Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Veeam Backup Free Edition : Installation , Configuration , backup and restore of VMs in VMWare & Hyper-V


VEEAM Backup free edition supports VMs in VMWare and Hyper-V hosts.

The Veeam Backup utility is " VeeamZIP " and it's so easy to use and no downtime for your VMs (no interrupt to availability of virtual machine) .

You can restore :
                             - Full VM
                             - VM Files
                             - Guest Files

Also you can use the VeemZip to archive the VMs on disk storages.VeeamZip removes "Zero Bytes" blocks ,Swap files and compresses the VM to minimize the size of backup.

VeeamZip encapsulates all the virtual disks and configuration files into a single backup file , you can keep this file even on a removable storage like external hard drive or USB flash memories.
Veeam Backup free edition supports instant file level  recovery to fast access to files and folders stored inside the VM.(in the Paid version you can access the Exchange and Sharepoint files as well)

Veeam Backup free edition also includes " Veeam FastSCP " to manage VMs and host files and it's available for VMWare and HYper-V.
There is no expiration date or no limits for the number of VMs.

Please check this documents in VEEAM site to see all the differences between the free version and the Paid version also see more details about the VEEAM Backup :

Free vs. paid: What’s the difference?
The must-have tool for VMware and Hyper-V

Here is the link to the site to download the free product :

http://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html

The latest version at the time of writing this post is " 7.0 R2 ".

This is download page for Veeam Backup Free Edition Version 7 :



Free edition doesn't require a License key . However you can enable full functionality of Veeam Backup & Replication by installing a license key and it will be valid for 30 days trial.
Download file is an ISO file and you need to attach it to the machine that you want to install the application on it.

Installation process is too easy , but I will show you all the steps.

First run the setup file :



Click on " Veeam Backup & Replication " to start the installation wizard :


If .NET Framework 4.0 is not installed on your system , click on OK to install it :



After installing .NET Framework 4.0 , click on next to start installing VEEAM :


Accept the license agreement and click on Next to continue :


Because we want to use the free version, we don't need to insert a license file, click on Next to continue :



I have select all the features to install them :


If all the requirements are not installed on your computer (same as mine ;) ) click on Install to deploy missing features:



After installing all the required features, click on Next to continue :



Insert the user credential that has access and rights to the SQL server instance and full control permission on the catalog folder :



I'm not going to create an instance for Veeam backup in my SQL server database (this post is just for training purposes and I don't want to create another database in my SQL server, I/m already using it for lots of other different projects;) ). Then I select the first option to install a new instance of SQL server :


Select different port numbers if you want, I leave the default ports :


Select the location for the "vPower NFS" and "Guest file system catalog" , I leave the default ones (I have more than 20GB free space on C drive ) :


Review all the configurations and when ready click on Install :


Installation process takes few mins, first the SQL server 2008 R2 Express will be installed and after that the Veeam application :



At the end PowerShell SDK for Veeam Backup will be installed :


When installation is done, click on Finish to close the installation wizard :


Open the Veeam Backup & Replication by double click on the icon :



The first step is registering the vCenter or the Hyper-V, click on "Add Server" :



I'm using the VMWare vSphere, then I will select the first option :


Enter the DNS name or IP address of the vCenter and if you like a description :


Select a user credential with administrative privileges :


Wait for few seconds, Veeam will detect the server type :


If everything works fine, Veeam will conect to vCenter successfully , click on Finish to complete adding the vCenter to Veeam :


Click on "View" and then on "Category View" to see the list of all available folders and VMs :



Click on top left button and then select the "Configuration Backup" to check the current settings :



You can't change the Backup Repository location in free version (default backup repository created by Veeam backup during the installation)
You can schedule backups, or see the status of back up jobs.



Let's start to back up one of the VMs . Right click on the name of VM and select VeeamZIP (I want to show you all the available options here , else select "VeeamZIP to C:\Backup" to start the back up process quickly)



Select Destination folder and Compression level , click on OK to start the back up :



It may take lots of time for the backup to be completed , depend on your infrastructure . For sure for me it will take lots of time (using basic devices in my home lab,not fast at all ;) )


Backup completed successfully :


Let's check the size of back up file and see how the compression level worked :

VM size was 36GB and the backup size is almost 15GB



Now to show you the restore process, I'm going to delete this VM , and after that Restore it from Veeam :


Deleted the VM in the VC :


Click the Restore button and browse to select the backup file :


select the VM and click on Restore . You have 5 different options :

- Entire VM (including registration)
- VM hard disks
- VM Files (VMDK,VMX)
- Guest files (Windows)
- Guest files (Other OS)



I select the first option to restore my test VM.
You can restore the VM to the original location or you can select a new location :


Review the summary and click on Finish to start the Restore. (I selected the option to power on the VM after restoring)



Restore completed almost after 30 mins :



VM is up & running in vCenter :


You can check the History for all the jobs done in the Veeam :



Source 

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