Veeam has released v8 of it’s Backup and Replication software. As a long time Veeam user this is a release I have been waiting for. Previously, Veeam had released support for storage snapshots on HP storage arrays, but with my environments being primarily NetApp over the last few years I wasn’t able to take advantage. Now in v8, we can restore and backup directly from snapshot. This speeds up the process and limits the impact on the Virtual Machines in the environment.
This guide walks you through a brand new installation of Veeam Backup & Replication v8 on Server 2012 and how to add your NetApp storage array as an object to browse existing snapshots. This is a high-level guide and in the future I’ll do a more in-depth backup/restore from Storage. For my guide on installing Veeam v7 with Windows 2012 R2 Data Deduplication, click here.
If you’re not interested in a custom SQL Express installation as well, pick up the guide at step 15. Steps 1-15 show how to install SQL Express to the secondary drive to prevent growing databases from affecting the main OS partition.
Prerequisites:
1. Dedicated server for installing Veeam
2. License file for Veeam (copied out to the server)
3. Latest version of Veeam v8 downloaded and mounted on the server (the installer is in an .ISO)
4. A service account for running the Veeam services (Optional, but my preferred method)
5. Username/password with admin rights to vCenter
6. Username/password for NetApp array (for this post I’ll be using the ‘root’ account)
Steps:
1. Right click the DVD drive and click “Open”
2. Navigate to Redistr -> x64. Locate SQLEXPRx64.exe, right click and choose “Run as administrator”
3. Click “Yes” to run the installer if prompted
4. Under the “Installation” section, click “New SQL Server stand-alone installation”
5. Click the check box for “I accept the license terms” and decide if you want to send feature usage data to Microsoft then click “Next”
6. Ensure the check box for “Include SQL Server product updates” is checked and click “Next”
7. Updates and setup files will install…
8. Choose the features to install (Database Engine Services is the only thing required). Choose the install directory (I always choose the secondary drive of the machine and click “Next”
9. Choose a name for the instance or leave as default (SQLExpress), choose the instance root directory (secondary drive again) and click “Next”
10. Enter a service account for running the SQL DB engine (or leave it as local system) and click “Next”
11. Choose “Mixed mode” for the authentication type then enter a password for the “sa” account (Immediately save this password somewhere). Choose the groups/users that will be SQL Server administrators
a. Be default, only users/groups added here will have access to the Veeam console. If you don’t want to grant permissions to the SQL instance, you can grant access to these users/groups for the Veeam database after it has been created
12. Click on the “Data Directories” tab and ensure all the directories are pointing to the secondary drive and click “Next”
13. Choose whether to send error reports and click “Next” and the installation will begin
14. Once the installation completes, click “Close”
15. Close the “SQL Server Installation Center” window. Navigate back to the root of the DVD drive. Right click on “Setup.exe” and choose “Run as administrator”
16. Click “Yes” to run the installer if prompted
17. Click “install” for “Veeam Backup & Replication”
18. Click “Next”
19. Read and accept the license terms and click “Next”
20. Click “Browse” and locate your license file then click “Next”
21. Choose the features to install and the install directory then click “Next”
a. To install to a different location (like a secondary drive), the folders need to be created ahead of time
22. If any features are missing, click “Install”
23. Once the system configuration check passes, click “Next”
24. Review the default configuration and if no changes need to be made, click “Install”
25. Once the install completes, click “Finish”
26. Close the setup window and restart the server
27. After the server finishes rebooting, login and view the services to ensure the Veeam and SQL services that are “Automatic” have started
28. Open “Veeam Backup & Replication”
29. Click “Managed servers” on the left side and then click “VMware vSphere”
30. Enter the name or IP of the vCenter Server and click “Next”
31. Click the “Add” button and then enter the username/password of an account with permissions on the vCenter server. Click “OK” then click “Next”
32. Click “Finish”
33. To add your NetApp storage systems to Veeam, click on “Storage Infrastructure” and then click the “Add Storage” button
34. Click “NetApp Data ONTAP”
35. Enter the Name or IP of the storage system and click “Next”
36. Click “Add” to add credentials to connect to the NetApp then choose the protocol and port. Click “Next”
37. If the name/IP and credentials work, click finish and discovery of VMs and LUNs/Volumes will begin.
38. Once storage and VMs have been discovered, click “Close”
39. In the “Storage Infrastructure” view, expand “NetApp”, then the storage system. Choose a volume with virtual machines and current volume snapshots. Expand the volume, choose a snapshot and see what VMs are inside.
a. From this view you can delete existing snapshots, create new storage snapshots, and rescan the volume for new snapshots. At the VM-level, you can instantly recover the VM from snapshot, restore guest-OS files, and even restore objects from Active Directory, Exchange, SQL or SharePoint.
40. Click on “Backup & Replication” then expand “Backups” and click on “Storage snapshots.” You’ll see a list of all the volumes that have snapshots, what VM’s are in those snapshots, and how many restore points are available.
This is the basics of installing Veeam v8 and connecting to your vCenter Server and NetApp Storage. The process is incredibly simple and like every else from Veeam it just works. In the future I intend to add more restore scenarios such as application item recovery and VM recovery from storage snapshots.
