Storage & Backup on Wojciech Marusiak IT Blog

Boost Resilience with Stretched Private Clouds on ve2 Nodes in Sydney

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Enhanced Disaster Recovery for Your VMware Workloads in Sydney

Great news for businesses seeking enhanced resilience and disaster recovery capabilities in Australia! Google Cloud VMware Engine now supports stretched private clouds using ve2 node types in Sydney (australia-southeast1-b).

What are Stretched Private Clouds?

Stretched private clouds allow you to extend your VMware environment across two separate availability zones within a region. This ensures high availability and disaster recovery in case of an outage in one zone.

Why Choose Stretched Private Clouds on ve2 Nodes?

Increased Performance: ve2 nodes offer the latest generation of hardware, delivering enhanced performance and scalability for your critical workloads.
Improved Resilience: Protect your applications and data from zonal failures with a robust disaster recovery solution.
Simplified Management: Manage your stretched private cloud seamlessly with familiar VMware tools and processes.
Cost-Effectiveness: Optimize your costs with flexible pricing and resource allocation.

Ideal Use Cases

Mission-critical applications: Ensure continuous operation of applications that require high availability.
Databases and data warehouses: Protect your valuable data from outages and ensure business continuity.
Virtual desktops: Provide a highly available and resilient virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for your users.

Get Started Today

To learn more about how to deploy and manage stretched private clouds on ve2 nodes in Sydney, visit the Google Cloud VMware Engine documentation:

Stretched Private Clouds in Google Cloud VMware Engine

Summary

Google Cloud VMware Engine continues to enhance its capabilities, offering businesses in Australia a powerful and resilient solution for running their critical VMware workloads. With stretched private clouds on ve2 nodes, you can ensure business continuity and protect your applications from disruptions.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance 7.x to vCenter Server Appliance 8.x

Tue, 05 Dec 2023 14:50:51 +0100

Todays post will focus on upgrade from vCenter Server 7.x to 8.x. Process itself isn’t very complicated and in normal environment should take around 1h. Let’s dive into it!

Backup your existing vCenter Server

Prio 0 for us is to make a backup of vCenter Server. Please remember that snapshot isn’t a backup :)

Few days ago I wrote an article how to backup a vCenter Server. Follow it and let’s upgrade vCSA :)

vCenter Server Appliance ISO error on macOS

On macOS due to Apple’s security configuration, you might face error Installer” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should eject the disk image.

What we need to is one of the solutions (VMware KB states it incorrectly - you don’t need to do all of below mentioned steps, just one) mentioned by VMware KB - How to fix vCenter Server ISO error on macOS.

Choose one of the fixes:

sudo spctl --global-disable - I don’t recommend it
In Security and Privacy settings (System Preferences >Security & privacy) set “Allow apps download from:” to “Anywhere” - I don’t recommend it
Run the command: sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine Path_to_the_iso - I recommend it

Example:

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Users/wojcieh/ISO/VMware-VCSA-all-8.0.2-22617221.iso

Prerequisites

General Prerequisites are as follows:

Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer
Verify that the clocks of all computers on the vSphere network are synchronized

There are more but I’d rather refer to VMware Docs “Prerequisites to upgrade vCenter Server Appliance”.

Upgrade of vCenter Server Appliance from version 7.x to 8.x

Overall process is quite simple. We deploy new vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) to our cluster or ESXi host. The second stage involves data migration from old vCSA to a new one.

New vCSA deployment - Stage 1

On the first screen you can read about the process. We click next.
We have to agree to VMware EULA and click next.
In order to process we need to enter FQDN or IP address of our existing vCenter Server Appliance. We need to validate connectivity by clicking Connect to Source. After that we need to provide SSO password and vCSA management password. In later section we need to add FQDN or IP address of ESXi server or vCenter Server that manages the appliance itself.
If there is an untrusted SSL certificate, you might get this warning.
Once the validation completes we need to provide the destination ESXi or vCenter Server where new vCSA will be deployed. For simplicity I thing VMware could create a button - deploy on the same system as before. If the destination is vCSA you will be asked to place a new vCSA in a folder and compute resource. On the screenshot you see ESXi server but I changed it later to use vCSA ;).
If the destination SSL certificate is untrusted you might receive a warning.
We have to choose a VM name for our new vCSA and provide root password.
We need to choose vCSA deployment size. In my case this is homelab deployment so I will choose tiny.
In the next step we have to choose a datastore to place our vCSA.
Pretty much last step is to choose network configuration for new vCSA. I will go with DHCP but I selected the same network segment as existing vCSA.
We have a summary of our settings.
Deployment starts.
After a moment it finishes. We can proceed with stage 2.

New vCSA deployment - Stage 2

Let’s continue with Stage 2.

We need to click next to continue.
Installer connects to source vCenter Server and performs pre-upgrade checks.
There might be some findings so review them carefully.
We are now being asked if we want to copy just the data or data with performance metrics and logs. In my case I will just choose the configuration and inventory data.
You can join as well VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program - it is optional.
On the last screen we see summary and we ar being asked if we backed up vCenter Server. Confirm if you did it and proceed with the upgrade process.
We are being informed that vCenter Server will be shut down and unavailable.
Upgrade is in process.
Upgrade is completed.
We can login to new vCenter Server and use it.

Summary

In this a bit longer post I’ve showed you how you can easily upgrade your vCenter Server Appliance 7.x into version 8.x. I hope you enjoyed it.

In case you want to read in details about the upgrade feel free to visit VMware vCenter Server Upgrade Overview on VMware Docs.

How to Backup vCenter Server Appliance 7.x and 8.x

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 13:23:11 +0100

In a past I prepared a post How to backup vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 Blog Post. It was relevant until version 7.0 of vCenter Server Appliance. I was backing up my vCSA already using new method and I want to show how you can do it in version 7.x of vCSA. It is a one of the prerequisites to take a backup of vCSA prior to upgrade vCenter Server Appliance.

In todays post I’ll guide you into how to backup vCenter Server Appliance 7.x and 8.x.

vCenter Server Appliance Backup Options

On VMware Docs we can clearly read what are our destination backup options. We can perform backups using following protocols FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB to remote system and backups aren’t stored on the vCenter Server itself.

Backup vCenter Server Appliance to NFS destination

In my case I have a NFS share on my NAS where I store all my backups. So let’s start backing up vCSA :)

We need to login to our vCenter Server Appliance Management URL. It can be in format of https://X.X.X.X:5480 IP address or FQDN https://yourfqdn.xxx:5480.

2. Once logged it we need to go to the backup section. 3. In backup we need to click configure to start with backup configuration. In my case I had backups enabled but I removed it for the purpose of this blog post. 4. Noww we need to add following settings. Backup location - in my case it will be a NFS share on my NAS. I have user with password configured for this purpose. We can encrypt our backups with our passhprase. We can as well choose when backup should be performed and if backup retention policy. 5. If everything is configured correctly backup should be executed at schedule. However, I wanted to check if it works immediately and you can click the button Backup now which executes it on demand. You need to provide again NFS share (in my case) username and password and click start. 6. This is how the backup itself looks on my NFS share.

Summary

Backup procedure is quite simple and you can configure just in a few minutes. I highly encourage you to backup your vCenter Server Appliance in case something bad happens.

Configure Qnap iSCSI as VMware Datastore

Fri, 14 May 2021 09:00:00 +0200

After upgrading my old QNAP TS-453A to a QNAP TS-873 with 8 bays and tons of storage I finally had some time to explore additional storage options for my homelab. Now with 2 pools of storage with total capacity of ~ 35TiB I finally could start to use my NAS much more efficient.

In the previous post Configure QNAP NFS as VMware ESXi Dastastore I showed you how to configure QNAP NFS share as VMware ESXi Datastore.

In this post I will show you how to create a VMware ESXi datastore using iSCSI.

Prerequisites

QNAP NAS
VMware ESXi - mentioned solution should work starting from VMware ESXi 5.0+

QNAP Configuration

Login to your QNAP NAS and click iSCSI & Fibre Channel
When first time started you will be asked if you wish to go through a configuration wizard. Click Next.
We will start with the iSCSI Target creation.
You can enter name and alias for your iSCSI Target.
In next section we can enter username and password. Only letters and numbers are allowed. Let’s try to configure it with username and password.
In the last section we have a summary of the items we configured. Important is to select Create a LUN and map it to this target.
Now we are in the Block-Based LUN Creation Wizard section. Choose appropriate Storage Pool and the type of LUN allocation - thick or thin.
We need to provide a LUN name and enter the desired LUN size. As I have cache disks I will use them.
On the summary we can see all the configured settings.
Our QNAP NAS iSCSI target is ready to be used.

ESXi Configuration

VMware ESXi can use iSCSI either using Static or Dynamic discovery. I’ve tested it with both and I will descibre the process just with Dynamic.

Login to vSphere.
Navigate to your ESXi Server Configure -> Storage Adapaters -> iSCSI Software Adapter or your hardware iSCSI adapter.
Click Dynamic Discovery and then Add.
Enter iSCSI Server FQDN or IP address.
I used CHAP configuration on QNAP so I need to enter it in ESXi as well. Set Authentication Method to Use unidirectioal CHAP if required by target.
We need to rescan adapter in order to reflect changes. CLick Rescan Adapter.
iSCSI LUN is visible and can be used as VMware Datastore.

Create iSCSI based VMware Datastore

Click on Actions and then select Storage -> New Datastore
Choose VMFS
Select our iSCSI backed Disk.
Choose desired VMFS version.
I will use whole datastore size and use default settings.
On the summary page we can review our configured settings.
Datastore is visible in GUI and can be used by our VMs.

Summary

I hope that post was informative and easy to follow. I am really happy to have so many options to utilize my QNAP NAS in my homelab.

Configure QNAP NFS as VMware ESXi Dastastore

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 13:00:00 +0100

It has been a while since I wrote about NFS datastores and VMware ESXi. In my previous post How to add NFS export to VMware ESXi 6.5I used NFS server on my host back then. In this post I will show you how you can use QNAP NFS exports with VMware ESXi.

Prerequisites

QNAP NAS
VMware ESXi - mentioned solution should work starting from VMware ESXi 6.0+

QNAP Configuration

QNAP configuration is pretty much straightforward. Let’s configure NFS.

Login to QNAP NAS.
From Control Panel choose Win/Mac/NFS
Switch to NFS Service. Select desired NFS version. I’ve tested it with both NFS v2/v3 and NFS v4.
QNAP recommends disabling write cache function. Simply click on the link fron the NFS service or go to Control Panel, System, Hardware. De-select Enable write cache (EXT4 delay allocation) and click Apply.
Now we need to create a shared folder. Go to Control Panel, Priviledge, Shared Folders. Click Create. Provide share name and choose disk volume if you have more than one.
Now we need to change NFS priviliges to allow access from ESXi hosts. Once the shared folder is crated click the middle icon to assign permissions.
In a new window choose NFS Host Access.
Once selected you need to provide following information:

Host/IP/Network. In my case I’ve selected Network. If you want to grant access from anywhere simply use * as a wildcard.
Choose read/write.
Select Squash no users

Settings are applied and ready to be consumed by VMware ESXi.

ESXi Configuration

VMware ESXi can consume NFS resources by using NFS version 3 and version 4. I’ve tested it with both and I will descibre the process.

NFS v3

Click on Datacenter, Cluster or ESXi where you want to attach NFS Datastore.
Choose NFS as a new datastore type.
Choose NFS 3.
Provide datastore name, QNAP shared folder and QNAP IP or FQDN.
Select to which hosts or Cluster you want to attach the NFS datastore.
Click Finish on ready to complete section.
NFS datastore is added.
I initiated Storage vMotion from my local drives to shared NFS drive. It works well.
From QNAP point of view we see incoming data :)
Here is vMotioned virtual machine.

NFS v4

The procedure only differs from the point number 3.
You can but you don’t need to use authentication. In my case I don’t have Active Directory so I can’t test it. However it works :)

Summary

In this post I showed you how to configure QNAP and its NFS service to create a datastore on VMware ESXi. I hope it will all work for you. In the next post I will configure datastore using iSCSI from QNAP. Stay tuned!

Join VeeamON Conference 2020

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 13:38:55 +0200

It’s the first time everyone can experience VeeamON at no cost and collaborate with thousands of tech trainers, cloud experts, IT visionaries and Veeam partners from around the globe.

Agenda

We’ll have showtimes in three time zones and the sessions split into seven blocks to meet all users’ needs:

Architecture and Design: Master Veeam’s software and learn how it can scale to any size and environment.
Better Together: Learn how Veeam partners evolve the way our shared customers manage their data.
Cloud-Powered: Explore solutions that utilize cloud services from storage to Infrastructure as a Service and more.
Deep Tech: Experience deep dives into Veeam technology, including sessions on scripts, CLI and other expert-level insights.
Implementation Best Practices: Hear from Veeam experts on troubleshooting tips and tricks, best practices and worst practices from the field.
Operations and Support: Geared toward Veeam superusers, i.e., post-implementation access guidance on support processes and solutions.
Vision and Strategy: Unlock how Veeam addresses data-protection challenges for enterprises of all sizes to achieve their data and business objectives.

The recordings will be available to all registrants after the event.

Veeam-athON
For the first time at VeeamON, Veeam-athON is an interactive live session showcasing how Veeam products solve the biggest challenges our customers might face. The best technical support members will show the advanced configuration and diagnostic on Veeam products.

Guest entertainer
In true Veeam fashion, we would like to have some fun together! Join us for a live concert with Keith Urban.

Registration

VeeamON Registration Page

Veeam Availability Suite V10 Released

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:14:09 +0100

It’s here! Our flagship solution, Veeam® Availability Suite™ v10, has been officially released, and Veeam packed it with more than 150 groundbreaking features.

Veeam is excited for you to have a chance to test it out, so here are a few links:

Free 30‑day trial (no feature or workload limitations)
Free 1‑year NFR license (no feature limitations, limited to 20 workloads)

The product strategy team will showcase live demos at our launch event today. In case you missed it, the recording will be available the next day by the same link.

Save 10% with Veeam Online Store

For U.S. and Canada only, we recently launched our Veeam Online Store, where small businesses may purchase Veeam Backup Essentials™ or Veeam Backup Starter in just a few clicks!

For the v10 release exclusively, we have a limited‑time offer that allows customers to save 10%! The promo code below is valid till March 31, 2020. Feel free to share it with your peers and readers.

PROMO CODE: 924‑H77‑5HK

See what’s new

Check out some serious new features, including:

Powerful NAS Backup: Advanced changed file tracking, multiple recovery options, for any NAS alongside any target and no NDMP utilization!
Multi‑VM Instant Recovery: Meet Veeam’s next generation Instant Recovery engine built for mass instant restores for your VMware vSphere workloads
100% ransomware‑proof backups with S3 object lock functionality
Easy migration with instant recovery of ANY Veeam Backup to VMware vSphere
New options for monitoring and analytics for any workloads, including NAS backups and Nutanix AHV VMs
Enhanced backup from Storage Snapshots with log backup for most data‑intensive apps
And much more!

Veeam ON Online Conference

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 11:52:06 +0100

The biggest Veeam online conference is coming on November 20 – VeeamON Virtual!

We expect more than 5000 attendees and plan 24+ hours of live streaming sessions.

The event will cover the following topics: Vision & Strategy, Implementation Best Practices, Cloud-Powered, Architecture & Design.

To register simply visit Veeam website VeeamON Conference

VMworld 2019 Ticket Giveaway by Veeam

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 07:48:21 +0000

Win a ticket to VMworld with Veeam!

You have the chance to join Veeam at VMworld! Enter to win one of three FREE full conference tickets!

To win a ticket simply visit Veeam website, choose VMworld you wish to attend, provide your details and wait to be selected.

https://www.veeam.com/vmworld/us

Besides winning the VMworld Ticket sponsored by Veeam you can as well join the great Party sponsored by Veeam. On the same website simply RSVP to the invitie and you are done.

Happy giveaway 🙂

World Backup Day contest by Altaro

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:19:44 +0000

World Backup Day is something we’re used to mark as an event every year, as a reminder we need to take good care of our data. But this year Altaro challenges us to change our mindsets and start considering the value of a good backup solution not just once, but every day.

On this occasion, they’re launching this contest where you might win an Oculus Rift & Touch Virtual Reality System! Let’s hope you’ll be the lucky winner, but if not, they’re giving free eGift Amazon cards as well for all the valid entries. So, for those who want to give it a try, this seems to be a good time to do it.

To enter the contest, click here.

Good luck and happy backup!

Vembu BDR 4-0 review

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 13:15:54 +0000

Vembu BDR 4.0 has been released quite recently and their slogan is

No More Backup Complexities

I like it 🙂

I am pretty sure that behind the slogan we have some cool extra features introduced.

In this post, I will review Vembu BDR 4.0.

Vembu BDR 4.0 new features

Hyper-V Failover Cluster Support for Backup & Recovery

This version provides Backup and Recovery for the VMs residing in Hyper-V Failover Cluster. Even if the VMs running on Hyper-V cluster move from one host to another, the backups will continue to run without any interruption.

Shared VHDX Backup

Also, Vembu now extends its backup support to shared VHDX of Hyper-V.

Hyper-V Checksum Based Incremental

Vembu leverages CBT for performing incremental backups. With v4.0, Vembu brings in Checksum based incremental method to ensure that you have a seamless backup experience, even if the CBT happens to fail in some rare cases.

Credential Manager

The all-new credential manager will ease the management of hosts, VMs and physical machines. You don’t have to enter the credentials every time you need to backup a machine.

Other enhancements

Along with the added VMs, the disks that are newly added can also be backed up in the next successive incremental.
You can get a separate report for your Quick VM Recovery operations, which includes details like

VM Name
Recovery point
Start and end time
Target hypervisor
Status of recovery

While performing Live Recovery to VMware, you will be getting an option to configure specifications of the virtual hardware like.

Socket & Core Counts
Memory
Hard disk provision type
Network adapter

Reconnection attempts will be made to continue the data transfer if a VMware or Hyper-V VM backup jobs get interrupted due to network failure.
A new set of APIs has been released to give detailed reports on storage utilization like the size of the VM, storage space utilized by a backup job, compression rate etc.

Vembu BDR 4.0 in action

In my previous post https://www.wojcieh.net/vembu-bdr-suite-review/, I covered Vembu BDR installation. In this Vembu BDR 4.0 review, I’d like to focus more on backup&recovery features and some extra options you can configure in the software.

Connect your source backup.

In my case, it will be VMware ESXi.

Under the backup choose VMware vSphere.
In Add VMware vSphere section provide IP/FQDN of you ESXi, choose credentials and click Add Host.
Once the server is added we can proceed to the backup.

Vembu BDR 4.0 initial backup

Our ESXi is added to the Vembu BDR 4.0 so we can proceed with the first backup.

Click Backup and you will be redirected to the configuration page.
Choose your ESXi host, VMware vCenter or simply few VM’s. I will choose a few small VM’s for test purposes.
You can enable VSS aware backup by selecting Enable Application Aware Processing.
Choose the desired backup frequency such as hourly, daily or weekly. In addition, you can force **Additional Ful Backup. **
Next section allows you to enable backup retention (forever incremental backups and the oldest (defined by you) will be deleted), choose desired Storage Pool and optional backup encryption.
In the last section, you can review the job settings and start it immediately.
Once the backup has been initiated you can view the status.
If you go to Dashboard you can see the basic information on Active Jobs and your Storage Quota. \
To view you backup status click on the green triangle.
You can view it as well if you go to Backup and List Jobs.

Restore

Our backup has been successfully completed. The best way to verify your backup is to perform a test restore.

In the top menu click Recovery.
In the recovery, section choose your backup to restore from.
You have a very granular restore type:
1. Quick VM Recovery
Recover backup images as ready-state VMs (i.e)instantly available and helps in maintaining business continuity with minimal downtime. 2. Live Recovery to ESXi Server

Restore backed-up VMs directly to target ESXi hosts, where you can also perform partial VM restores(custom disk-level). 3. File Level Recovery

Restore specific files and folders from backup. 4. Disk Management Mount

Auto attach backup to Disk Management in local machine that allows instant access to backed up data and instant file recovery possible. 5. Disk Level Recovery

Restore VM backups at disk level where backed up disks can be restored to target VMs in an ESXi host. 6. Download

Multi-format restore available for any Microsoft Windows Server backup(Physical/Virtual) and is easy to process.

The file formats available for restores are VHD, VMDK, VHDX, Flat-VMDK and RAW image file.
I will select Quick VM Recovery to validate that my backup is working
Choose version and the virtual machine.
Select desired hyperivor, datastore and VM name.
On the last screen you can review the restore.
The VM has been sucessfully restored.

Summary

Vembu BDR 4.0 brings a lot of new features and improvements. I especially like browser-based UI which works very fast and it is easy to use. I recommend it to use on a daily basis.

If you want to try it out simply follow the link and grab your copy Vembu BDR 4.0 and try it out for 30 days for free.

Altaro v8 released with really cool new features

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:06:47 +0000

Altaro released a new version of their flagship product: Altaro VM Backup version 8.

What new features can you find there? Let me share it with you:

WAN-Optimized Replication

Altaro VM Backup v8 introduces WAN-Optimized Replication functionality, that enables users to be back up and running in minimal time should disaster strike by switching to a replicated virtual machine (VM) that is running offsite.

MSPs can now add WAN-Optimized Replication to their offering, with the ability to replicate VMs to the MSP’s infrastructure so that if a customer site goes down, that customer can immediately access its VMs and continue working through the MSP’s infrastructure.

Windows Server 2019 support

This is one of the other features Altaro customer were asking. Support for latest release of Microsoft Windows Server is crucial in my opinion.

Altaro Office 365 Backup for MSPs

Altaro Office 365 Backup for MSPs backs up mail items and their attachments. Backups take place automatically several times per day to a secure cloud backup location hosted by Altaro.

MSPs can manage and monitor the mailboxes they are handling per customer through a centralized, multi-tenant online management console, at a monthly fee.

Altaro Dojo Forums

Besides cool product updates from Altaro, they announced as well community portal to bring IT pros together, connect and enable members to learn and share their knowledge with one another.

Try it!

Don’t miss a chance of trying out Altaro v8 VM Backup. You can backup unlimited VM’s in trial period. Afterwards you can get up to 2 VM’s free, forever.

Download https://www.altaro.com/vm-backup/

Altaro – live Demo Webinar – Windows Server 2019 In Action

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 20:07:43 +0000

As you’ve heard on the new Windows Server 2019 is coming. It has many new features but I like the most so-called Project Honolulu. It is in the simple words a new way of managing Windows Server using the browser.

You can read more about Windows Admin Center on Microsoft webpage https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/overview.

However, Windows Admin Center isn’t the only one new feature introduced in Windows Server 2019. I’d like to invite you to the Live Demo Webinar: Windows Server 2019 in Action organized by the blog sponsor Altaro.

Altaro deep-dive webinar will focus on:

Windows Admin Center
Containers on Windows Server
Storage Migration Service
Linux
And more!

Due to the really high demand, Altaro organized two events on November 8th. The first session is at 2 pm CET/8am EST/5am PST and the second is atpm CET/1pm EST/10am PST.

Save your seat: https://goo.gl/Px53fr

Send VMware backups to the cloud – Altaro Offsite Copies to an Azure Cloud Storage

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 20:18:26 +0000

Quite a neat feature of modern backup solutions is a possibility to send “offsite” backup copies to the cloud. Many Public Cloud providers offer very affordable storage solutions. In this post, we will send VMware backups to the cloud using Altaro Offsite Copies to an Azure Cloud Storage. Altaro offers this option using Microsoft Azure Cloud.

Before we send anything to the cloud there are few prerequisites:

Altaro version 7.5 or higher with Unlimited Plus Edition
Microsoft Azure account

First, we need to login to the Microsoft Azure portal.
Once logged in we navigate to the Storage section and we click Storage accounts.
Click Add. And enter a name, storage level, location, etc.
After a few minutes, the storage gateway will be created.
Click on your storage gateway and navigate to access keys section.
Switch to Altaro console and go to Settings,Backup Location.
Click add backup location and select offsite location.
Enter your connection string and test connectivity.
In backup locations add a desired virtual machine to Azure Storage Account backup.
Enter the master encryption key to protect your backups.
Switch to Take Offsite Backup section, select desired virtual machine and click Take Offsite Copy.
Our backup is in the Microsoft Azure Cloud 🙂
Here is the list of the virtual machines I uploaded to an offsite location.
And Microsoft Azure point of view.
Once the virtual machines are backed up into the cloud let’s test the restore. Click **Restore **and choose Azure Storage Account.
Choose virtual machines to restore.
Choose ESXi host or vCenter server to restore to. Besides that, we can choose a version of the backup and we can provide the name for the virtual machine.
In the dashboard, we can see the progress of the restore.
ESXi point of view.
All virtual machines have been successfully downloaded.

Summary

As you saw the configuration is not complicated and can be done in a few minutes. I only regret that Altaro forces us to use Microsoft Azure. There are other, more affordable storage solutions in the cloud market.

Want to try out Altaro VM Backup’s Cloud Backup to Azure feature for your own virtual environment? Download Altaro VM Backup for free to enjoy the Unlimited Plus Edition of the software for 30 days, then enjoy forever free backup for 2 VMs.

Happy SysAdmin Day 2018 with Altaro VM Backup

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 12:25:35 +0000

Hello blog readers.

Altaro producer of the great software VM Backup for VMware and Hyper-V created fantastic giveaway on SysAdmin Day.

Visit Altaro website for further details, download the software and have a chance to win cool prizes.

Altaro VM backup giveaway link.

Vembu VMBackup Standard Edition 3.9.1 released

Thu, 17 May 2018 07:24:11 +0000

Quite recently Vembu released a new version of VMbackup its flagship backup solution.

With this release, Vembu introduced New Standard Edition of Vembu BDR Suite.

In the previous versions, Vembu BDR Suite was available only in the single edition for all businesses. With the release of v3.9.1, Vembu BDR Suite is now available in 2 editions:** Standard and Enterprise**. The users can choose the edition that best suits their business needs.

The Standard Edition for VMware Backup is priced at USD 216/CPU-socket/annum. If your requirement comes under 6 CPU sockets, you get an additional discount of 50% that could lead to USD 108/CPU-socket/annum!

The Standard Edition for Hyper-V Backup also has surprises. Priced at a reasonable USD 144/CPU-socket/annum, it gets down to USD 72/CPU-socket/annum if you fall under the above-mentioned discount category.

Please follow a link for detailed feature list https://www.vembu.com/vembu-vmbackup-standard-edition/

Download link https://www.vembu.com/vembu-bdr-suite-download/

PowerCLI script to create Metro Cluster aware DRS groups

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:53:00 +0000

In my last project, I was working with Nutanix metro cluster running on VMware ESXi. Unfortunately, Nutanix and VMware vSphere don’t provide any way to automatically distribute virtual machines based on datastore to site location.

One could ask why do you need to distribute or pin virtual machines to the specific datastore? The answer is quite straightforward. Let’s take under the consideration following scenario.

Suboptimal placement

Virtual machine components (CPU, RAM) are located on site B where reads/writes are on site A (traversing via network). In this situation virtual machine performance is suboptimal.

Optimal placement

Virtual machine components (CPU, RAM, disk) are located on site A where reads/writes are local (not traversing via network). In this situation virtual machine performance is optimal.

PowerCLI script to create Metro Cluster aware DRS groups

For the project needs, I created an extremely simple PowerCLI script(it is not even script, possibly some PowerCLI gurus would create a one-liner from it 😉 ). Anyway, it did work for me. As a final solution script was executed twice a day to balance the virtual machines across two sites.

Import-Module VMware.PowerCLI
#Importing VMware PowerCLI module

#vCenter Server connectivity details
$vcenter = IP/FQDN
$username = username
$password = password

Connect-VIServer -Server $vcenter -User $username -Password $password 
#Connecting to vCenter Server

$datastoresiteA = metroa 
#Site A datastore name

$datastoresiteB = metrob 
#Site B datastore name

$cluster = VDI
#Cluster name where we will create the DRS rules

$vmsa = Get-Datastore -name $datastoresiteA | get-vm 
#We are collecting virtual machines located on site A datastore

$vmsb = Get-Datastore -name $datastoresiteB | get-vm 
#We are collecting virtual machines located on site B datastore

Remove-DrsClusterGroup -DrsClusterGroup "DRS Group Site A" -confirm:$false
Remove-DrsClusterGroup -DrsClusterGroup "DRS Group Site B" -confirm:$false
#We are removing old DRS Rules

New-DrsClusterGroup -Name "DRS Group Site A" -VM $vmsa -Cluster $cluster
New-DrsClusterGroup -Name "DRS Group Site B" -VM $vmsb -Cluster $cluster
#We are creating new DRS Rules with new virtual machines

Disconnect-viserver * -confirm:$false

The script is pretty much straightforward. Simply at the beginning provide the values to connect to vCenter Server and others to make the script work.

Altaro VM Backup 7.6 released

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 21:01:50 +0000

Altaro released a new version of its flagship backup product for Hyper-V and VMware. In version 7.6 Altaro introduced several important new features which all users will love.

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for Local Backups

Continuous Data Protection (CDP) - users can switch from running daily backups to a continuous data protection model yielding an improved Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of up to 5 minutes. This dramatically reduces the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). RPO is the point in time to which VMs are restored by a backup solution in case of a disaster. With CDP in place, users’ RPO is optimized to up to 5 minutes, instead of the hours of data loss faced in cases where users are simply running daily backups.

Note- CDP is currently available for Hyper-V, VMware support will be released soon.

Grandfather-Father-Son Archiving (GFS) for Local Backups

Altaro VM Backup 7.6 introduces GFS, enabling users to choose to archive the backup versions over and above their continuous and daily backups instead of deleting them (local backups only).

With GFS Archiving enabled, Altaro VM Backup also keeps the following backups, with the time periods are shown all starting from the time of the last successful backup:

1 backup per week for 12 weeks
1 backup per month for 12 months
1 backup per year for 2 years

Change Block Tracking Updates for 2012/2012R2

CBT refers to Change Block Tracking and allows users to take fast incremental backups without having to scan the entire virtual machine (VM) for changes each time. This can reduce backup duration down from hours to minutes. When CBT is not available, a lengthy full scan for changes is required.

This release addresses an issue in Altaro VM Backup 7 CBT for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 where CBT is disabled and a full scan for changes is required in the following scenarios:

Altaro VM Backup or one of the Hyper-V Host agents is updated
Altaro VM Backup services or one of the Hyper-V Host agents is restarted
A Hyper-V Host is restarted
A Virtual Machine on a Failover Cluster migrates between nodes.

Altaro VM Backup 7.6 addresses this and the above scenarios do not require that a full scan is taken.

Concurrent Retention, Restore, Backup and Offsite Copy operations on the same Virtual Machine

In previous Altaro VM Backup Versions, only one operation could be performed on a Virtual Machine at the same time. This caused the following pain points for our users:

If a retention policy takes hours to complete then backups and restore operations are queued until retention is complete
If an Offsite Copy to Azure takes days to complete then backups and restore operations are queued until retention is complete
If a Restore, File Level Restore or Boot from Backup operation is active then no backups for that Virtual Machine could take place until they are completed.

Each of these limitations has been addressed in v7.6, allowing users to restore and take Offsite Copies without delaying any scheduled or CDP backups whether scheduled or CDP.

Summary

From my perspective, Altaro VM Backup is constantly evolving product and more and more features are implemented for easier backup and restore. If you haven’t tested Altaro simply download test version and try it. I am using Altaro for my Homelab for more than two years and it never let me down so far 🙂

Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 Release with new features

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 16:03:52 +0000

Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 is now Generally Available and includes Tape Support & Flexible Restores

It is highly important that data needs to be backed up and there should be an effective Disaster Recovery plan in case of data threat or a catastrophe. While data continues to grow and there are number of technology providers who offer better and comprehensive storage techniques to businesses, there has not been an alternative to the concept of backup.

While costs are a major factor for businesses, having a steady backup plan to counter data threats and compliant with strict regulatory standards(including the upcoming EU’s GDPR) is necessary. Be it virtual environment backup like VMware Backup, Microsoft Hyper-V Backup or legacy environment backup like Windows Server Backup, Workstation backup, Vembu BDR Suite has been offering Backup & Recovery with their own file-system, VembuHIVE thereby easing the backup process, storage management at an extremely affordable pricing.

Last week, they did announce the release of Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 which offers manifold features and enhancements to meet the different needs of Diverse IT environments. According to them, the overall goal of the new version v3.9.0 is to provide advancements in terms of Storage, Security, and Data Restoration.

Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 release is distinct because a number of critical features are incorporated for maintaining business continuity and to function effectively for high availability. Here are some of the key highlights of this release:

Tape Backup Support

Vembu now provides the popular 3-2-1 backup strategy( copies of backup in 2 medias(Disk and Tape) and 1 backup copy at offsite) to businesses by announcing the support for Native Tape Backup for Image-based Backups (VMware, Hyper-V, and Physical Windows Servers & Workstations) providing an option for Long-Term Archival and Offsite storage. Also, Vembu Tape Backup Support makes the DR possible on any physical or virtual environment. Thus Vembu Tape backup is designed keeping in mind the future needs of the ever-evolving IT demands.

Quick VM Recovery on ESXi host for Hyper-V and Windows Image Backups

As we speak of data backup, recovery of data is equally important, if not more. While data recovery is crucial, the amount of time taken to restore data decides the business continuity of any organization. In the previous versions, Vembu has provided instant recovery capabilities only for VMware Backups from the GUI. From this release v3.9.0, Vembu makes the instant recovery process much simpler and quicker than before by making the Quick VM Recovery possible on VMware ESXi from Vembu BDR backup server console for all image-based backups(VMware, Hyper-V and Microsoft Windows). Thus, Vembu lowers the Recovery Time Objectives of the organizations and provides quicker data regain and access.

Backup-level Encryption

With the newest release, Vembu provides the ability to encrypt the data while creating a backup job. Each backup job that is configured from the distributed agents or through the Vembu BDR backup server is now highly secured through Backup-level Encryption. By using customized passwords, users will now be able to enable additional security for their backup jobs. And the backup data can be restored/accessed only by providing the password. Thus, the data is encrypted and can only be accessed by authorized users. This step is to fight data threats and also to ensure data compliances.

Auto Authorization at Vembu OffsiteDR Server

Offsite data protection is critical in terms of business continuity and is primarily done to keep a backup instance of key business data. To increase data security, Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 has Auto Authorization feature at Vembu OffsiteDR server that lets only the registered BDR backup servers to connect to the OffsiteDR server. Vembu BDR servers are authorized through unique registration key generated at the OffsiteDR server. Thus, safeguard all your backup data even if they are transferred to offsite through Auto-Authorization at OffsiteDR server

Pre/Post backup scripts

Many businesses are in a need to execute certain business logic before or after a backup job. But running these logics manually through scripts is difficult and is not feasible for organizations having multiple backup jobs running in their IT infrastructure. To make this process simpler, Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 provides a separate wizard in NetworkBackup, OnlineBackup and ImageBackup clients, where one can add a number of pre and post executable commands/scripts. This helps in automatically executing the added commands/scripts at specific stages based on the configuration and provides the ability to run the custom actions before/after the backup schedules.

Besides all the listed features, Vembu BDR Suite v3.9.0 has few interesting features like Windows Event Viewer Integration along with some Enhancements.

Interested in trying Vembu BDR suite?, Try Now on a 30-days free trial: https://www.vembu.com/vembu-bdr-suite-download/

News from Vembu – December 2017

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 08:09:37 +0000

Hello readers. Being in a close relationship with software producers gives me great opportunities. Today I’d like to share with you updates from blog sponsor - Vembu.

Unveiling the perpetual licensing:

With launching the latest perpetual licensing, we look forward to availing more flexibility with the pricing. The Vembu BDR Suite which was earlier at the subscription pricing model will now be available through perpetual licensing, thereby helping IT environments fulfill their requirements that would cost less over time.

https://www.vembu.com/blog/vembu-provides-pricing-flexibility-unveiling-perpetual-licensing-option/

Introducing the brand New Service Program:

In the aim of setting firm footprints across the globe by catering one of the most comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution at an affordable pricing, Vembu unfolds it’s New Service Provider Program that would provide service providers a great scope for huge benefits and discounts with the Vembu BDR Suite v3.8.0.

https://www.vembu.com/blog/vembu-announces-new-and-customer-centric-service-provider-program/

Addressing customers’ concern have always been Vembu’s top priority. The Vembu BDR Suite does comply with the new regulation and will make the users the real data owner. Complying with industry standards and policies has always been one of Vembu BDR Suite’s core attributes and the GDPR is no exception as well.

https://www.vembu.com/eu-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

VMware resources from Altaro – worth to take a look!

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 13:02:13 +0000

Hello, fellow VMware readers. In Today post I’d like to encourage you to take a look at few VMware related resources from blog sponsor Altaro.

Altaro VM Backup

Altaro is a software company who created its flagship backup product Altaro VM Backup v7.

Altaro VM Backup is an affordable backup solution for Hyper-V and VMware VMs priced per host and not per socket or CPU. This cost-effective solution is super easy to use with a straightforward interface and simple wizard setup process. The software solution comes packed with features to back up VMs including flexible scheduling, data integrity checks, automated test drills and more.

Besides its backup product which you can easily evaluate created as well some other interesting VMware related content.

Altaro VMware blog

Altaro VMware blog is available here: https://www.altaro.com/vmware/. it is quite well organized and new blog posts are presented often.

Altaro VMware webinars

Altaro is quite active in VMware and Microsoft environment. Quite often Altaro organizes webinars not only backup related. Take a look at upcoming webinars here: https://www.altaro.com/webinars.php.

Altaro VM Backup Educational Resources - Use Cases & Tutorials

Altaro produces as well interesting tutorials and use cases https://www.altaro.com/resources/tutorials.php. Few of them which are really interesting:

10 Essential Best Practices for Virtual Server Backups
Licensing Microsoft Server in a Virtual Environment
7 Key Areas of Hyper-V
and many more

NSX SFTP Backup stops working after upgrade to NSX 6.3.*

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 08:33:03 +0000

I am in a process of upgrading NSX 6.2.4 by a customer in three locations deployed using VVD Deployment Toolkit. The NSX Upgrade itself went really smoothly. However, after the upgrade, we noticed that SFTP backup stopped working with an enigmatic error.

`1`	`Unable to connect to server FQDN at 22. Either server details are invalid or invalid credentials are presented.( Common algorithms not found. )`

After checking credentials and SFTP backup destination server I found that with NSX 6.3.0 SFTP supports following backup ciphers:

1
2
3

Encryption: aes128-cbc, aes128-ctr, aes192-cbc, aes192-ctr, aes256-cbc, aes256-ctr
Message Authentication(mac): hmac-sha2-256
Key Exchanges: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-for-vSphere/6.3/rn/releasenotes_nsx_vsphere_630.html

To fix the issue sshd config must be adjusted:

Edit the ssh_config.
sshd_config keywords Cipher and MACs need to be updated with the correct Cipher and MAC algorithms.For example:

`1`	`Ciphers aes128-cbc,aes128-ctr,aes192-cbc,aes192-ctr,aes256-cbc,aes256-ctr MACs hmac-sha2-256`

Once config change is done, restart ssh deamon and backup will start to work again.

New Vembu BDR Suite v3.8.0 Free Edition release

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 08:47:37 +0000

Vembu is a leading software product development that has been focusing on Backup and Disaster Recovery software for data centers over a decade.

It’s flagship offering- the BDR Suite of products consists of VMBackup for VMware vSphere and Hyper-V, Disk Image backups for Physical machines, Workstations. Backing up individual files and folders to physical servers and cloud can be performed with Vembu Network Backup and Online Backup respectively.

Moreover, it has multiple flexible deployments like on-site, off-site and to the cloud through a single user interface. Another offering of the Vembu BDR Suite is to be able to configure item level backups like Microsoft Exchange Servers, Sharepoint, SQL, My SQL, Office 365, G Suite etc., This latest version of Vembu BDR Suite v3.8.0 has come out with the few notable features in two major offerings- one unlimited feature for three virtual machines and the second thing being able to backup unlimited virtual machines with restricted features.

This latest Free edition of Vembu BDR Suite was designed understanding the setbacks by any common IT Administrator. Thence making Vembu an important name in the market for a backup vendor for its enterprise-level product for SMBs. This free edition is free forever and IT administrators can continue managing their backups with the trial version without any feature restriction. Let’s take a plunge into the detailed features of this Free edition.

Unlimited features for the Limited environment(3 VMs):

Using the Vembu BDR Suite in its trial version does not require purchasing a license. This category of the Free edition offers unlimited features and few of them are listed below:

Agentless VMware backups for multiple VMs: Configuring backups for protecting multiple VMs without physically installing any agent.
Disk Image Backups from BDR Server: Disk Image Backups can now be configured and managed via Vembu BDR Server. Relying on proxy agents is no longer required unless it’s a distributed deployment which requires individual proxy agent installation.
Full VM Backup: Will backup the entire VM including OS, applications and the data.
Storage Pooling: Storage Pools are used to aggregate the space available from different volumes and utilize them as a storage for specific backups. The hybrid volume manager of Vembu BDR Server supports scalable and extendable backup storage for different storage media such as Local drives, NAS(NFS and CIFS) and SAN(iSCSI and FC). Vembu BDR provides storage pooling option for both backup level and group level.
LAN free data transfer using SAN and Hot- Add modes: Vembu VM backup support Direct SAN, Hot-Add and network transport mode to backup the VM data.
Auto Authorization: Enabling Auto authorization in Vembu BDR allows proxy agents to get registered to the backup server using unique registration key generated by respective BDR server.
Automatic Backup Scheduling: Backups can be automatically scheduled as per the user’s flexibility
Encryption Settings: Users can now provide additional security to their disk-based backup jobs by assigning custom-password to the backup server, such that all their backup data will be encrypted and can be restored/accessed only by providing the custom-password.
FLR from GUI (Backup & Replication): File Level Recovery(FLR) is now available for both backup and replication jobs where the user can choose specific files and folders from VMware/Hyper-V/Disk Image backups and VMware replication, to be restored in a quick fashion.

All the above major features are included in this free edition for 3 virtual machines. Let’s get to know those restricted features for unlimited virtual machines.

Restricted Features for unlimited virtual machines:

All the features mentioned above for limited business environment will be applicable for this category with few restrictions in the features. They are:

Application-aware processing: Configuring them for a Hyper-V environment is restricted but that does not hold good with VMware vSphere Esxi(s).
Changed Block Tracking: Only the incremental blocks which are changed since the previous backup will be tracked and backed up in the successive backup schedule thereby reducing disk space and time
Retention Policies: User can retain any number of recovery points of his own choice. They come to great use when it comes to storing the backup data.
Near CDP: Incremental backup can be scheduled every 15 mins to ensure the RPO < than 15 mins
Quick VM recovery to ESXi: Incremental backup can be scheduled every 15 mins to ensure the RPO < than 15 mins.
Automated Backup verification: Verify the recoverability of the backed up images and screenshot of the booted Image backup will be emailed

Backup and recovery holds good for both physical and virtual environments and makes granular recovery possible with great ease. You will able to scale out your storage, secure your individual backup jobs with in-built deduplication, encryption, and compression that makes its own file system called, the VembuHIVE.

This latest Free edition thus becomes one of the most business-friendly and a complete backup solution. That being said, It can be suitable for both testing and production environments! Their out-of-the box policy- backup for all was hailed even at the recent VMworld event, Las Vegas.

Well, there is nothing left to ponder now. It’s time to make the right decision. It could be done right away with getting started with their Free edition of Vembu BDR Suite on a 30 days free trial. Click here.

How to configure All-Flash vSAN from command line

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 07:00:45 +0000

In my previous post https://www.wojcieh.net/my-new-home-lab/ I showed you my new homelab. It was configured having in mind single node vSAN to leverage caching for I/O. Today I will show you how to configure all-flash vSAN from command line.

To configure single node all-flash vSAN we first must identify the disks we will use.
Login to ESXi via SSH and execute command vdq -q. This command will list all available disks to be used.

[root@ESXi:~] vdq -q
[
  {
      "Name"     : "t10.NVMe____WDC_WDS256G1X0C2D00ENX0__________________B10A464                                                                                                                                                             44A441B00",
      "VSANUUID" : "522288b0-d99b-a8f8-6dd5-44b7ef7354e4",
      "State"    : "In-use for VSAN",
      "Reason"   : "None",
      "IsSSD"    : "1",
"IsCapacityFlash": "0",
      "IsPDL"    : "0",
  },

  {
      "Name"     : "t10.ATA_____DeLOCK_54659_32GB_______________________20170502                                                                                                                                                             AA9241826001",
      "VSANUUID" : "",
      "State"    : "Ineligible for use by VSAN",
      "Reason"   : "Has partitions",
      "IsSSD"    : "1",
"IsCapacityFlash": "0",
      "IsPDL"    : "0",
  },

  {
      "Name"     : "t10.ATA_____Crucial_CT2050MX300SSD1_________________________                                                                                                                                                             1651150F2144",
      "VSANUUID" : "52c93db2-c879-ce09-ea2a-664a0ae10485",
      "State"    : "In-use for VSAN",
      "Reason"   : "None",
      "IsSSD"    : "1",
"IsCapacityFlash": "1",
      "IsPDL"    : "0",
  },
]

In my case I’ve got two disks - 256GB NVME which will be used as flash tier and 2TB SSD as a capacity tier.

Once we identified our disks we must tag the 2TB disk as a capacity disk

`1`	`esxcli vsan storage tag add -t capacityFlash -d t10.ATA_____Crucial_CT2050MX300SSD1_________________________1651150F2144`

In the next step we will add 256GB NVME disk as a flash device.

`1`	`esxcli vsan storage add -s t10.NVMe____WDC_WDS256G1X0C2D00ENX0__________________B10A46444A441B00 -d t10.ATA_____Crucial_CT2050MX300SSD1_________________________1651150F2144`

In the next step, we will create vSAN Cluster.
1

esxcli vsan cluster new

Once vSAN Cluster is enabled we must change default vSAN policies to allow us to deploy virtual machines.

esxcli vsan policy setdefault -c cluster -p "((\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i0) (\"forceProvisioning\" i1))"
esxcli vsan policy setdefault -c vdisk -p "((\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i0) (\"forceProvisioning\" i1))"
esxcli vsan policy setdefault -c vmnamespace -p "((\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i0) (\"forceProvisioning\" i1))"
esxcli vsan policy setdefault -c vmswap -p "((\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i0) (\"forceProvisioning\" i1))"
esxcli vsan policy setdefault -c vmem -p "((\"hostFailuresToTolerate\" i0) (\"forceProvisioning\" i1))"

Now we can deploy virtual machines.

References:

VeeamON Tour Poland – Warsaw 07.09.2017 Agenda

Mon, 04 Sep 2017 21:12:17 +0000

Hello, blog readers. I’d like to invite you to VeeamON Tour Poland – Warsaw 07.09.2017. Now that we know the agenda I am happy to share it with you.


09:00 - 10:00	Rejestracja
10:00 - 10:10	Powitanie Andrzej Niziołek, Veeam
10:10 - 10:40	Our Digital Future Andrzej Niziołek, Veeam
10:40 - 11:00	Czy każdy powinien korzystać z chmury? Ewa Zborowska, IDC
11:00 - 11:30	Availability is More than a Word Rick Vanover
11:30 - 12:00	Automatyczna replikacja sieci w chmurze oraz Data Center Piotr Jabłoński, VMware
12:00 - 12:30	Bezpieczeństwo danych z rozwiązaniami HPE Marek Kozicki, HPE
12:30 - 12:45	Przerwa kawowa
12:45 - 13:05	It´s More Than Just Backup Jerzy Adamiak, Exagrid
13:05 - 13:25	Trendy w technologiach IP Storage Tomasz Kułakowski, Cisco
13:25 - 13:45	3, 2, 1, Quantum – kompletne rozwiązanie dla Veeam Marcin Kabaj, Quantum
13:45 - 14:45	Obiad
14:45 - 15:45	v10 - ekluzywny pokaz Mariusz Rybusiński, Tomasz Turek, Veeam
15:45 - 16:15	15 prostych metod optymalizacji Tomasz Turek, Veeam
16:15 - 16:45	Chmura hybrydowa - rozwiązania Veeam i Microsoft Azure Mariusz Rybusiński, Veeam
16:45 - 17:00	Podsumowanie, losowanie nagród, zakończenie
17:00 - 18:15	Stand up
18:15 - 19:15	Kolacja
19:15 - 23:55	Część wieczorna

We will have as well following presenters:

Tomasz Kułakowski - Cisco
Piotr Jabłoński - VMware
Ewa Zborowska - IDC
Rick Vanover - Director of Technical Product Marketing, Veeam Software
Andrzej Niziołek - Senior Regional Manager Northern and Southern Eastern Europe, Veeam Software

If you register there is a chance to win Apple Watch!

VeeamON Tour Poland – Warsaw 07.09.2017

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 09:16:25 +0000

Hello blog readers. I’d like to invite you to VeeamON Tour Poland - Warsaw 07.09.2017. This year theme is Experience Availability.

VeeamON Tours are designed for IT professionals of all levels and focused on how to deliver the Availability for the Always-On Enterprise. These exciting events take place in 40+ locations all over Europe.

8000+ IT professionals, including IT Decision Makers, administrators, partners.
40+ cities in Europe, South Africa, the Middle East & India.
What is it about?: The paradigm of business has been completely revolutionized by IT and digital.

The earlier notion of fixed time and a fixed place has given way to anytime, anywhere, any channel business transactions. The customers’ and employees’ expectations from a contemporary business are very different. They want their enterprise to be Always-On.The data layer is a critical layer of any enterprise as it is the “currency” of the processes that create and deliver services. This vital currency needs to be managed well for it to be available in the right form, at the right speed, and in the right quantity, whenever demanded.

The event will take place in:

Digital Knowledge Village

ul. Puławska 457

02-844 Warszawa

To register in this exciting event simply visit the event landing Page https://go.veeam.com/veeamon-tour-poland.

Vembu BDR Suite v3.8.0 GA Release

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 07:20:37 +0000

Vembu is a leading provider of a portfolio of software products and cloud services to small and medium businesses for more than a decade. Since 2002, Vembu’s industry-recognized data protection solutions have delivered tangible value to more than 60,000 businesses worldwide through a network of 4000+ partners (MSPs/VARs & Resellers).

Vembu just released BDR Suite v3.8.0 GA of its flagship product.

New features in v3.8

Disk Image Backup from BDR Server

Disk Image Backups can now be configured and managed via Vembu BDR Server. Relying on proxy agents is no longer required unless it’s a distributed deployment which requires individual proxy agent installation.

FLR from GUI (Backup & Replication)

File Level Recovery(FLR) is now available for both backup and replication jobs where a user can choose specific files and folders from VMware/Hyper-V/Disk Image backups and VMware replication, to be restored in a quick fashion.

Seed load backup data to OffsiteDR

Storing a copy of backup data for DR requirements is now an easy task to be accomplished by seed loading backup server data to desired offsite data center. This saves loads of time and bandwidth from being consumed.

Auto Authorization

Enabling Auto authorization in Vembu BDR allows proxy agents to get registered to the backup server using unique registration key generated by respective BDR server.

Encryption Settings

Users can now provide additional security to their disk based backup jobs by assigning custom-password to the backup server, such that all their backup data will be encrypted and can be restored/accessed only by providing the custom-password.

Storage Pooling

Storage Pools are used to aggregate the space available from different volumes and utilize them as a storage for specific backups. The hybrid volume manager of Vembu BDR Server supports scalable and extendable backup storage for different storage media such as Local drives, NAS(NFS and CIFS) and SAN(iSCSI and FC). Vembu BDR provides storage pooling option for both backup level and group level.

MSI Installer: For all Clients

Users will now get the client agents installer as .msi format also.The installer will check for the following packages based on the OS types (32 bit or 64 bit) and it will install the following (if not installed previously),

Visual C++ 2008 redistributable packages x86
Visual C++ 2008 redistributable packages x64
Visual C++ 2013 redistributable packages x64
Visual C++ 2015 redistributable packages x86

Enhancements in v3.8

Enable or Disable retention for VMBackup / ImageBackup

A user can enable or disable retention policy for the backups based on their requirements.

Disabling retention allows a user to maintain all the backups without any merging of the incremental timestamps. This option is used when the backup size is low.

Disk level download option for VMware & Hyper-V plugins

Users can download backup data in multiple disk file formats such as VHD, VMDK, VHDX, VMDK-Flat and RAW.

Similarly, if user need to download individual disks in a virtual machine, he can perform disk level download by selecting the disks.

From a group of virtual machines in a host backup, multiple disks can be downloaded with same disk file format.

Disk Management Mount(Hyper-V)

This option lets you instantly attach backup data to disk management as a VHD/VHDX file and proceed with the restore process. The VHD/VHDX file is created by virtually mounting the backup data on the vembu virtual drive. Users can access backup data via disks attached on disk management.

Once done with requirement, unmount backup data. This will resume backup job, so that incrementals will run as scheduled.

List VMs in an alphabetical order

Virtual Machines that are present in the host will be listed in an alphabetical order based on the ASCII table values, thereby making it simpler for the user to search and configure the backup. In the Review Configuration page, the Virtual machines that are chosen for backup is listed in the selected order.

Note: Virtual Machines will be listed in the following hierarchical order , , , .

Search option for VMs in backup config page & restore list page

This option allows user to search the Virtual machines that are available in the ESXi host. Also, the user can search VMs/ host/cluster from a vCenter server. By specifying the required VM name in the search option you can select the VMs that are to be backed up from a ESXi host/vCenter Server.

VM level reports in OffsiteDR Server

This page lists all replicated jobs configured from backup server to the offsite server where you can see a report option alongside every replicated job

VM level report gives the user the centralized report page of all VMs that are configured for backup. It allows user to view the detailed backup reports of virtual machines configured from both ESXi or Hyper-V Host.

Full featured free edition

Post 30 days trial version, a user can either opt to purchase the product or continue using the free edition.

In Free edition user has two options to proceed with backup configurations: Full featured free edition or Limited Edition

How to address Data Center Challenges – Vembu Webinar

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 07:00:28 +0000

Vembu leading provider of a portfolio of software products and cloud services to small and medium businesses will hold a webinar on 4th of July.

The main topics which will be discussed are:

How fast can I recover the data center during the disaster?
How can I avoid data loss during DR?
How can I rely on my backups?
Exponential data growth
Migration Plans - P2V and V2V

To register your seat simply follow the link https://www.vembu.com/vembu-bdr-suite-webinar/.

How to backup and restore vSphere Distributed Switch

Wed, 14 Jun 2017 07:00:04 +0000

In one of the previous posts How to backup NSX? I showed you how the process of NSX backup. As a best practice, I suggested aligning NSX backup with vSphere Distributed Switch backup. Today I will show you how to backup and restore vSphere Distributed Switch.

vSphere Distributed Switch backup using vSphere Web Client

Click Networking and click Actions from the main vSphere Web Client GUI.
From the Actions menu click **Settings **and Export Configuration. Choose Distributed switch and all port groups. This allows us to have all settings exported and have full backup of vDS.
The final step is to save exported backup on the local disk.
Give the file meaningful name like backup_DATE_vCenter_vDS_NAME.zip.

vSphere Distributed Switch backup using PowerCLI

Once we saved the backup using vSphere Web Client we can do the same with PowerCLI. Why would you do it from PowerCLI? The answer is automation. Backup using PowerCLI means you can schedule it as scheduled task and run it periodically.

Use the following one-liner to export all vDS from vCenter Server.

`1`	`Get-VDSwitch -Name vDS \| Export-VDSwitch -Description "vDS Backup 15.05.2017" -Destination "c:\vDS_backup.zip"`

Where vDS is the name of the switch and vDS_backup.zip is the backup filename.

Of course, there are other (better or more complicated/sophisticated) ways to do it. Please check below blog articles for other ways to backup vDS using PowerCLI:

vSphere Distributed Switch restore using vSphere Web Client

On the vDS where will we try restore I created two PortGroups. I will delete the whole vDS from Web Client and then we will restore it from the backup.

As you see my inventory has only one vDS.
Navigate to vCenter Server level and click Actions/ Distributed Switch / Import Distributed Switch.
What we have to do is to point to backup file previously created. I selected Preserve original distributed switch and port group identifiers. It is done to force vCenter Server to assign the same value as the Managed Object ID to the key property during port group creation. Some applications might rely on port group identifier.
On the Ready to complete section we have a short summary of vDS, its uplinks and port groups. Hit Finish to finalize Distributed Switch import/restore.
The Distributed Switch is successfully restored from the backup.

vSphere Distributed Switch restore using PowerCLI

Restore is nearly as easy as backup using PowerCLI. Simply execute one-liner listed below.

`1`	`New-VDSwitch -BackupPath c:\vDS_backup.zip -Location SDDC -KeepIdentifiers:$true`

Where -BackupPath is path to vDS backup file, -Location is datacenter we restore vDS to and -KeepIdentifiers:$true preserves port groups IDs.

Summary

I hope you enjoyed this article about how to backup and restore vSphere Distributed Switch.

Vembu BDR Suite Review

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 07:00:42 +0000

Welcome to Vembu BDR Suite Review. Today I will show you what Vembu has to offer in the backup space as well I will show you how Vembu BDR Suite works.

Founded in 2002, Vembu’s industry-recognized data protection solutions have delivered tangible value to more than 60,000 businesses worldwide through a network of 4000+ partners (MSPs/VARs & Resellers). Vembu’s flagship offering is the BDR Suite of products meant for on-premise, offsite, cloud backup and disaster recovery across diverse IT environments including physical, virtual, applications and endpoints.

Vembu is a leading provider of a portfolio of software products and cloud services to small and medium businesses for more than a decade.

Vembu BDR Suite Installation

Please follow the link Vembu BDR Suite Installation Guide to install Vembu BDR Suite. Installation is very intuitive and shouldn’t be more difficult than installing any browser. Before installing take a look at Evaluator’s Guide for VMware Backup.

Vembu BDR Suite Overview

Vembu BDR Suite is a comprehensive universal backup solution catering to the backup, recovery and disaster recovery needs of diverse and heterogeneous IT environments. The portfolio of products under the Vembu BDR Suite can be used by sophisticated, virtualized data centers to the simple IT environment in small and medium businesses including service providers providing an offsite backup service to small businesses.

Vembu BDR Suite software:

Vembu Portal

Before we really can start a review of Vembu BDR Suite we must create an online account. Vembu portal allows you to see your account details like licenses, purchased products and naturally you can purchase new software.

Vembu VMBackup

Before we can take any backup we must first log in to Vembu console.

In the browser navigate to the server where Vembu BDR Suite is installed. Enter username and password - default is admin/admin.
We must select Time Zone.
Next step is to provide our own Vembu ID to easy identify it.
Without registration, Vembu BDR Suite will continue work 30 days. To register go to Management, Server Management, Server Registration.
Enter your login data.

Add vCenter Server to Vembu BDR Suite

Before we backup any virtual machines we must register vCenter Server with Vembu BDR Suite.

Click on **Backup **and then VMware vSphere.
Click Add VMware vSphere Server. Enter necessary data and click save.
In a matter of seconds, vCenter Servers are added to inventory.

Backup VM

In order to backup virtual machines first, we must select vCenter Server where it resides.
Select ESXi hosts or virtual machines you wish to backup. In my case, it will be Windows Server 2008 virtual machines. Please note that you can easily exclude disks from the backup.
Choose schedule from hourly, daily or weekly backup. In case you wish to initiate a full backup on scheduled basis (to prevent incremental forever backups growing) you can do it as well.
In the **Settings **section choose how many incremental backups you wish to store.
In case you are backing up Windows Server with applications which are using Microsoft VSS writers you can enable Application Aware Process. This allows you to backup Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange with application awareness in the virtual machine. To perform application-aware image you must provide virtual machine credentials.
The last screen provides us Review of the chosen settings. Simply give a backup job name and if you wish backup can start immediately after saving the configuration.
We can view the backup progress of our job from the main dashboard.
Backup took a while (in my case this is quite normal because this is nested vCloud Director environment) and was successful.

Restore VM

Once we successfully backed up our test virtual machines let’s test the recovery process. I will simply delete one of the backed up virtual machines and let it restore.

In Vembu BDR portal click Recovery and click the icon to restore.
We have several possibilities to recover the virtual machine. I will choose Quick VM Recovery.
Choose restore point and virtual machine you would like to restore.
Select VMware as a product and target VMware Server.
Review the restore settings and click Restore Now.
Depending on the speed of your network virtual machine will be restored.

Summary

Vembu offers solid software which allows covering pretty much all disaster recovery needs for small to big companies. Don’t forget to test their software and reach me out if you would like to hear more about Vembu software.

Ransomware education from Veeam

Mon, 22 May 2017 09:46:01 +0000

Blog sponsor Veeam created interesting articles about a very hot topic - Ransomware.

Ransomware has become the threat du jour for businesses of all types and end users alike, as well as the money extortion tool of choice for cybercriminals. This is hardly surprising given its impressive ability to evolve and sneak by traditional data protection strategies. The frustration of those affected is palpable, with outcomes also including critical data loss, lowered productivity and damaged reputation.

Veeam e-book not only gives an insight into the ransomware threat but also reviews the fundamentals of top-notch ransomware preparedness and recovery, in order to help protect yourself and your organization. The initial infection may be inevitable, so the best protection is to be fully prepared and ready to recover.

Learn more about:

Ransomware milestones, key capabilities, and impact
Key layers of ransomware protection and preparedness against attacks
Quick and painless recovery from backups
And much more!

Download ebook

Simply visit https://go.veeam.com/ransomware-awareness-education link and download a free ebook.

Additional resources

Designing Veeam Availability Suite to Protect Against Ransomware Threats

Ransomware resiliency & Availability: The endpoint is a great place to start</a

How to backup vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

Fri, 19 May 2017 16:05:56 +0000

vCenter Server (be it the appliance or not) is the critical management component of every vSphere environment. Therefore it is critical to backup it at regular basis to have the possibility to restore configuration prior to failure. With the vSphere 6.5 release, vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) received the possibility to perform the backup of its configuration from appliance management interface (not only but I will describe this later on).

The vCenter Server Appliance backup and restore feature supports a number of communication protocols:

FTP
FTPS
SCP
HTTP
HTTPS

Today I am going to show you how to backup vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 using FTP/FTPS protocol and from the command line.

Backup vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 (vCSA) using FTP/FTPS

Log in to vCenter Server Appliance IP/FQDN VAMI URL - **https://IP_OR_FQDN:5480 **and type username and password used during installation.
Once logged in go to **Summary **and click Backup.
Click Backup and provide FTP/FTPS server details.
On the next page choose if you wish to backup inventory and configuration or if you wish to include SEAT Database (Statistics, Events, and Tasks).
On the last screen, we see the summary of FTP/FTPS backup.
Backup process starts.
After few minutes vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) is successfully backed up.

Automated backup of vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 (vCSA)

As you saw the manual process of vCSA 6.5 backup is easy. The only problem with it that there is no possibility to schedule it from the appliance management interface. I hope this feature will be incorporated in future releases.

Fortunately for us, VMware created a BASH script which can be executed from cron and automated.

#!/bin/bash
 ##### EDITABLE BY USER to specify vCenter Server instance and backup destination. #####
 VC_ADDRESS=vc_server_ip
 VC_USER=sso_user
 VC_PASSWORD=sso_pass
 FTP_ADDRESS=storage_server
 FTP_USER=ftpuser
 FTP_PASSWORD=ftpuser
 BACKUP_FOLDER=backup
 ############################

 # Authenticate with basic credentials.
 curl -u "$VC_USER:$VC_PASSWORD" \
    -X POST \
    -k --cookie-jar cookies.txt \
    "https://$VC_ADDRESS/rest/com/vmware/cis/session"

 # Create a message body for the backup request.
 TIME=$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M-%S)
 cat << EOF <task.json
 { "piece":
      {
          "location_type":"FTP",
          "comment":"Automatic backup",
          "parts":["seat"],
          "location":"ftp://$FTP_ADDRESS/$BACKUP_FOLDER/$TIME",
          "location_user":"$FTP_USER",
          "location_password":"$FTP_PASSWORD"
      }
 }
EOF

 # Issue a request to start the backup operation.
 echo Starting backup $TIME <<backup.log
 curl -k --cookie cookies.txt \
    -H 'Accept:application/json' \
    -H 'Content-Type:application/json' \
    -X POST \
    --data @task.json 2<<backup.log <response.txt \
    "https://$VC_ADDRESS/rest/appliance/recovery/backup/job"
 cat response.txt <<backup.log
 echo '' <<backup.log

 # Parse the response to locate the unique identifier of the backup operation.
 ID=$(awk '{if (match($0,/"id":"\w+-\w+-\w+"/)) \
           print substr($0, RSTART+6, RLENGTH-7);}' \
          response.txt)
 echo 'Backup job id: '$ID

 # Monitor progress of the operation until it is complete.
 PROGRESS=INPROGRESS
 until [ "$PROGRESS" != "INPROGRESS" ]
 do
      sleep 10s
      curl -k --cookie cookies.txt \
        -H 'Accept:application/json' \
        --globoff \
        "https://$VC_ADDRESS/rest/appliance/recovery/backup/job/$ID" \
        <response.txt
      cat response.txt <<backup.log
      echo ''  <<backup.log
      PROGRESS=$(awk '{if (match($0,/"state":"\w+"/)) \
                      print substr($0, RSTART+9, RLENGTH-10);}' \
                     response.txt)
      echo 'Backup job state: '$PROGRESS
 done

 # Report job completion and clean up temporary files.
 echo ''
 echo "Backup job completion status: $PROGRESS"
 rm -f task.json
 rm -f response.txt
 rm -f cookies.txt
 echo ''  <<backup.log

On the VMware page, there is a small error which won’t allow you to run the script (I already informed internal resources to correct it).

Simply in line 31 remove space before **EOF.

As you see script executed successfully.

Source of the script: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-65/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.vcsapg-rest.doc/GUID-222400F3-678E-4028-874F-1F83036D2E85.html

Schedule automated vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) backup using cron

I’ve created a shell script named **vcsa_backup.sh **which I will add to cron. In case you are new to cron I recommend this website http://crontab-generator.org/ to easily schedule backup.

From a vCSA shell type **crontab -e ** and we will enter edit mode where we simply specify when and what shall be executed.

In my case, I scheduled it for every day at 9 PM.

`1`	`0 21 * * * /root/vcsa_backup.sh </dev/null 2<&1`

Other resources

There are as well different ways to backup vCenter Server Appliance 6.5. Please take a look at Brian Graf’s PowerCLI script which allows automating vCSA Backup.

Summary

I hope this post will help you to easily backup of vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) 6.5 and to protect your environment in case of a failure or issue.

New blog sponsor – Vembu

Wed, 17 May 2017 21:29:48 +0000

I am pleased to announce that as of Today Vembu creator of well-known backup software Vembu VMBackup is my new blog sponsor.

About Vembu

Vembu is a leading provider of a portfolio of software products and cloud services to small and medium businesses for more than a decade. Vembu’s vision is to make software and cloud services very affordable for the hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses worldwide.

Vembu’s flagship offering is the BDR Suite of products meant for on-premise, offsite, cloud backup and disaster recovery across diverse IT environments including physical, virtual, applications and endpoints. Vembu CRM Suite consists of products that address the needs of all customer facing teams including support, sales, marketing & social media engagement.

Since 2002, Vembu’s industry-recognized data protection solutions have delivered tangible value to more than 60,000 businesses worldwide through a network of 4000+ partners (MSPs/VARs & Resellers).

Vembu Products

Vembu BDR Suite

Vembu BDR Suite Free Edition offers Backup and Recovery for both virtual and physical environments forever with no costs involved. With agentless backups for virtual environments, multiple recovery options, an in-house file system for efficient storage management and secured data transmission, Vembu BDR Suite presents a free edition software which is best suited for all types of businesses who wish to experience the simple and comprehensive backup and recovery solution.

Vembu BDR Suite Product Datasheet

Vembu VMBackup

Vembu VMBackup is a Backup and Disaster Recovery software that supports VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments. VMBackup is designed to backup and replicate the virtual machines by taking the snapshots of the VM images at the host (hypervisor) level.

Vembu VMBackup Product Datasheet

Vembu ImageBackup

Vembu ImageBackupoffers comprehensive Backup and Disaster Recovery solution for Windows IT environment. It backs up entire disk image of Windows Servers, Desktops, and Laptops including operating system, applications, and files. During system crash or any major disaster, Bare-metal Recovery (BMR) helps to recover the backed up Windows machines into same or different hardware.

Vembu ImageBackup Product Datasheet

Vembu NetworkBackup

Vembu NetworkBackup is designed for small-medium businesses to protect business data across file servers, application servers, workstations and other endpoints. With NetworkBackup businesses can backup all their systems to a central location which is easier to manage.

Vembu NetworkBackup Product Datasheet

Vembu OnlineBackup

Vembu OnlineBackup backup Business Critical Data to our Secure Cloud.

Vembu SaaSBackup

Vembu SaaSBackup is a User-friendly Backup and Recovery solution for SaaS applications. It has been efficiently designed to backup emails, drives, contacts and calendar of SaaS applications like Google Apps (now G Suite) and Office 365. Vembu SaaSBackup’s core system will manage all backup and restore operations as per the user request. The backup data will be sent to the Vembu Cloud storage over a secured network.

Vembu SaaSBackup Product Datasheet

Summary

Vembu has a broad portfolio of products and I hope you will give it a try and test it. Simply follow the link https://www.vembu.com/vembu-bdr-suite-download/ to test their awesome software.

How to add NFS export to VMware ESXi 6.5

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 07:00:09 +0000

During my whole career with VMware vSphere, I’ve been using Fibre Channel as a storage protocol. When it comes to a home lab I’ve tried iSCSI Nexenta iSCSI installation and configuration for ESXi and iSCSI Software Adapter configuration using vSphere Web Client f but I find the configuration more complex than using NFS exports. Today I will show you how to add NFS 3.0 export to VMware ESXi 6.*.

Without further due let’s add NFS export to VMware ESXi 6.5.

Add NFS export to VMware ESXi 6.5

Login to vSphere environment and select ESXi host.Click Configure -> Datastores and choose the icon for creating new datastore.
On the New Datastore, creation wizard, choose NFS and click next.
Choose NFS 3.0 as an NFS version and click next.
Provide datastore name, folder, and server and click next.
On the ready to complete section simply click Finish.
New NFS based datastore was created.

Mount NFS Datastore to additional Hosts

Starting from vSphere 6.0 VMware introduced really handy feature to mount NFS Datastore to additional hosts directly from Web Client.

Choose datastore you would like to add to additional Hosts and select Mount Datastore to Additional Hosts.
Choose ESXi hosts that you want to mount the datastore on. Click Ok.
After few second NFS Datastore will be added to previously selected ESXi servers.

Summary

As you saw, the procedure isn’t extremely complicated and greatly improved. I really love how easy it is to mount NFS datastores to additional ESXi hosts.

Altaro VM Backup 7.0 released with new great features

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 12:52:26 +0000

It’s been a while since I reviewed Altaro Backup Software. See my previous post https://www.wojcieh.net/altaro-vm-backup-vmware-review/ from 2015.

Altaro published a new version of its backup software and I wanted to review newly released features. I’ve been using Altaro Backup in my lab for nearly two Years and it works flawlessly.

Augmented Inline Deduplication

In previous versions of Altaro VM Backup technology called Reverse Delta was used. This allowed placing most recent data set in the most recent backup file. It was a pre-deduplication technique. in VM Backup 7.0 Altaro is using inline real-time deduplication. This means that only one copy of each block is stored on backup destination. This allows for massive disk space savings and great backup ratios. What is as well worth to mention that there is no need to do any post-processing jobs.

The picture below shows the idea how deduplication works.

To give you an example how much disk space you could save let’s calculate the theoretical backup size.

10 Windows Server 2016 (40GB) + 10 Windows 10 (100GB) + 10 Ubuntu (20GB). Without deduplication, you could have as much as 1,6 TB of data. With deduplication data blocks shared between Operating Systems will be not saved more than once. This gives us a theoretical amount of deduplicated data of 160GB (if Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 use same blocks deduplication ratio could be even higher).

Normal backup vs deduplication = 1,6TB vs 160 GB

Besides smaller backups, it is important to mention that deduplication will shorten your backup time.

To read more about deduplication visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_deduplication.

On the screenshot below you see in details how much savings I’ve got. I have cloned Ubuntu VM five times and disk space savings are always above 90% and backed up the amount of data is really low.

Boot from Backup

New feature Boot from Backup allows customers to power on virtual machines directly from the source backup. This allows to boot the virtual machine in the fastest possible way - the backup is restored while VM is booting. One of the requirements to utilize this feature is fast storage backend.

Windows Server 2016 Support

Altaro VM Backup 7.0 supports Windows Server 2016 as a Hypervisor (Hyper-V) and as well as installation destination.

New GUI

VM Backup 7.0 brings refreshed and even more organized User Interface. Working with well organized GUI is a success and makes a life of IT guru easier.

New look was as well was done for Altaro Offsite Server.

Altaro VM Backup Best Practices

Like many of software vendors, Altaro created a handy document where quite a few best practices are mentioned Altaro VM Backup Best Practices.

To learn more about Altaro VM Backup for VMware simply visit link: http://www.altaro.com/vmware-backup/.

You can also download 30-day trial or free VMware edition.

VeeamOn 2017

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 22:46:37 +0000

Hello Readers in 2017!

Veeam announced its world’s largest event focused on Availability. It will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from 16.05.2017 - 18.05.2017.

There will be 85+ breakout sessions including technical deep dives, possibility to certify yourself and become Veeam Certified Engineer and possibility to win LabWarz competition with fantastic prizes.

To register simply visit VeeamOn link veeamon.com.

I wish I could attend this event with you guys.

Build a NetApp ONTAP 9 Lab… For Free!

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 09:56:40 +0000

For every vSphere Administrator and Engineer experience with storage products is very important. Unfortunately for some of us who work in larger enterprises, there is clear role and duties separation. This leads to technology silos where vSphere gurus can’t “play” with storage. Fortunately for those people (and not only of course) community member Neil Anderson created eBook How to create NetApp Ontap 9 Lab.

Build a NetApp ONTAP 9 Lab… For Free!

Neil’s eBook can be downloaded from his website NetApp Simulator 9 Free eBook – How to Build Your Own NetApp Lab running ONTAP 9 where he describes step by step how to build NetApp Lab withing few moments having only VMware Workstation Player, VyOS Router and ONTAP Simulator.

Neil guides you as well with complete VyOS configuration guide, Active Directory Domain Services configuration and much more. Just for that stuff, Neil’s eBook should receive shoutout!

And finally the best part - building your own NetApp Lab was never so achievable as it is now. Simply http://www.flackbox.com/netapp-simulator/ get your hands dirty and learn!

How to backup NSX?

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 07:00:28 +0000

One of the components of modern and agile environments is Software Defined Network (SDN). Imagine that your Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) dies and you as Administrator of that environment have to recover it to state before crash.

So you as an Admin have a task to make sure that whole SDDC stack including NSX can be recovered after a failure or issue. Besides relying on High Availability provided by hypervisor and/or storage you must be 100% sure that you can recover NSX to state before crash. Today I will guide you through simple yet effective process of configuring NSX and its backup.

NSX backup strategy

As I mentioned above NSX is most likely be part of your SDDC platform which is fast, agile and there are many changes. In order to keep up to constant changes NSX should be backed up as often as possible. From my experience working with Clients who already use NSX in SDDC and IoT environments, NSX backup is as important as any other components.

NSX backup should be done with conjunction with vCenter Server backups and vCenter Server database backups.

Example backup schedule:

vCenter Server is backed up on daily basis
vCenter Server Database is backed up on daily basis (Full SQL backup) and transaction logs are backed up every hour
NSX Manager configuration is backed up every hour

From example above we clearly see that all critical components of environment are backup up at same time. Why do we do it that way? Answer is very simple - if we face issue with more than one component we will be able to recover full SDDC stack to state before crash. From architectural point of view we use terms Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO). If you don’t know this terms take a look on my Colleague post who described it in details: RPO, RTO, WRT, MTD…WTH?!

How to backup NSX?

One and only supported way to backup NSX is to export whole configuration to FTP or SFTP server. This export consist all settings you configured in NSX - may it be Controllers, Edges, DLRs or firewall rules. All settings are stored in NSX Manager database and in case something must be restored or redeployed it can be done if you have NSX Manager config backup.

Login to NSX Manager appliance.
Click on Backup & Restore.
Click on Change button in FTP Server Settings.
We must provide following information:
IP/Hostname
Transfer Protocol
User name
Password
Backup Directory
Filename Prefix
Pass Phrase
Once all information is provided click Ok.
Click on Scheduling to schedule NSX Manager backups.
Once all settings are configured after few hours you will see that schedule is working.

Summary

As you see from operational point of view configuration of NSX takes few moments. From architectural point of view it is worth to consider how and when do we take NSX backups. I hope you will start to backup NSX now and in case you have some questions feel free to ask them in comments or sent me message.

Nakivo v6.1 released with new features

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:30:53 +0000

NAKIVO Backup & Replication v.6.1

A few days ago Nakivo released version 6.1 of their flagship product NAKIVO Backup & Replication v.6.1.

New features

With new release, Nakivo introduced new interesting features like:

Instant Object Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2016/2013: NAKIVO Backup & Replication v6.1 Beta enables browsing, searching, and recovering Microsoft Exchange 2016 and 2013 objects, such as emails, directly from compressed and deduplicated VMware VM backups, without the need to restore the entire VM first. This feature is purely agentless, works right out of the box, and does not require creating a special lab, or running a special backup type.

Log Truncation for Microsoft Exchange 2016/2013: Microsoft Exchange Server database transaction logs record all changes to an Exchange Server database. Over time, these log files accumulate and can consume all of the available disk space, if not periodically removed. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v6.1 Beta provides an option to truncate logs of Microsoft Exchange 2016 and 2013 after a successful backup.

Hot Add: The new Hot Add feature enables writing VM data directly from/to the VM datastore, bypassing the network. NAKIVO Backup & Replication v6.1 Beta automatically uses Hot Add in order to offload production LAN from the data protection traffic and to increase the data transfer speed.

Job Chaining: NAKIVO Backup & Replication v6.1 Beta extends the job scheduling functionality by introducing job chaining. With this feature, a job can finish its tasks and then trigger another job in a chain. This way, for example, it’s easy to set up a chain where a VM backup job saves data locally and then triggers a Backup Copy job that sends backup copies to Amazon Cloud.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication v.6.1 review

Hot Add

New Hot Add feature allow reading data directly from source VM disk, bypassing the network which increases job performance. One of the prerequisites to use this new feature is Transporter direct access to all datastores on which VM was placed.

Hot Add feature can be configured during new job creation or by editing existing backup job. We will create a new backup job with Hot Add functionality.

Login to Nakivo appliance and click Create.
Choose VMware vSphere backup job and choose the desired scope of the backup (entire vCenter Server, Datacenter, Cluster, ESXi server or VM). Click next to continue.
Select backup repository and click Next.
Specify job schedule and click next to continue.
On the last screen expand advanced settings and choose Hot Add only.
Click Finish or Finish & Run.

Job Chaining

Another great feature is job chaining. Imagine that you don’t have to schedule one job after another, but simply select next job that has to be executed after another. In this example, we will replicate VMs after successful backup job.

Click create and choose VMware vSphere replication job.
Choose virtual machine you wish to replicate.
Choose replica location: Cluster, Datastore, and Network.
Choose Run after another job, select job and choose when to run (after successful runs, failed runs or stopped runs).
Click Finish. Now initial job will be run on demand and we will see if chained one kicked in.

Summary

Nakivo continues to improve their flagship product and I am confident that you will love it once tested in a real environment. At the end I strongly recommend to try it out – simply click the link for Free Trial http://www.nakivo.com/vmware/vmware-backup-trial.html.

Learn more about the product on Nakivo webpage: https://www.nakivo.com/en/vm-backup-replication-v6.1.html?adv=indx-bnr.

Nakivo Backup & Replication review

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 07:00:40 +0000

Having reliable and performing backup solution is very important for all companies. I had pleasure to work with Nakivo Backup & Replication software and I would like to invite you to read full review of it.

Nakivo Backup & Replication features

Deployment

As virtual appliance in vSphere environment.
On Synology or Western Digital NAS.
In Amazon cloud.
On Linux.
On Windows.

Data Protection and Data Recovery

Backup can be done on schedule, ad hoc.
VM replication creates and maintains an identical copy of virtual machine on desired host.
Nakivo supports application aware backups like: Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.
Automatic virtual machine protection. Simply select pool, folder, hosts or cluster and you are ready to go.
Flash VM boot allows you to start virtual machine directly from compressed and deduplicated virtual machine backup.
Instant File Recovery allows you to restore in moment to Windows or Linux based virtual machines.

Storage Space Reduction

VM Backup Deduplication allows you to dramatically save space up to 30 times.
Data Compression

Performance

Data compression allows to reduce network traffic up to 50%.
Multiple jobs can be initiated simultaneously which speeds up data processing and shortens backups.
Nakivo supports fibre channel and iSCSI.
Forever-Incremental allows you to reduce backups. It leverages VMware Change Block Tracking technology to backup only data which was changed since last backup.

To learn more about Nakivo features visit website Nakivo Backup and Replication Product Features.

Installation

After short introduction I would like to show you installation process of Nakivo Backup & Replication .

To download Nakivo Backup & Replication software please follow link http://www.nakivo.com/vmware/vmware-backup-trial.html. Once downloaded let’s start installation. As I am big fan of appliances I will use appliance in my lab.

Login to vCenter Server and select desired Cluster. Click Actions and Deploy OVF Template.
Choose - Local File as a source and point to downloaded appliance.
Review details and click next.
Accept License Agreement and click next.
Choose name of VM and folder where it should be placed.
Choose virtual disk format and datastore. I will go with Thin Provision disk since I don’t have that much storage available.
Select port group where appliance will be connected.
Review the details and click Finish to complete deployment.
Once the appliance is deployed simply power it on and wait for boot. You should see initial configuration screen.

Initial configuration

After not that difficult installation let’s start with initial configuration.

Let’s start with network settings. Connect to console and choose Network settings.
Click on hostname and provide your desired name.
Let’s get back to Network Card. Select Network card to configure interface.
In my case I used static IP configuration, but you are free to use DHCP as well.
Press F10to confirm and enter to proceed with changes.
Once the changes are set we can login to appliance. Use FQDN or IP in format https://IP or FQDN>:4443. Default username is root with password root. During first login we are asked to change the default credentials.
Simply enter new password for root password and click Done.

Advanced configuration

After initial configuration we will configure few things like inventory, transporters and repositories.

Inventory

Before we can begin working with Nakivo software we have to import environment. In my case it will be homelab. Once we are logged in to environment we have to login to appliance and enter credentials.

First thing to do is add inventory.
Provide following information:
1. Display name - your friendly name for inventory
2. Hostname or IP
3. Username
4. Password
5. Port
After several moments vCenter will be added to inventory.
From appliance GUI you can see as well your environment.

Transporter

Transporter is product component that performs backup, replication and recovery (of course it does more like compression, deduplication and encryption). In my case I will proceed with internal transporter included in appliance.

In **Transporters **section choose **Onboard transporter **and click next.
As mentioned in features section Nakivo Backup & Replication supports Amazon Web Services as repository.
We are able to manage settings of transporter. Click on manage to do it. We can change transporter port, data transfer ports or maximum concurrent tasks.

Repository

Last configuration item we have to do is to configure repository. Backup repository is nothing else but a place where the backups are stored. In my case I will proceed with repository included in appliance. Repository can be configured to fit enterprise needs.

Appliance has some neat features like:

Scheduled repository self-healing.
Scheduled unused space reclamation.
Detach repository on schedule.
Click Finish to complete configuration. We will be redirected to backup jobs menu.

Backup

Creation of backup jobs with Nakivo is very intuitive and user friendly. Let’s create our first backup!

Click on Create button and select VMware vSphere backup job.
User can choose between two views - Host & Cluster view and VMs & Templates view. If you have larger environment as I have there is handy Search field.
I will choose two Ubuntu virtual machines to be backed up.
Click next and you will be redirected to Step 2 where you can choose destination repository for selected backup source.
In third step we will configure backup schedule. Backups can be run on daily/weekly basis, monthly/yearly or periodically. In my case I selected daily backup at 12AM.
In last - fourth step we can configure advanced backup job settings:
Job name.
App-aware mode, which is using Microsoft VSS.
Change Block Tracking.
Various recovery points retention.
At the end simply choose to Finish job creation or Finish & Run job.
I selected Finish & Run and immediately I am redirected to backup job overview.
After few moments job will be started and virtual machines backed up.

Recover

After successful backup we should try how restore works. I deleted virtual machine Ubuntu and we will try to restore it.

Click Recover and select VMs from backup.
Select virtual machine to recover and select recovery point.
Choose where you want to place virtual machine in terms of Cluster resource, datastore and network.
In third step you can specify a lot of options. I decided to go with defaults, but feel free to explore all features by yourself.
After few minutes recovery is finished and virtual machine is up and running.

Additional features

NAS

If you own Synology or Western Digital NAS you can use your NAS as backup destination. You can store local backups on NAS and even push them to Amazon Web Services cloud.

Amazon Web Service (AWS)

Nakivo offers integration with Amazon EC2 cloud which allows you to have yet another copy of backups stored besides local copy.

Appliance personalization

What I find very useful is that web interface can be personalized. Logo and background wallpaper can be changed. See my customization below.

Summary

Having backup and recovery software is a must. having software which works and you can rely on is even more important. After reviewing Nakivo Backup & Replication software I am pretty confident that it will meet your needs. I really enjoyed working with Nakivo Backup & Replication software and it has amazin HTML5 interface.

Nakivo Backup & Replication review was sponsored by Nakivo.

Veeam Availability Orchestrator announced!

Sun, 10 Apr 2016 20:54:01 +0000

![Orchestration][1]

Veeam Availability Orchestrator announced!

Orchestration and automation is very sexy for all people who perform their duties every day. For us - people who manage very large IT infrastructure automation and orchestration allows us to save time and money by doing regular tasks automatically.

Veeam - leader of Backup and Monitoring announced Veeam Availability Orchestrator which will be released later in 2016. Veeam Availability Orchestrator will allow you to place, test and execute disaster recovery plans. It will be engine for Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Availability Suite.

Veeam Orchestrator might not be your one and only orchestrator used by daily basis, but I think it will allow you to be used with your primary orchestrator for easier use. Stay tuned for more news from Veeam! [1]: /images/uploads/2016/04/orchestration.webp

Konferencja infraXstructure 2016 której nie możesz przegapić!

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 11:28:40 +0000

Jako osoba która od ładnych kilku lat bawi się w IT przeżyłem i widziałem wiele. Najbardziej lubiałem konferencje bo po pierwsze był zazwyczaj to płatny dzień pracy, a po drugie możliwość poznania nowych technologi i nawiązania nowych kontaktów. Dzisiaj chciałbym zaprosić Was drodzy czytelnicy do uczestnictwa w konferencji infraXstructure.

W konferencji zapowiedziało udział wiele gwiazd polskiego IT - pozwolę wymienić sobie kilka nazwisk: Jarek Zieliński (Inleo Sp. z o.o.), Mirek Burnejko (Microsoft), Paweł Serwan (lider Polskiej Grupy Citrix) czy Krzysztof Waszkiewicz (Netology).

Agenda

Nie będę kopiował całej agendy bo jest to bez sensu. Zapraszam do odwiedzenia strony konferencjigdzie możecie zapoznać się ze szczegółami. Wszystkie sesje zapowiadają się fantastycznie a poniżej lista sesji które szczególnie polecam:

Wojna o Wirtualizację, czyli VMware vs. Hyper-V
SDN w praktyce. Znacząca poprawa bezpieczeństwa wewnątrz Data Center dzięki sieci sterowanej programowo.
Cloud Migration Checklist – Czyli jakie błędy popełniła firma, której ludzie nie przyszli na tą prezentację.
Wirtualizacja aplikacji czy desktopów? Którą technologię wdrożyć w swojej firmie?

Miejsce konferencji

Druga edycja konferencji infraXstructure odbędzie się 20 kwietnia w hotelu Mariott w Warszawie

Po konferencji

Na zakończenie konferencji organizatorzy zaplanowali losowanie nagród oraz spotkanie na piwie! Więcej informacji znajdziecie na stronie http://2016.infraxstructure.com/pl/news/5/.

Rejestracja

Aby zarejestrować się na konferencję kliknij w link http://2016.infraxstructure.com/registration/.

Veeam Availability Suite v9 released

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:11:22 +0000

Veeam Availability Suite v9 released

Veeam just released Veeam Availability Suite v9 with many new features. As big fan of Veeam software I would like to share with you cool new features.

New Innovations

Scale-out Backup Repository

Veeam addressed challenge of huge costs to managing backup storage by lowering backup storage hardware spending and simplifying backup storage management.

BitLooker

BitLooker is Veeam’s unique data-reduction technology designed to reduce backup file size and replication bandwith by 20% or more.

Storage integrations

EMC snapshots integration

Veeam and EMC allows you to integrate with Storage Snapshots for EMC VNX, VNX2 and VNXe hybrid storage arrays.

NetApp SnapMirror and SnapVault backup

With NetApp SnapMirror and SnapVault integration you can eliminate additional impact from backup activities on production storage by retrieving VM data from SnapMirror or SnapVault secondary storage systems, instead of the primary storage system.

On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots

With On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots you can create complete isolated copies of your production environment in just few clicks.

Direct NFS Access

With new direct NFS access you can perform vSphere backups, replication or restores faster and with reduced impact on your environment by direct backup from NFS (with Veeam NFS client) supporting NFS v3 and NFS v4.1/

Enterprise enhancements

Standalone console

Veeam standalone console allows you to easily manage your whole environment. You can run multiple consoles from same management workstation.

Remote Office/Branch Office enhancements

Veeam introduced guest interaction proxy which allows you to significantly reduce WAN bandwidth usage. It offloads processing to backup proxy computer at a remote site. The new mount server allows you to restore faster and efficiently by using backups from remote site.

Veeam Explorer

Veeam Explorer for Oracle

Veeam Explorer for Oracle allows you to perform 1-click individual database recovery, agentless transaction-log backup. Veeam Explorer for Oracle supports Oracle version 11 and 12 on Windows and Linux.

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory

With new version of Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory you can now backup and recover Group Policy Objects (GPOs), Active Directory DNS records and individual configuration partition records.

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SQL Server

With new release you can perform table-level recovery of database tables, database object-level recovery or remote staging SQL Server.

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint

Veeam Explorer for SharePoint allows you to full restoration of sites and list and item permissions.

Find out more about Veeam Availability Suite v9

Live webinar

If you wish to see and hear about all new Veeam Availability Suite v9 I am more than happy to invite you to attend LIVE webinar on 26.01.2016. Follow link to register Veeam Availability Suite v9 Webinar.

What’s New in v9 document

I mentioned above several new features of v9 - but wait its more! Simply click on link What’s New in Veeam Backup & Replication v9 to read whole document. I encourage you to read as well about Veeam Monitoring Tool Veeam One v9 - follow the link What’s New in Veeam ONE v9.

Infographic about Veeam success

Check out infographic below why 50000 companies switched to Veeam in last 12 Months.

VeeamON 2015 News

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 22:32:54 +0000

Oct 26 – 29, 2015 was really hot day in Las Vegas this Year, because VeeamOn the World’s first premier data center availability event was there.

Veeam announced a lot of interesting news and I would like to share it with you.

Veeam Backup for Linux

Veeam Backup for Linux is a simple and free backup agent that runs on Linux servers. It’s designed to give you the capabilities you need to ensure the Availability of your individual Linux cloud instances or on-premises physical Linux servers.

Veeam Backup for Linux is an agent-based solution running inside the guest OS (operating system). Veeam’s solution supports incremental backups with a proprietary changed block tracking (CBT) driver. This allows Veeam to take block-level snapshots on a vast range of file systems while storing snapshot data on the designated storage device, instead of on the actual volume you are backing up! And what’s more important, the solution can take a consistent snapshot of the server’s storage by using only the built-in functionality of Veeam Backup or Linux.

The best and I am 100% sure a lot of people will love it - Veeam Backup for Linux is completely free. I strongly encourage you to visit product page Veeam Backup for Linux to learn more about it.

Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers

Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers, available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, streamlines the delivery of Veeam-powered backup services (including BaaS) for service providers, including resellers interested in launching a service provider business. It provides a “business-in-a-box” by including remote monitoring and management of customer backups via a service provider portal for administrative and billing purposes, and a customer portal for basic self-service monitoring and configuration.

Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers is a solution that can be used for billing, tenant (client) management, remote monitoring, remote management and more without the hassle of a VPN connection.

If you would like to participate in beta then there is no simpler way than visiting link Veeam Managed Backup Portal for Service Providers (and Resellers!) and register yourself.

Veeam.io

veeam.io is a community supported site that hosts experimental apps and tools that are designed to be played with and explored. On this page you can find very usefull tools like backup bandwith calculator or restore point simulator - don’t be shy. Try it! It is for free 🙂

veeam.io

Altaro VM Backup – VMware review

Sun, 09 Aug 2015 07:00:14 +0000

One of many VMware vExpert benefits besides recognition in community is possibility to work with different companies. Quite recently I was contacted by company called Altaro - well-known company offering backup software for Hyper-V and VMware.

After few months of hard work Altaro is introducing backup software as well for VMware vSphere products. I tested Altaro VM Backup - VMware and I am more than happy to share few words about it.

Software specification

At the beginning few words about supported versions and backup management.

Versions of VMware supported:

VMware vSphere 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0
VMware vCenter 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0
VMware ESXi 5.0, 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0

To manage backup configuration and jobs from a separate machine, you can install the BETA on these OS’s:

Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2
Windows 7 (64-bit),8 (64-bit) and 10 (64-bit)

First steps

Altaro VM Backup - VMware Beta requires installation on Windows Server. I had a small problem with installation on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 for unknown reasons. I contacted Altaro Support and they quickly suggested to extract installer from **.exe ** installer and this worked fine. This is what I like and how support should looks like 🙂

This is the problem I faced.

Altaro VM Backup - VMware Beta initial setup

Like with every software you have to configure source (what you want to back up) and destination (where do we backup).

In order to do this let’s launch Altaro VM Backup first.
In console simply select This Machine and click connect.
Altaro did well by simplifying initial setup which is done in three steps. In step one we click Add Hyper-V / VMware host.
Select VMware ESXi or VMware vCenter Server. I will go with vCenter Server - select it and click next.
Provide vCenter Server IP or FQDN name, user credentials with administrative rights and password. At the end click Test Connection.
Last screen shows you summary of your environment - in my case it is just four ESXi hosts. Click Finish.
Next step is to select what do we want to back up. Click on dashboard and select Step 2 - Choose Where to Store Backups.
You can select Physical Drive (USB, eSata, iSCSI or Internal Drive) or Network Path (Network Drive, NAS or other Network Location). In my case I will test backup to local disk.
Click Finish and let’s go to third and last step.
Let’s finish with initial setup by taking first backup. Select Take First Backup.
Now click on Click here to configure Virtual Machines.
Choose which host and all of it virtual machines should be back up or select particular virtual machine. I selected one nested ESXi to be protected. Simply drag and drop virtual machine on backup location.
When you selected all virtual machines to be backed up click Save Changes.
Click on Virtual Machines section and select virtual machine to back up.
My first backup finished with errors, but this is due to nested ESXi itself and not Altaro VM Backup 🙂
Once backup is taken you can see it on very informative dashboard.

Summary

After a week of testing I can say that Altaro VM Backup for VMware is solid software. If you would like to test program here is the product link: http://www.altaro.com/vm-backup/

You can check as well Quick Start guide available here Altaro VM Backup Quick Start Guide.

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE released

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:29:46 +0000

In my earlier post I wrote about new software product from Veeam - Endpoint Backup Free https://www.wojcieh.net/veeam-endpoint-backup-free-beta-available/.

Yesterday Veeam announced that Endpoint Backup Free is Generally Available. I think this is great software which has ton of useful features and what is most important it is completely Free!

To add even more value to product Veeam is providing support for it - isn’t this great? Below you will find a bit more details what features does it have and link to download it.

The solution

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is a standalone solution that helps you protect Windows endpoints. It is a data-protection and disaster-recovery solution for physical machines (endpoints). Protecting an entire endpoint, protecting specific volumes or individual folders are all possibilities with Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE. As always, though, while protecting your data may be one thing, it’s the restore and the restore possibilities that matter!

Fast, hassle-free backups

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE supports Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 or later, and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or later (up to Windows 8.1 and Windows 2012 R2).

Fast, hassle-free backups Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE is the perfect solution for scheduling automatic backups of your entire system or the specific volumes and folders of your choosing. Or, if the need should arise, you can run standalone full backups as well. Backups created with Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE can be saved to one of the following locations: • External storage devices (e.g., USB hard drive) • Network shared folder • Veeam Backup & Replication™ repository

Easy-to-use recovery

If you ever need to get your data back, Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE offers several easy-to-use recovery options—all from the same image-level backup, including: • Bare-metal: Restore your entire system to the same or different hardware • Volume-level: Restore a failed hard drive or partition • File-level: Restore individual files in minutes!

Bootable recovery media

If the OS installed on the computer fails to start for some reason, you can boot the OS from the recovery image. Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE lets you create a bootable recovery image of your computer on different kinds of media, including:

Removable storage devices (e.g., USB flash drives, SD cards, etc.)
CD/DVD/BD media
ISO image

Built-in administration and diagnostic tools

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE includes both proprietary and Microsoft Windows diagnostic tools to help you troubleshoot issues and accomplish advanced administration tasks, including:

Reset password: Reset the password for the built-in Administrator account
Startup repair: Fix system problems that might prevent Windows from starting (e.g., missing or damaged system files, corrupted boot sector, etc.)
Memory diagnostics: Check the system memory of your computer and detect potential problems after the next system reboot
Command prompt: Start the Windows command prompt

Download

If you want to download and test Veeam Endpoint Backup Free simply use this download link: http://www.veeam.com/endpoint-backup-free-download.html

If you want to read more about software itself use following links:

http://www.veeam.com/blog/veeam-endpoint-backup-free-is-here.html

Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE Beta available

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 13:08:47 +0000

NEW Veeam ® Endpoint Backup™ FREE

With Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE, you can easily back up your machine to an external hard drive, NAS (network-attached storage) share or a Veeam backup repository. And if you ever need to get your data back, there are multiple easy recovery options available.

Veeam Endpoint Backup is a data protection and disaster recovery solution for physical machines. You can use it to create an entire system image backup, back up specific volumes and individual folders, restore data from backups to its original location or new location, or perform bare-metal restore.

System Requirements:

Microsoft Windows 7 or later
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 or later (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions)
Veeam Backup & Replication™ integration and backup repository support are NOT included in this beta

Trial download: http://go.veeam.com/endpoint

WIN a Microsoft Surface Pro 3!

We’re so excited about the launch of Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE Beta thatwe’re giving away a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet to SIX all-star beta testers!

In order to be considered for the giveaway, use the built-in support tool to submit your feedback in any of the following categories:

Best new feature idea
Best product use case story
Most hidden bug

Submissions will be accepted through January 20, 2015 and we will announce one winner each week from December 22, 2014 through January 26, 2015!

Giveaway Terms and Conditions