Finishing off Module 4 of the Veeam VMCE v9 Study Guide we will take a look at configuration backups, along with what can be set in terms of global notifications within Veeam Backup & Replication version 9.
Configuration Backup and Restore
A configuration backup essentially takes our Veeam Backup & Replication database and saves it to a backup file on the repository. The database data is then written to a set of xml files and archived into a (.bco) format. If for any reason our backup server experiences a failure we can simply reinstall a new backup server and quickly restore the old configuration. We could also use this backup to deploy another Veeam Backup server in the same environment. If you plan on migrating configuration data to another server be sure to stop and disable all running jobs before creating the backup or sessions may fail after restoring.
A configuration backup contains the following information
- Backup Infrastructure Components and objects – all hosts, servers, proxies, repositories, Wan accelerators, jobs, global configuration settings, etc..
- Backups – Backups, replicas and backup copies (information regarding the backups, not the backups themselves)
- Sessions – historical session information
- Tapes – libraries connected to the server
By default Veeam will create a configuration backup daily and store it in the default backup repository. That said, it’s best to redirect this to a different repository that doesn’t reside on the backup server itself. When you create a new repo, Veeam will offer to store the config backup on it, clicking yes will redirect NEW configuration backups to this repository. Old configuration backups REMAIN on the default repository.
If you have created a password within the password manager on the backup server Veeam will enforce that you encrypt the configuration backup. If you do not encrypt the configuration backup and there is a password present, Veeam will disable the configuration backup job. Also, without encryption the credentials will not be backed up with passwords within the configuration backup – you would need to enter all of the passwords again upon restore.
There are a couple of options when it comes to restoring
- Data Restore
- useful if the database gets corrupted, the SQL server hosting the database becomes corrupt or you deploy the database on a new SQL server, rolling back to a point in time or restoring data to a new database on the same SQL server.
- Data Migration
- used when you want to move the backup server and the configuration database to another location.
- If you forget your encryption password need for the restore you have the following option
- If the backup server is connected to Enterprise Manager you will be presented with a I forgot the password link.
- need to have enterprise or enterprise plus, and enterprise manager connected to the backup server
- Veeam will launch the encryption key restore wizard, at the request step a key will be generated, this can be copied or emailed.
- Within Enterprise Manager go to Configuration-> Key Management and click Password Recovery, and paste the key that was generated.
- Once the response is generated, copy or email that key.
- Back in the Encryption key restore wizard enter the copied response, upon completion VBR will apply them to the encrypted backup file and unlock all content within it.
- Backup and replica catalogs along with session history are optional when restoring a configuration backup
- Veeam can automatically setup your powershell policy for you during restore
- Veeam can back up existing databases before restoring over top of them.
- You can specify new passwords for the backed up credentials if they have changed between the backup and restore times.
- After a restore has completed a components upgrade will be checked and ran.
- After a restore has completed VBR can perform a sync operation for backup/replicas created on the server and tape libraries connected to it. This is ran if
- you restored a database from a backup created on 7.0 in restore mode
- you restored a database created with 8.0 in restore mode and selected to restore data from the backup and replica catalog.
You should also follow the below pre-reqs before restoring a configuration backup
- Stop all running jobs
- Check version of backup server. For instance v9 can restore configuration backups from 7 update 4, 8, and 9
Global Notification Settings
Veeam Backup & Replication can be setup to send out some alerts and notifications globally – some of which can be overridden on a per job status, but this section will just focus on global notifications.
Setting up notifications settings within Veeam is done through the Options option of the main menu on the email tab. From here we can specify things such as the smtp server to use, it’s port and authentication methods. We can also customize what our notification settings in terms of jobs look like for instance
- to – who the email goes to, anyone setup in this global area will receive notifications about every job ran on the system. Can be left empty if you wish as we can define additional emails to get notifications on a per job basis
- Subject – contains the following variables for use %time% (completion time), %jobName%, %jobResult%, %VMCount% and %issues% (number of VMs with warning or failed status).
- We can choose whether to notify on success, warning, and/or failure.
- Suppress notifications till the last retry
Aside from job messages we can also setup other notifications from VBR on the notifications tab such as
- Low Disk Space – Veeam will check disk space on datastore and target repository and include a warning message if it is below a certain threshold (warning is in the job session details). The threshold is in terms of percent on the backup storage, and in terms of GB on the datastore details.
- Support Expiration – By default, Veeam will warn all email recipients about the support expiration up to 14 days before it expires. This is included in every email notification sent from Veeam. This can be disabled here.
- Update Notifications – When enabled Veeam will automatically check for new product version and patches from the Veeam website.
SNMP
Veeam can also send SNMP traps with the status of the jobs performed on the backup server. SNMP traps can be sent to 5 different destinations. From the SNMP tab input your receiver and community information and setting up your service properties with the Windows SNMP service are requirements to make this happen. Then, from within your job you simply check the Send SNMP notifications for this job check box within the Notification tab of the Job Options.
