Cloud, Physical and Workstation Technical Overview for ... · Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3 introduces new capabilities for the Veeam Agents and the use of just the Veeam

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Cloud, Physical and Workstation Technical Overview for Veeam Agents with Enterprise Storage Capabilities Rick VanoverVMware vExpert, MCP, MCITP, MCSA

© 2017 Veeam Software. Confidential information. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 3

Cloud, Physical and Workstation Technical Overview for Veeam Agents with Enterprise Storage Capabilities

AbstractThis document is an overview of deploying the Veeam® Agent for Microsoft Windows and the Veeam Agent for Linux in conjunction with Veeam Availability Suite™ without the use of any virtual machines (VMs). Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3 introduces new capabilities for the Veeam Agents and the use of just the Veeam Agents will be covered in this document.

Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3 and updates to Veeam AgentsVeeam® Availability Suite™ 9.5 Update 3 was made generally available (GA) in December 2017 and provides many highly anticipated features:

• Veeam Backup & Replication™ 9.5 Update 3 includes agent management in Veeam Backup & Replication, support for VMware Cloud on AWS, support for IBM Spectrum Virtualize and Lenovo storage integrations, the Cloud Connect Recycle Bin and many more capabilities.

• Veeam ONE™ 9.5 Update 3 includes monitoring and reporting for Veeam Agent backup jobs and new backup compliance reporting including geolocation reporting logic.

In conjunction with Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3, there are key updates to both the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and the Veeam Agent for Linux. Key updates for the agents include:

Cluster support for Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (Failover cluster, Exchange DAG clusters and SQL Always On Clusters)

• A new CBT driver for Windows Servers for fast incremental backups

• Support for OneDrive as a backup target for Windows systems

Veeam Agent for Linux support for encryption, Cloud Connect and writing to the Scale-out Backup Repository™

Agents-only use caseThere are a number of use cases where there may be a need for a Veeam Backup & Replication installation only managing Veeam Agents. Some of these may include business requirements to keep virtual and physical backup infrastructures separate as well as an organization with no virtual machines (VMs) or using another solution for VMs. Additionally, if deployed in the hyperscale public clouds; Veeam Backup & Replication consoles will likely not have any VMware or Hyper-V sockets to manage in the inventory.

In this scenario, a Veeam administrator can easily manage backups of Veeam Agent for Linux and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows with the full offering of functions provided by Veeam Backup & Replication that may at first seem to require a virtualization offering defined in the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus offerings. Some of the key capabilities include:

• Performing Backup Copy Jobs of Agent backups (optionally with Built-In WAN Acceleration)

• Writing Veeam Agent backups to the Scale-out Backup Repository

• Writing Veeam Agent jobs to a Tape Infrastructure

The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux have two licensing types: Server and Workstation. The differences between the two are overviewed online, with the main differences being support for multiple jobs, pre/post scripting options for Linux, application-aware image processing, file indexing, transaction log backups for databases and flexible server scheduling options being available for Windows systems.

https://www.veeam.com/backup-version-standard-enterprise-editions-comparison.html

https://www.veeam.com/agents-windows-linux-pricing.html



Veeam Agent Edition ComparisonThe Edition comparison for the Veeam Agents is a valuable resource:

https://www.veeam.com/veeam_agent_windows_2_0_editions_comparison_ds.pdf

https://www.veeam.com/veeam_agent_linux_1_0_editions_comparison_ds.pdf

The figure below is a use case that will be shown throughout this paper for reference that includes an installation of Veeam Availability Suite, a collection of both Windows and Linux systems backed up with Veeam Agents and the Scale-out Backup Repository to hold these backups:

Licensing considerations with Veeam Agent-only licensing in Veeam Backup & Replication Since Update 3 of the 9.5 release, Veeam Backup & Replication has taken on many enhancements for interoperability with Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux. When a license for either of the Veeam Agents is installed, the licensing panel may look something like the figure below:





This screen in Veeam Backup & Replication shows that Agent licenses (both Windows and Linux) are installed in the console. If the console or the implementation has no VMware or Hyper-V infrastructure, yet some of the advanced data management capabilities listed above are desired, a special Zero Socket License is installed as well. This is shown in the figure below:

This will also be required for the use case of backing up Windows and Linux systems running in the public cloud to use the Scale-out Backup Repository (built in the cloud) or to transfer the backup data on-premises or to another cloud with the Built-In WAN Acceleration.

What is the Zero Socket License?The Zero Socket License is used to “unlock” the Enterprise Plus capabilities in Veeam Backup & Replication. These features are not available in Veeam Backup & Replication Free Edition with a paid Veeam Agent license. The Zero Socket License unlocks this functionality without having to purchase a socket for VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V backup. A Zero Socket License is obtained from sales only if Veeam Agents are purchased.

Once this license is installed in Veeam Backup & Replication, it is then easy to access the full functionality of Veeam Agents and Veeam Backup & Replication.

Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Linux writing a Scale-out Backup RepositoryWhether its on-premises for physical servers and workstations, or in the public cloud for instances there, writing Veeam Agent backups to the Scale-out Backup Repository is one of the more common use cases where having the Zero Socket License in place will unlock a critical piece of functionality.



Scale-out Backup Repository configurationFor this example, a standard Scale-out Backup Repository is used with four extents backed by similar storage and a data locality policy. By using four extents, Veeam Enterprise Plus capabilities are required and is supported by the Zero Socket License. The Scale-out Backup Repository is shown below:

The key functionality in Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 3 is the Agent Management. For organizations leveraging the Agent Management feature; the permissions to write the backups to the backup repository are set in the backup job. This makes the scaling of the permissions for writing to the backup repository very scalable. Specifically, during the backup wizard of Agents there is no security prompt to specify credentials for the backup repository. This is similar to the behavior of backing up virtual machines, but different than the case of backing up unmanaged Veeam Agents which is explained below. Unmanaged Veeam Agents are installations of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and for Linux that are not part of a discovery task and placed in a protection group. There is a separate section of the Inventory section of Protected Computers identifying Unmanaged agents, in the example below one individual computer is writing backups to the repositories as unmanaged:



Installations of Veeam Agents that are using the Free Edition will always show up as unmanaged in the Veeam Backup & Replication console.

If any unmanaged Veeam Agents are used, access permissions need to be set before the Agent backup can write to it. Access Permissions are a property of the backup repository (regular and Scale-out). This is a collection of accounts that can access the repository (this applies to regular repositories as well) for backup operations. This property of the backup repository is shown below:



The account used for Access Permissions should match the master account configuration or the custom credential set in the protection group. This configuration is part of a standard use case to put Agent backups on a backup repository and is unlocked for the Scale-out Backup Repository by the Zero Socket License.

In both the situation of an unmanaged Agent and when Agent backups are set in a protection group when the Zero Socket License is not applied, there is an error message like the one shown below on an Veeam Agent backup job:

Once the Zero Socket License is applied to the Veeam Backup & Replication console, the Veeam Agent backup will indicate that it is able to write to the Scale-out Backup Repository:

For more information on the Scale-out Backup Repository, visit the HelpCenter.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_repository_sobr.html?ver=95



Additional Veeam Agent functionalityIn addition to the Scale-out Backup Repository, other capabilities come into play with the Agents that may require the Zero Socket license. This includes:

• Writing Agent backup jobs to tape

• Leveraging the Built-In WAN Acceleration for the Backup Copy Job

• Full Veeam Explorer functionality

Built-In WAN Acceleration is an optional transfer technique of the Backup Copy Job, and can be done within the Veeam Backup & Replication server with the Zero Socket license installed. The Backup Copy Job for Agents can combine both Managed and Unmanaged Agent backups. The figure below shows the Backup Copy Job wizard selecting each type of backup job in use from the examples shown in this paper (Servers, Workstations and Free Edition) Agent backups:

The additional levels of functionality come by default on Enterprise and Enterprise Plus licenses for environments with some amounts of virtual machines, but when only Agents are involved the Zero Socket license is required. Many Veeam Explorer features will be “unlocked” with the Zero Socket license installed. These are highlighted below:

• Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory: This provides user and computer account restore options via an export in LDIFDE format or restore back to Active Directory, as well as the ability to restore passwords. The abilities to do multiple selection restore and container restore, Group Policy Objects (GPO) restore, Active Directory-integrated DNS records restore and Configuration Partition objects restore are all available with the Zero Socket license installed.

• Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange: This provides Exchange mailbox item restore via save, send and PST export of items backed up. The abilities to have full Explorer support including restore back into the original mailbox is available with the Zero Socket license installed.

• Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server: This provides the ability to do point-in-time export of SQL database files locally. The abilities to include agentless transaction log backup and replay, transaction-level recovery of databases and SQL objects (tables, stored procedures, views, etc.) back to the original or new SQL server are all available with the Zero Socket license installed.

• Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint: This provides the ability to support SharePoint item restore via save, send and export. The abilities to do entire site and site collection restore, as well as restore to original location are all available with the Zero Socket license installed.



• Veeam Explorer for Oracle: Having a Zero Socket license installed will provide the ability to restore individual Oracle databases with ease, without needing an extensive Oracle background or having to search for database and transaction-log files. This includes agentless, transaction-log backup, archived log management and transaction-level recovery of databases back to the original or new Oracle server.

In all situations, leveraging the Veeam Explorers for restores is a task that is initiated outside of the Agent; whether the restore is done with Veeam Backup & Replication or with Veeam Enterprise Manager.

Configuration testing with Veeam Agents and Veeam Backup & Replication During setting up Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows with Veeam Backup & Replication, it is natural to want to test these configurations. Setting up a lab environment is one way to set up new backup arrangements and to get familiar with the new products. For individuals starting with this process, it would be a good idea to use a test environment with the following:

• One or more systems with Veeam Backup & Replication installed on them

• Storage to place backups and use advanced features like the Scale-out Backup Repository

• Windows and Linux systems to install a Veeam Agent

After setting up this test environment, it could resemble something like this:

This also becomes an opportunity to add many services to this installation. It is also recommended that Veeam Availability Suite (a combination of Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam ONE) be used to have monitoring and reporting on the Veeam Agents as well.

After the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure for testing is created, one or more protection groups can be created to identify the different systems that will have the Veeam Agent installed. The protection groups can be built from a list of computer names, a .CSV file or a collection of objects from Active Directory. This is logically shown below:



After the protection group is made, a backup job is assigned in the Veeam Backup & Replication console and will place the backups of these Veeam Agent systems onto the Scale-out Backup Repository. This is logically shown in the figure below:

This is the first example of moving Veeam Agent backups to a feature in Veeam Backup & Replication that would require the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus features to be made available to the console. If additional features such as backup jobs to tape or WAN-Accelerated Backup Copy Jobs were to be used; they also could be used with the Zero Socket License installed. These use cases are shown below:



One mechanism that is convenient in lab environments to validate functionality with licensing is the Veeam.Backup.Manager.exe and Veeam.Backup.EnterpriseService.exe command line tools.

Caution: The Veeam.Backup.Manager.exe and Veeam.Backup.EnterpriseService.exe tools can remove licenses from a Veeam Backup & Replication console; be sure to have copies of the license files elsewhere.

Licenses once they are installed can be manipulated (including removal) from either Veeam Backup & Replication or from Veeam Enterprise Manager. You can find information on these tools at Veeam KB2235.

For testing Veeam Backup & Replication systems, one thing that may be desired is to remove all licenses. A good scenario here is to remove an NFR (not for resale lab license) and install a Zero Socket License. The command to do this for a Veeam Backup & Replication system without Enterprise Manager is:

Veeam.Backup.Manager — removelicense all

This interaction, plus a warning prompt, is shown below:

Once this happens, all licenses are removed from the Veeam Backup & Replication console. This includes Veeam Agents as well as any socket-based licenses. This will take the installation to Free Edition functionality. At this point, adding the licenses individually for Veeam Agents and the Zero Socket License will explicitly unlock the Veeam Backup & Replication server functions (Scale-out Backup Repository, Tape Jobs, Built-in WAN Acceleration) and assign licenses to the Veeam Agents. Once this is done, the licensing panel may look something like this:

https://www.veeam.com/kb2235



Testing this configuration is a worthwhile exercise for systems deployed in the cloud as well as on-premises that may have only Veeam Agents connecting to a Veeam Backup & Replication console.

Where to find additional informationSee below for content links that are directly (or closely) related to using Veeam Agents with Veeam Backup & Replication:

• Scale-out Backup Repository: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_repository_sobr.html?ver=95

• Access Permissions for backup repositories: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/integrate_permissions.html?ver=20

• Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows edition comparison: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_agent_windows_2_0_editions_comparison_ds.pdf

• Veeam Agent for Linux edition comparison: https://www.veeam.com/veeam_agent_linux_1_0_editions_comparison_ds.pdf

• Veeam Backup Manager tool: https://www.veeam.com/kb2235

• Veeam NFR program: https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-get-free-veeam-nfr-key.html

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_repository_sobr.html?ver=95

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/integrate_permissions.html?ver=20



https://www.veeam.com/kb2235

https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-get-free-veeam-nfr-key.html



Rick Vanover is the Director of Technical Product Marketing at Veeam Software based in Columbus, Ohio. Rick is a popular blogger, podcaster and active member of the virtualization community. Rick’s IT experience includes system administration and IT management with virtualization being the central theme of his career recently. Community designations: Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert, Cisco Champion.

About Veeam SoftwareVeeam® recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-On Business™, a business that must operate 24.7.365. To address this, Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™ by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) of < 15 minutes for all applications and data, through a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility. Veeam Availability Suite™, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication™, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 51,000 ProPartners and more than 267,500 customers worldwide. Veeam‘s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit http://www.veeam.com.

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Cloud, Physical and Workstation Technical Overview for ... · Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 3 introduces new capabilities for the Veeam Agents and the use of just the Veeam

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