Search This Blog

Saturday, July 30, 2016

Integrate NetApp AltaVault With Veeam and Microsoft Azure

Next scenario, we are integrating NetApp Altavault with Veeam Backup & Replication. NetApp AltaVault is known as Cloud Integrated Storage and it support multiple Public Cloud & Private Cloud.

Our scenario:
  • Veeam Backup & Replication
  • NetApp Altavault
  • Microsoft Azure

Below is the screenshot of supported cloud that you can integrate with AltaVault.


On our test environment, we are integrating with Microsoft Azure Storage & set bandwidth limit to Cloud Replication Interface to avoid appliance use entire organization Internet bandwidth.


After integrate Netapp Altavault with Microsoft Azure Storage, we able to view total Azure Storage size is 625TB (local disk + Azure Storage)


 You need to configure SMB Share with deduplication and compression enabled. Data store on Altavault will be dedup and compress.


At this stage, we have configure
  • Integrate Netapp Altavault with Microsoft Azure Storage
  • Configure SMB Share

Next, we will start to add SMB Share as Veeam Backup Repository.






Then you can start to configure backup job to backup virtual machine to new repository. Do remember to uncheck "Enable inline data deduplication" and set compression level to "Dedup friendly". We would like the storage appliance to do compression & deduplication.


Here is the result after backup completed.


  • Virtual machine original size: 2.3 GB
  • Deduplicated Data : 1.28GB
  • Deduplication factor is 1.8X

Note:- Result is varies depend on workload.

Then we realize data is automatically replicated to cloud. Below is the screenshot from the report.


After completed, here is the screenshot of usage on cloud & disk

Cloud storage use: 1.27 GB

On Azure storage, we notice data is in different format. We believe it had been encrypted.


Besides than backup, we did tested recover entire virtual machine & granular item level recovery using Veeam Explorer. Both work as expected.

To conclude, we manage to 
  • use NetApp Altavault as Veeam Repository (as SMB Shares)
  • Store backup data to Altavault
  • Tier data from on-premise to Cloud

Stay tuned for our next post....

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Integrate Nimble Storage With Veeam Backup and Replication v9.5

Previously we've covered


Next stop, we are going to look into integrate Nimble Storage with Veeam Backup & Replication v9.5.



With integration we able to backup from storage snapshot & create on demand sandbox using storage snapshot.

Before we proceed, please take note this blog post is early and some functionality may changed or modified on the GA release.

Let have a look on our test scenario:

[Test environment]

  • Veeam Backup and Replication ver9.5 Beta 1
  • Nimble Storage
[Integration]
Get Nimble storage ready before start to add into Veeam.


New storage - Nimble! join on one of the supported storage for storage snapshot


Enter Nimble Management IP and credential





Once successful added, you can manually create storage snapshot from Veeam Console


Create backup job on virtual machine located on Nimble Storage. From the history, you will notice backup is created from storage snapshot and transfer to veeam repository.



Backup completed and you able to use Veeam explorer to perform granular item level recovery.

Further testing, we created on demand sandbox ( an isolated virtual lab) using storage snapshot.


An isolated virtual lab is created based from storage snapshot.

Everything was running well and we had a great time playing with the integration between Veeam and Nimble Storage.


That's concluded our test on integration.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Recover Any Veeam Backup to Cloud Using Veeam Backup and Replication v9.5

In our previous post, we have walk though on using Veeam Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure. You can check previous post from here. You can deploy Veeam Direct Restore Virtual Appliance from Azure MarketPlace.

Upcoming on Veeam Backup and Replication ver9.5, you can directly restore any veeam backup to Microsoft Azure by using VBR UI. With this feature, you able to use Microsoft Azure as test environment.

Here is a comparison about current direct restore vs ver9.5


You can use

  • Veeam Endpoint Backup
  • Veeam Backup Free Edition
  • Veeam Backup and Replication ver9.5

to restore backup to Microsoft Azure.

Before we proceed, please take note this blog post is early and some functionality may changed or modified on the GA release.

This round we have tested this features on test environment

  • Veeam Backup & Replication v9.5 beta 1
  • VM running Windows Server 2008 R2
  • VM running Centos
  • Internet bandwidth (download/upload) - 30 Mbps/ 10 Mbps

Note:- 

  • UI screenshot may different when product GA
  • Test result may different depend on Internet bandwidth
Let walk-through 

Start by integrate Veeam with Microsoft Azure and select Deployment model. Download your subscription profile and link it. You have an option to deploy Linux based appliance on Azure for recover Linux workload. This appliance remain power off and will boot up when restore linux VM to Azure. No appliance is require to recover Windows VM






Configure backup job to backup virtual machine. By referring to below screenshot, you able to see 
Data size -110GB. Using patented technology, Bitlooker it able to reduce backup data size by excluding empty deleted block. Therefore the backup data size is 14GB (with built-in deduplication & compression features available on Veeam)

Note:- Compression & deduplication is varies depend on VM

Before we start to restore, you need to configure Azure Storage & Azure Network. Once done, let start to restore. No site to site VPN (S2S) is require.

On deployment model, you can deploy to Resource Manager (new portal) or Classic (old portal)



Select VM size, Azure Network, Azure Storage and Resource Group

You can exclude disk as well




Final result in our test environment:-
  • Windows VM (9.2GB) recover to cloud within 2+ hour
  • Linux VM (2.6GB) recover to cloud within 38 minutes
Note:- Do take note, this result is varies depend on Internet bandwidth




We notice Linux appliance stopped automatically (deallocated after Linux VM conversion)

That's all for today, hope you have a clear idea on how to recover veeam backup to Cloud using Veeam Backup & Replication ver9.5

Backup Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Using Veeam Backup and Replication v9.5

We are excited on upcoming Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V,  day by days it is closing to GA. This round we test backup Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.

New version of Hyper-V will have these features

  • New VM Configuration version 
  • VM Configuration Format to binary format (vmcx file). Prior version in xml format. 
  • Production checkpoint

Most existing version of backup will implement kernel level file system filter in order to gain efficiency during backup. This has makes it hard for  backup vendor to update newer version of Windows Server and increase complexity of Hyper-V deployment.

Therefore, on upcoming Windows Server 2016, Microsoft has built in charge based tracking for backup and production checkpoint. Production checkpoints are point-in-time images of VMs. When producing production checkpoints, Microsoft Hyper-V does not put VMs to the saved state. Instead, it quiesces data on VMs with the help of the Microsoft VSS technology (for Microsoft Windows VMs) or file system freeze (for Linux VMs). The resulting checkpoints are application-consistent, so you can recover VMs without any data loss.

In order for Veeam to perform online backup with the help of production checkpoint, you need to meet these conditions:

  • VM have a new format of configuration files (VMCX and VMRS)
  • VMs are deployed on the Hyper-V Server 2016 or Nano Server
  • Cluster functional level is upgraded for Hyper-V Cluster
Before we proceed, please take note this blog post is early and some functionality may changed or modified on the GA release.

Let have a look on our test scenario:

[Test environment]

  • Windows Server Hyper-V 2016 TP5
  • Veeam Backup and Replication ver9.5 Beta 1
  • Import VMs from Windows Server 2012 R2. Guest operating system is Windows Server 2008 R2


Backup completed but with warning message which requested to upgrade our existing VM configuration ver5.1 to latest version.


To upgrade configuration version, you can use Hyper-V Manager. Just right click VM and select Upgrade Configuration Version.


Configuration version upgraded!

Re-run backup job and now Veeam able to backup your VMs without any error message.

Test result:-


That's concluded our test on backup Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.