Vanguards, Legends and MVP’s. All invited and squized together in a meeting room for 2 full days of intensive sessions filled with content about Veeam… that is the summary of “what is V100-summit” in a nutshell.

Some sessions were regarding the existing products and how to achieve more now, but also with hints toward the future… Future is being tagged with yellow and red… basically keep it for yourself and prepare some interesting blogs to publish at the moment a product releases. Red… is basically the real future on “what’s next in 6months or later”…

If you want to join this exclusive group of people, gain insights and share your knowledge, keep an eye on this guy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maiermax/
Max is going to post a few things on how to get in 😉

It all kicked in with 2 sessions from the main sponsors. Object-First and Wasabi. Followed by information on the recent (ongoing) acquisition of Securiti.ai
Afterwards multiple breakouts covering VDC, Orchestrator, Kasten, AI, V-One…

Still in doubt on joining this club limited to 100people… here are 2 other reasons. V100-members will get the possibility to participate on usertesting and provide direct feedback to product managemetn on user interface.

AND… You get special custom swag!!

Azure Blob… one thing is for certain… there is plenty of it available.

The question is, can we use it for direct backup into the cloud or just for a secondary copy? Everything is always depending on the user requirements, so a solid answer that is always right is just impossible. And in the meanwhile apart from the AWS S3 and the Azure Blob, a lot of alternatives for object storages were born.

Do you want to guarantee extreme fast restore times, then downloading from blobs might not be the best answer. Ok… Instant VM recovery from blobs out of the cloud is possible… but could an OT device work with that latency to the cloud? Would you guarantee fast latency-free lines for doing that with databases?

I was confronted earlier by a client running a POC that couldn’t find the right settings for the blob repositories… and boy… he was right. I had difficulties finding it myself… so that inspired me at 7AM to start clicking these steps together and make it available for the future as a clickable demo. Feel free to use it, use comments or share why you would aim for dedicated network settings during the configuration of the storage account. Happy clicking!!!

https://veeamclick.be/Demos/ComponentsBlobSettings/HTML5/tutorial.html

It seems to be unknown… and many still refer to the Enterprise Manager for it… but nowadays we implemented our RBAC solution in our VDP. And yes, finally… we can make things pretty granular. How?

You could make a matrix based on multiple items. Both related to Backup or Restore as an operational split. Either linked to backup or restore… or in some cases both.

Next is a limitation linked to the operational split. So multiple options are possible depending on the choices made in the previous step.
Restore permissions will narrow down to “what” backups and “where to restore”
While the backup as an operational choice will allow you to narrow down in the “what” to backup and “where to save” it.

Now the nice thing is that all previous functions on selecting workloads in a backupjob will be allowed here too. So you can actually (in case of VMware as a hypervisor) select on abstract tags to gather a broad selection of workloads active in the production or test environment.

This initial version in our console needs to be considered as “version 1”. In a later future more options will become possible, and without a doubt also limitations on the backup-restore permissions-set. I see a good case for a testing-engineer or an auditor that has all view rights, but zero execute rights.

What is missing… just a clickable demo that can be consulted here 😉 V13 Add Roles (RBAC)

It’s there! Downloadable next to the traditional V12.3 mixed components you can now download the V13 Linux based JeOS Pre-hardened Software Appliance on Version 13.
https://www.veeam.com/products/data-platform-trial-download.html?tab=vsa-download

2 flavors available. Either the ISO to install the components yourself or the OVA that can easily be imported and will include a prepped machine.
Is one better than the other, no… choice and ease of use are the only 2 main concerns.

Don’t forget to request a trial key or look into veeam.com to find your own key as this will not have a community edition with limited features. It requires a real license to work.
After installation you will have the option to download the traditional console on a jumphost or laptop to add any other (apart from azure-local and vmware) hypervisors or perform other operations like entra-backup and so on. (more info on my previous blog)

And don’t forget that also V13-V-One is available for download and will support you in monitoring both the traditional existing Veeam setup as the brand new Appliance-based approach!

(part1 of many others to come likely)

One of the hidden features in the VBR console that isn’t known by many clients is the ability to use it to find the right hit on our helpcenter.

Whenever you are going through some options and have doubts any regular enduser will pick out the browser of his/her choice, go to google and hit “veeam helpcenter” + the word you want more information about… and that usually works pretty well. First or second link usually does the trick…

However, there is a faster way to do exactly the same 😉 …

On the console, on the part where you have your doubts, hit the F1 button and you’ll be auto-navigated to the helpcenter, being linked to the correct hypervisor and you’ll land directly on the final page with information, or on the main chapter about what you are exploring.

example below: I wanted to add a new proxmox hypervisor through the console (yesyes, version13), hit F1 (actually to verify this feature is still in there) and I was navigated to the corresponding helpcenter page.
Funny fact… V13 of our userguide is not yet online, so I expect at least 2-3weeks to get it GA 😉

I received some alarming questions last few weeks… with the upcoming V13 there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding. Some clients all of a sudden claimed we would abandon completely the windows components and will only offer linux-based software starting from V13…

and that… is so not true :-).

It is all about choice. If you have the competences inhouse and wish to manage our next version in windows, then please do so… But we will (from v13) the choice to move all components into linux-based machines. Our current semi-last (because there are a few others when using some corner-cases) component is currently the VBR-server itself. This is in the current version (read like prior to V13 to be released very soon) the only required windows component without any valid alternative.
Why having the choice… because in the end… it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter what is running under the hood… windows-linux… We will offer you an appliance-based approach. You define where to drop it, we (read as Veeam) will do the rest. OS installation, configuration, Backupsoftware installation and initial setup.
From then on… it’s all yours. True… our windows-installation will come a little bit later than the big-bang-linux-only version. But in the end, that doesn’t matter.
All components (windows-or-linux) will have the same functionalities. In the initial V13-linux-release we will have some limitations in the web-gui… (hey… Rome wasn’t built on one day neither!!!). But those will be available by using our (old-school-traditional-)console (see screencaps)

Now… how to get that console linked to the linux-server… pretty easy 🙂

After the download (coming from that linux-server) it will install. Put in the IP/name of the linux server and done!

A LOT… A lot of clients ask me how they can use/set up a hybrid environment with a hyperscaler. This is actually not difficult, however, if you add the additional requirements it is getting more complicated. It should be with an acceptable cost, a reduced on-prem footprint, low on maintenance/labor and so on…

The good thing is we can use our native transportable backup format and use/re-use things in the cloud. But adding in cloud as a DR might be for some people one step too far to see how Veeam can solve this issue keeping costs low, labor at a minimum and reduce the on-prem footprint.

In the below image we see a typical 1DC environment where we added the management server (VBR) in the hyperscaler. Why? because it can connect to any of your (globally) deployed datacenters in the world. The only workforce we’ll need onprem is a proxy(with mount-role!!!) and a repository(preferred hardened and immutable).

You can now configure your backupjobs to land on the local onprem repository guaranteeing fast restore, no dependencies on bandwith. It’s just VBR who is going to tell the proxy “hey, it’s 8pm, take a backup of machine XYZ and drop it on the repo”.

Then you’ll have choice… either use the copy/move functionality of SOBR or use a traditional backup copy job to bring the data in the cloud. What to choose? It depends on the usecase. Scale-out will guarantee the same retention and is a transparent process that runs automatically, while the copy jobs are visible processes and can maintain other retentions. Either way, the data will land in an object store somewhere in the cloud of your choice.

Now how can this be of any benefit as a DR plan? As VBR is aware of all data being both on-prem and in the cloud it is pretty easy to (simulate or for real) perform a DR. Imagine the on-prem DC is gone/flooded/out of service/impacted by ransomware. Then it is just a matter of connecting to the VBR server (which is already in the cloud), click the button “restore to” followed by Azure, AWS, Google and you’re ready to start the most critical services of your environment in the cloud.

What are the things to be aware of… WE do the conversion of the machine from a traditional hypervisor to the cloud-setup, including cpu, network, disks,… however YOU need to pre-configure the network and take the required (cloud-)security matters into account. And that is the setup that you’ll better do upfront instead of last-minute :-).

If this is JUST a temporary situation or a test you’re all settled… but if the DC is going to remain unavailble for quite some time, then it might not be a bad idea to consider backing up the (new) cloud-environment. As we have dedicated tools in the hyperscalers you can actually use the Veeam Backup for (followed with) Google/AWS/Azure from the marketplace. if it are just a few machines and you want to avoid a temporary setup of that, then an agent might be the rescue(to backup directly in blob/S3)

Now how about a license… if you are running on VUL… GOOD NEWS… we license the source… so initially it was onprem, now the same source is in the cloud, so you can use the same license.

So… in a nutshell… easy :-)…

Now let’s lift this setup to a higher level… running machines cost money in the cloud, bringing them back when you have a full equipped DC is likely the next step.

How to do this? simple… Take a backup from the machines, synch with the onprem storage and then restore back onprem. Ok… admitted, with downtime as you’ll need to shut down the cloud machine at a certain point and boot the onprem, but for the functions that are available in the backup-tool this is actually cheap/free DR-plan. Initially it started with “just” consumption of one of the cheapest kinds of storage in the cloud. And that cost is basically your insurance costs for a DR.

As a wrap-up: Costs checkbox, maintenance checkbox, low effort checkbox, minimized on-prem footprint checkbox as well!

Now you want a real next level and automate! YES, it can be done. Either develop something yourself or find inspiration on our public forums. Or you can use (in case of Azure) Veeam Recovery Orchestrator to automate the DR… and it can have serious benefits, as your documentation will be always up to date and daily verified… how cool is that if you don’t like writing documentation :-).

YES… with our annual event Veeam-on we published as an Easter present the beta of Version 13. A major release with a enormous architecture change.

It’s not only “VBR on Linux” as a potential last component to be converted to a linux OS… no… a complete drastic change in approach too.
It was announced earlier by Gostev that we will publish something like “just enough OS”. A bare minimum OS to master and to maintain, but for VBR is goes a step further. Complete appliance-like approach on the installation. You basically mount an ISO and a few clicks later you’ll have the complete VBR suite up and running. With the download there is also another ISO available for the deployment of any other proxy and repository. Including our Rocky Linux that is also going to be supported by our support team.

So from now on… download, mount, hit next and you’re up and running.

I’ve suggested some time ago a Veeam-appliance as you might be able to T-shirt-size and prefab some Hardened Repositories already as a partner/service… well… now is the time. Because with the scheduler deployed in the same way you’ll end up with a full Veeam-environment up and running in no-time.

Want to explore how to deploy this? Lucky you! I’ve made it clickable and ready to explorere here!

[PS: keep in mind this article was published on April 1… a nice idea, valid request, but NOT actually true ;)]

Finally… Fools and jokes aside… after so many years of making fun about it on April 1th it is finally there. The first beta on Veeam Backup for Linked-In…

First thing to ask why and why now? On the evening of 31th (World Backup Day) we announced the arrival of a new tool in the family. But why… well… a lot of companies do a lot of efforts on promoting their things on Linked-In… basically the Facebook of companies and professional/working people. And there is a lot of information linked to those posts/campaigns/pages/…

• adding tags to be included in the backupjob. At the screen in the back: the options creating an and/or/not option to make combinations

It’s not all about the actual information, but also on the amount of likes, who ticks the like and the hashtags. Backing that up might not be so very relevant as-is, but having the data available within reach is important. Once backed up it is there encapsulated in a series of full and incremental backups.
Restoring it, easy, logic and relevant when something happens with your account.

• Backupjob running (almost finished)

But with our technology of VeeamPowerNFS/publishDisk/SureBackup we will be able to mount those backups and provide the information to our new LI-service. Basically a database mounting service in VBR that will be capable having that data available…
Good analysts know the famous rule of asking 3 times Why… well…
Why 1: valuable data in a as-a-service-only model
Why 2: Restore it when needed
Why (else) 3: Consume it. Use the backupdata to mount it and do something with it. Start counting the likes, re-add PowerBI services on it and link the “like/love/support/idea”-tag with a map and consume it for your next marketing-business plan.
And yes, AI is over-hyped nowadays, but with the technology we master nowadays from Veeam Intelligence in VeeamOne, some very powerful and interesting information can be pulled out.
Licensing has not been explained internally (yet) but likely will be based on 1 VUL /10hashtags available in your company-account.

For people still in doubt, stay tuned because a lot more will be revealed as HOT-content for Veeam-On.
Just like Anton Gostev did earlier: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/askgostev_weve-been-getting-many-questions-about-our-activity-7312464807171923969-q1YR

I assume more will be reveiled the coming days/weeks.

Subscribe now and follow remotely: https://www.veeam.com/veeamon/join-online/

[PS: keep in mind this article was published on April 1…]