GA: - Veeam Availability Suite 9.5

VAS 9.5 has GA !

Veeam® Availability Suite™ 9.5 builds even further on a number of enterprise enhancements that were introduced in v9 last January to help customers meet today’s service-level objectives by enabling the recovery of any IT service and related applications and data within seconds and minutes. With this release, 9.5 introduces over 175 new features and enhancements to deliver Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™.

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 includes the following new capabilities:

·        Enterprise Scalability Enhancements to help users scale more efficiently and effectively, regardless of environment size and the number of VMs

·        Advanced ReFS Integration offering greater performance and capacity efficiencies for large-scale datasets while ensuring backup data resiliency and the protection of business critical applications

·        FULL integration with Microsoft 2016 data center technologies to help users modernize their private cloud platforms and enterprise applications

·        Direct restore to Microsoft Azure to optimize resource allocation and help users gain new DR options with cloud restore for ANY Veeam backup to Azure

·        Integration with Nimble Storage snapshots to help Nimble users reduce the impact on their production environments and achieve lower RTPOs

·        VMware vCloud Director Support to simplify management and increase efficiency for service providers by empowering tenants with self-service backup and restore capabilities

And much more, including chargeback and billing for virtual and backup infrastructures in Veeam ONE 9.5! For more info, please go to https://www.veeam.com/data-center-availability-suite.html

Build Nano Server Using Nano Server Image Builder Tool

Time for us to build nano server, the easier way by using Nano Server Image Builder.

To do so, you need

• Windows 10 . Make sure it has join to domain if you would like the nano server to join domain. You will encounter fail error message if Windows 10 is running on workgroup.
• Download Windows 10 ADK from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/windows-assessment-deployment-kit and install on Windows 10.
• Download Nano Server Image Builder from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54065 and install it.

Start the builder!

Here is quick screenshot:-

(a) 2 options - create an virtual image or to bootable USB media.

I just select "Nano Server Image" as i am going to use on my lab environment.

p/s:- click the image to view in large mode

(b) Enter Windows Server 2016 iso

(c) Select Virtual machine image, output name, size and log 

(d) Select Nano server edition & select packages to deploy. I'm selecting Hyper-V roles.

Now it is much more easier.

(e) any driver. Just add-on

(f) enter nano computer name & administrator password

(g) Select join to domain and enter domain name

(h) Put network information.

(i) Finally click "Create Nano Server image"

It will take the builder to create an image. Without you realise, it will complete within few minutes.

Give it a try! Enjoy!

Restore Linux Data on Microsoft Azure Using Veeam Agent

Contacted by customer. They have Linux workload on-premise & would like to use Microsoft Azure as DR site.

Requirement:-

• Linux workload on-premise
• Use Microsoft Azure -Compute VM as DR site
• Able to restore data backup from on-premise/Azure
• No recovery of virtual machine. Just data
• Linux Azure VM has created with application without latest data

p/s:-click on image to view in large mode

Here is my proposal:-

• Veeam Agent for Linux install on Linux physical/Linux VM. Configure to backup and store into Veeam Repository
• Use Centralize Veeam Repository to store backup data. Customer able to restore on-premise & Azure Linux VM.
• Configure Backup Copy Job to Veeam Repository on MS Azure. This will copy backup data to MS Azure via site to site VPN. Customer will have a copy of data on-premise & a copy of data on MS Azure.

When disaster happen,

a) customer can restore from on-premise or

b) customer can restore from MS Azure or

c) Use Veeam Explorer on-premise to restore item level recovery. Must have FLR appliance on-premise hypervisor.

Let look into situation that we want to use MS Azure VM as a place where entire production site is down. Here is the configuration that you need to configure:

1. Initially has export Veeam Configuration from Linux on-premise using cmdline- "veeamconfig config export --file config.txt

2. Install Veeam Agent on MS Azure Linux VM. 

3. Transfer the configuration to MS Azure Linux VM. Don't import first.

4. Pres C to configure a dummy backup job with this settings: 

• Use different backup job name than the original name.
• Use VBR as Destination
• Choose Repository - (Veeam Repository at MS Azure) - location where backup copy job data is stored.
• Uncheck "Run the job automatically"

You also can configure backup repository from cmdline:- veeamconfig repository

We just create a dummy backup job so it is connected to Veeam Backup Repository to get the backup data.

Then import the Veeam Backup Configuration file - veeamconfig config import --file config.txt

• Open Veeam Console by type command "veeam"
• Press "R" to recover file
• You able to view your previous backup job and you can start to restore the file.

To learn more on Veeam Agent for Linux, feel free to check out:-

• Backup Linux Workload Using Veeam Agent
• Restore Linux Workload Using Veeam Agent

Firewall Ports When Restore SQL Database Using Veeam Explorer

Been playing around for the past a week on firewall policy in my lab environment. Documented here in case anyone need any assistance/facing the similar situation.

The scenario was:-

• firewall in between different subnet/vlan
• application (SQL server) is located in 10.0.0.0/24
• Veeam Backup Server (VBR+Proxy+repository) located in 192.168.0.0/24
• ESX host located in 192.168.0.0/24

Customer having problem when using Veeam Explorer to recover a database back to SQL Server located in 10.0.0.0/24

Found that firewall is blocking traffic between 192.168.0.0/24 and 10.0.0.0/24.

Here is the finding on firewall ports that need to open when 

a) Using Veeam Explorer on Veeam Backup Server

VBR -> SQL

TCP/ 1433

TCP/UDP 135

TCP/UDP 445

TCP/ 1025

TCP/ 137-139

TCP/49191

TCP 6160 -6170

UDP 137-138

SQL -> VBR

TCP 3260-3270

TCP 49191

p/s: Click on image to view in large mode.

b) Using Veeam Explorer on same subnet as SQL Server (10.0.0.0/24). Staging Server point to SQL VM

Remote Veeam Explorer ->VBR

TCP/ 9392

TCP/ 9401

VBR -> SQL

TCP/6160 -6170

SQL -> VBR

TCP/3260 -3262

p/s: Click on image to view in large mode.

Note:- 

We notice during SQL Database restore, there are traffic SQL -> AD (dynamic ports)

Do take note that above firewall policy is based on my lab environment testing. Do test on your environment and view the log firewall to get the accurate result.