), the next step is to enter the credentials to access the Repository (image 6).

Remember that the best protection practice is to back up the instance as a snapshot, then pour the snapshot into Google’s Cloud Object Storage.

Thus the 3-2-1 rule is respected, i.e. having 3 copies of data (Production + Snapshot + Object Storage) on two different media (Primary Storage + Object Storage) with an offsite copy (Object storage should belong to another region).

Picture 5

Picture 6

Once the wizard is finished, still from the VBR console we can connect to the console to the VBGP server (image 7) to start creating protection policies.

Picture 7

After entering the login credentials (image 8)

Image 8

it is possible to monitor the environment through an overview of the present instances, of the protected ones (image 9 & 10)

Image 9

Image 10

Manage protection policies through:

The creation of the Backup policies, indicating the name (image 12), selecting the project (image 13), the region (image 14), the resources (image 15), the Backup target (image 16), the schedule, and the type backup (images 17 to 19)

Image 11

Image 12

Image 13

Image 14

Image 15

Image 16

Picture 17

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Image 19

The last two items indicate the estimated monthly costs to implement the backup policy (image 20) and the setting of retries and notifications (image 21)

Image 20

Image 21

Once the configuration is complete and the monitoring has verified that the policy has been completed successfully, it is possible to proceed with the recovery (image 22).

Image 22

The available options are:

  • Entire Instance
  • Files and Folders

The next images (23-24-25) show the key steps to restore the entire instance.

Image 23

Image 24

Image 25

In the next article we will see how to protect and restore a SQL DB present in a GCP instance

See you soon

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Veeam Backup & Replication: License count

Starting July 1, 2022, the sale of perpetual per-socket licenses of Veeam Backup & Replication ™, Veeam Availability Suite ™, Veeam Backup Essentials ™, and Veeam ONE ™ will cease to both new and existing customers.

The products currently in operation will continue to work but it will not be possible to purchase new Socket licenses to upgrade.

The licenses that can be purchased and available are the Veeam Universal Licenses (VUL) which use the single workload as the unit of measure.

The most important advantages of the VUL model can be summarized in:

  1. Ability to protect any supported workload (such as instances in AWS, Azure, and GCP) and not just VMware and Hyper-V virtual machines.
  2. Freedom to move licenses as needed between all supported workloads.

Note 1 : Each instance can be used to protect 500 GB source data of a NAS

Note 2: Let’s take an example to simplify the count: let’s assume we need to protect an environment made of 50 Hyper-V VMs, 30 instances in Azure (or in Aws or in GCP), 10 physical servers, and 5 TB of data.

The total number of instances is the algebraic sum of:

a. 50 (VM-HV) + 30 (Azure) + 10 (Server) + 10 (NAS) = 100 instances = 10 VUL

If 20 Hyper-V VMs will be migrated to Azure, the count changes to

b. 30 + 50 + 10 + 10 = 100 instances = 10 VUL

As you can see, the total number of instances does not change.

The good news is that Veeam has a plan available to help customers migrate their licenses.

Your Veeam Sales Representative will be able to advise you on the best options available.

Note 3 : In this scenario it is essential to provide the Veeam contact with the log files.

The one that describes the licenses used is called VMC.log

See you soon

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VBR – Mac Backup

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:

  1. From the VBR console create a resource group using a flexible scope
  2. Copy the files generated from VBR to the MAC to protect
  3. Install the package to your machine and import the created configuration. (It allows the communication between VBR and the Mac)
  4. From the VBR console creating the backup policy and apply it

The following video shows how it works in a managed VBR architecture.

Take care and see you soon.