Tag: VBR

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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)

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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).

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  • 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)

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

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

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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).

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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.

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After entering the login credentials (image 8)

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

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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)

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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)

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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).

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The available options are:

  • Entire Instance
  • Files and Folders

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

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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