Veeam Backup & Replication – Part 2 – Recovery From Failover

Reading Time: 9 minutes

In my previous post (Veeam Backup & Replication – Part 1 – Building Replication Capabilities), we discussed offsite replication jobs using Veeam Backup & Replication v10. As per the Customer’s use case, we created a replication job to ensure a business-critical VM is replicated to a secondary site (Site B) in readiness for any unforeseen failures, planned maintenance, or downtime at the primary site (Site A).

This article discusses the failover and failback options available to us utilising Veeam Backup & Replication and, more importantly, when and where they should be used. We will then demo the failover process of our protected business-critical VM from Site A to Site B, and close by failing back live operations from Site B to Site A.

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Veeam Backup & Replication – Part 1 – Building Replication Capabilities

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Just like the time I witnessed my first ever vMotion, seeing Veeam replication in the wild had a similar effect. As its name suggests, Veeam Backup & Replication is about more than just backups and offers customers rather neat replication functionality.

This article discusses Veeam Backup & Replication v10 offsite replication jobs. We also protect a business-critical virtual machine by replicating it to a secondary site. In Part 2 (Veeam Backup & Replication – Part 2 – Recovery From Failover), we will migrate the VM’s live operations to the secondary site before reviewing the available failback options.

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Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE)

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This one has been a long-time coming. I’ve been using Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE since 2014 and, in anger, since v8.0. I’ve designed, deployed, and managed Veeam solutions; however, I’ve never gotten around to obtaining any Veeam certifications.

If you’ve ever met me in person, I’ve likely told you how much I love the Veeam Availability Suite and how cool it is that Veeam keeps cramming-in so many awesome features with every release. Despite so many great features, Veeam still retains the ability to keep things simple, and I’m a fan of keeping things simple.

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vSphere 6.7 Update 1 and Veeam Compatibility Issues

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Yesterday, Tuesday 16th October saw the much anticipated release of VMware’s vSphere 6.7 Update 1, however, shortly after the announcement a number of Veeam users decried the release due to compatibility issues with Veeam’s Backup & Replication suite. None other than Veeam’s Anton Gostev first announced the issue with the below tweet:

The very next day the Veeam team announced a workaround in the form of Veeam KB2784, as well as ‘out-of-the-box’ support being included with highly awaited (and much delayed) next release, Update 4.

Where the fault lies with such release/compatibility issues is not the goal of this post (which Twitter seems to be more focused on). However, with a high number of pros likely raising internal changes to upgrade their vCenter(s) and ESXi hosts, you’ll want to implement the Veeam workaround in-line with this upgrade, as well as a number of solid backup/restore tests.

Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 3a

Reading Time: 6 minutes

In this article we’ll cover the simple process of applying the latest Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 update, Update 3a (released July 2nd 2018), however, I’d first like to cover what’s new in Update 3a, and why you might like to upgrade.

Update 3a brings support for a host of new VMware and Microsoft features, as well as a substantial number of enhancements. With VMware vSphere 6.5 U2 and 6.7 now well into GA, the release of Update 3a is something most of us have been craving in order to obtain that final green light to upgrade our vSphere environments. From the Veeam Release Notes for Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 3a the enhancements and newly supported features are detailed below.

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Veeam Exchange Explorer

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange – Configuring Application Impersonation

Reading Time: 2 minutes

To restore an Exchange mailbox/folder/item via the Veeam Explorer for Exchange, the account connecting to the Exchange server will require Full Access to the mailbox in question. To perform such a restore (without having to give your entire backup admin teams Full Access to every mailbox in your estate), we will cover the process of granting Application Impersonation to your administrative staff. This procedure applies to both on premise Exchange and Office 365 and can be easily implemented via a few simple Exchange Management Shell commands.

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