Tag Archives: backup

How to backup vRealize Automation 8.x using Veeam

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In this blog post I am going to dissect backing up vRealize Automation 8.x using Veeam Backup and Replication.

- Understanding the backup methods
- Performing an online backup
- Performing an offline backup

Understanding the Backup Methods

Reading the VMware documentation around this subject can be somewhat confusing at times. And if you pay attention, there are subtle changes between the documents as well. Lets break this down.

  • vRealize Automation 8.0
    • As part of the backup job, you need to run a script to stop the services
    • This is known as an offline backup
    • Depending on your backup software, you can either do this by running a script located on the vRealize Automation appliance or by triggering using the pre-freeze/post-freeze scripts when a snapshot is taken of the VM.
    • The snapshot must not include the virtual machines memory.
    • If you environment is a cluster, you only need to run the script on a single node.
    • All nodes in the cluster must be backed up at the same time.
  • vRealize Automation 8.0.1 and 8.1 (and higher)
    • It is supported to run an online backup
      • No script is needed to shut down the services
    • Snapshot taken as part of the backup must quiesce the virtual machine.
    • The snapshot must not include the virtual machines memory.
    • It is recommended to run the script to stop all services and perform an offline backup.
      • You may also find your backup runs faster, as the virtual machine will become less busy.

Performing an Online Backup

Let’s start with the easier of the two options. Again, this will be supported for vRealize Automation 8.0.1 and higher. Continue reading How to backup vRealize Automation 8.x using Veeam →

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure – Getting Started: Setting up the Infrastructure

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In this blog post we will cover the following topics;

- What is Veeam Backup for Azure
- Getting Started
- - Architecture
- - Deploying from Azure Marketplace
- - Logging on for the first time
- - Connecting to your Microsoft Azure Subscriptions and Storage - - Accounts
- - Configuring a repository account
- Deploying worker VMs
- Monitoring
- Protecting your Veeam Backup for Azure Appliance
- Download Logs

The follow up blog posts are;

- Configuring your first Backup Policy
- - How a backup policy works 
- - Creating a Backup Policy 
- - Viewing and Running a Backup Policy
- Restoring a backup
- - Viewing protected data 
- - File Level Recovery 
- - Virtual Machine Disk Restore 
- - Full VM Restore
- Integrating with Veeam Backup and Replication
- - Adding your Azure Repository to Veeam Backup and Replication 
- - Viewing your protected data 
- - What can you do with your data? 
- - - Restore/Recover/Protect

What is Veeam Backup for Azure?

If we look at the Microsoft document “Shared responsibility in the cloud“, we can see the very open comment;

  • Regardless of the type of deployment, the following responsibilities are always retained by you:
    • Data
    • Endpoints
    • Account
    • Access management

So, if you are always responsible for your data, that means you are responsible for protecting it, at both a security and backup point of view.

Veeam Backup for Azure is a turnkey solution that provides you a backup solution which can quickly and securely protect your data, available within the Azure Marketplace itself. Removing the need to spend hours on designing a solution and configuring the software.

Architecture

There are three main components;

  • Controller Server

A Linux VM deployed into Azure, which runs the Veeam Backup for Azure software.

  • Backup Repositories

Azure blob storage accounts where your Azure VM backups will be saved. The following storage accounts are supported currently;

Image Source

  • Workers

These are Azure VMs which are deployed automatically or manually by Veeam Backup for Azure server and are used for backing up and restoring the data. There is the capability to scale up and scale down the number of workers as needed.

The Azure region that worker VMs are deployed to, depend on the storage account they are linked to.

Each worker can process a single VM at a time, if a worker is idle for 10 minutes or more, then it is decommissioned (when setup to auto scale). Worker VMs, run the following services; A Worker service, which is responsible for fetching data from Azure; File-level recovery service, used for mounting data from a backup to the worker VM to initiate file-level recovery.

(Image Source)

Deploy Veeam Backup for Azure from the Azure Marketplace

The options to access the solution, which is driven via a web portal;

  • Direct via Public IP address
    • I recommend setting up firewall rules if you do this
  • Accessing the portal via a private IP address via the use of a VPN or Azure Express route.
    • If you need a VPN solution, check out VeeamPN.
    • This removes the need to publicly expose the solution.

Logging into the Veeam Backup for Azure Console

Your first login, you’ll provide the username and password configured during the deployment from the marketplace.

In my example, I will be using the publicly assigned IP address to log into the Portal UI. Upon first logon you will need to accept the EULA.

The interface is heavily wizard driven, which makes it simple to use and consume as a solution. If you’ve used Veeam Availability Orchestrator in the past, you’ll recognise similarities with the interface.

Logging into the solution for the first time, you’ll see this getting started screen, which makes it easy to understand how to operationalise the solution and start protecting your data.

Connecting to your Microsoft Azure Subscriptions and Storage Accounts

From the getting started page, we’ll click the first task to connect our Veeam Backup for Azure solution to our Microsoft Azure platform, which takes us to the screen shown below.

Continue reading Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure – Getting Started: Setting up the Infrastructure →

Veeam Backup for Azure – Service Endpoint from virtual network to Microsoft.Storage doesn’t exist

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The Issue

After deploying a new Veeam Backup for Azure setup via the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, I was going through the configuration and when deploying my worker instances, which are used for performing the backup of the virtual machines.

I hit the following error;

The Service Endpoint from virtual network {VNET} and subnet {Name} to Microsoft.Storage doesn't exist.

The Cause

This was caused as I was using an existing storage account in a seperate resource group which I created manually. Which meant the pre-reqs were not met.

The Fix

Quick and easy fix, log into your Azure Portal, browse to your storage account where you are deploying the Worker Instances.

  • Click on “Firewalls and Virtual Networks”
  • Select “Selected Networks”
    • This is recommended from a security perspective
  • Click “Add existing virtual network”
  • Input the details of the virtual network to be used by the Worker Instances
  • Click the “Enable” button
    • This will enable the Service Endpoint on your selected network

Once the Service Endpoint is enabled, you see see a status message in the green text box highlighted, and the status changed to enabled.

  • Click the “Add” button
  • And remember to click save on the “Firewalls and virtual networks” pane.

Going back to your Veeam Backup for Azure portal, you can click “Check Again” on the Worker Configuration Status, and you should see this is successful.

 

Regards

Dean Lewis

vCenter 7.0 – Image based backup is still supported, but won’t be in future versions

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When vSphere 7.0 (and therefore vCenter 7.0) went GA, a number of customers were hit with a very important change;

  • vCenter support for image based backups was no longer supported

Since the GA, after customer feedback, the vCenter 7.0 release notes have been updated and I’m happy to report that Image based backups are still supported.

However, note that this method is now deprecated and will not be supported in a future release.

My advice is to start planning your move to using the native backup capabilities within the vCenter appliance itself, and for further information please see the following resources;

vCenter 7.0 imaged based backups supported but deprecated in the future

 

 

Regards

Dean Lewis

Veeam Backup for Azure – Unable to check required permissions.

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The Issue

When connecting my newly deployed instance of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, I keep hitting the same error message after authenticating my account with Microsoft.

Error: Unable to check required permissions. This might be a problem in Microsoft Azure. Please wait and continue with the wizard later.

Simple enough message, I don’t have the right permissions, yet I knew on my test tenant I was a global admin, (and the only user configured in this tenant) so why was I seeing this error?

The cause

When I downloaded the logs, I found the following, it indicated that my account is connected to two tennants, both of the same name “Default Directory” to make things confusing, and the error was happening on the permissions check with the tenant.

Continue reading Veeam Backup for Azure – Unable to check required permissions. →