Virtual Lifestyle

The awesome Veeam B&R v7: Licensing and Joep’s Stance

May 20, 2013 Blogs 9 Comments

In my earlier posts, I talked about the new ‘backup copy job’ type including WAN acceleration and SAN snapshots. In this last post, I’ll discuss licensing and wrap things up with my personal thoughts and conclusions.

Veeam Editions and licensing

Although not really a feature, and not really earth shattering, but I included some bits and pieces about the new licensing scheme.

Basically, Veeam is introducing a fourth edition (in addition to ‘free, ‘standard’ and ‘enterprise’): Enterprise Plus.

In a nutshell, a lot of the game-changing features (WAN acceleration, storage-assisted backups / SAN snapshots) are only available in the Enterprise Plus edition. Other features (such as archive to tape with full backup tracking, vCloud Director support) are only included in the Enterprise edition and up. Finally, the vSphere Web Client plugin is included in every edition except the ‘free’ edition.

A quick mapping ‘customer needs [x]‘ to the required edition:

Any current customer on Veeam Backup & Replication v6.5 Enterprise edition receive a free upgrade to v7 Enterprise Plus. This is not a mandatory upgrade. Please be aware that you do need to buy support/maintenance for v7 Enterprise Plus (if you decide to upgrade your license) when renewing your maintenance contract. Current customers can upgrade until November 1st.
New customers buying before the beginning of Q3 (so before July 1st) get all the v7 features for free.

My conclusion

With the release of v7 with its ’7+2′ new features and over 50 enhancements, Veeam Backup & Replication is maturing into true off-site backups for cloud service providers. It’s the new features that make the backup process much more efficient (not touching the source VMs multiple times), give the user a whole lot more flexibility (decouple the local job and its backup files from the job for placing the backup off-site, and the ability to leverage SAN snapshots). There were a couple of scenarios where I was hesitant to offer a Veeam-based solutions. Obviously, the requirement of using tapes often prevented the use of Veeam; I don’t like the fact that we’d need two backup solutions both managing only a part of the backup process. Having tape support will change the outcome of a significant part of our backup consultancy business.

Secondly, having a much more mature feature set for storing copies of your backup off-site instead of having to use a 2nd backup job (which was created on a different time, so the contents of this 2nd backup job is different, thus you’d need to manage two backup sets) is a big plus for me. The majority of my customers are using or considering off-site backups, and in the current version of the product, stuff gets clunky and weird. With the new v7 version, I expect better results. I always felt that Veeam was a little hit and miss in the off-site replication section of their product. Since one of the best features of the product is the Instant VM Recovery (using vPower NFS), I never understood why anyone would want to use the ‘Replication’ job type and wast precious space on primary storage (be it shared or local storage) on hosts on the secondary site; I usually opted for a second backup job for each VM storing the VM on a secondary backup repository (compressed and deduplicated). With the new backup copy job, Veeam has removed much of the negative impact of using a 2nd backup job while retaining and even improving on the functionality (by implementing the WAN Accelerator).

I  is clear Veeam is aiming their version 7 release at the service provider segment as well as end-user customers. To really change the way service providers use Veeam’s products, true multi-tenancy needs to built into the platform. Integrating with vCloud Director helps service providers, but without a true multi-tenant interface and architecture, service providers won’t be able to offer self-service (granular) restore to customers. There is a small speck of light on the horizon, though: the REST API is available to Enterprise Plus customers, with which service providers can built their own multi-tenancy interface. I’m curious as to what Veeam is developing themselves on this front. Only time can tell.

Finally, I do hope Veeam will integrate the different cloud storage providers from the ‘Cloud Backup’ tool in their 6.5 ‘Cloud Edition’ into v7 ‘backup copy job’ functionality. This way, I have all the off-site options (remote backup repository to a secondary site or to a backup / DR as a service provider, tape archive or $random-generic-cloud-storage-provider) available to me from the same interface.

The awesome 9th feature of Veeam B&R v7: ‘SAN Snapshots’

May 20, 2013 Blogs 7 Comments

In an earlier post, I talked about the 8th awesome feature of Veeam Backup & Replication v7: the ‘Backup copy job‘. In this second post about the new Veeam Backup & Replication, I’ll discuss the ninth new feature: off-host backups using SAN snapshots:

Using Veeam in a SAN environment

So you guys probably know about the Veeam Explorer for SAN Snapshots. This little tool enables you to restore VMs directly from a (HP StoreVirtual) SAN snapshot. Veeam has finally implemented a feature I’ve been waiting for and other backup vendors have done for ages (like the Symantec Backup Exec Advanced Disk Based Option or ADBO for short). This feature enables ’0ff-host’ backups and moves the backup workload from the vCenter environment straight to the underlying SAN infrastructure. Simply put, this Veeam feature leverages existing storage capabilities (SAN snapshots) and offers instant VM Snapshot commit. The big plus for me is that the latter feature significantly reduces the amount of time a VM snapshots exists. Currently, Veeam needs to copy out the data from a snapshot. In large VMs, this can take a serious amount of time. By creating a SAN snapshot directly after the VM has been snapshotted, the consistent state of the VM has been captured without the need of copying out all the data thus reducing the time the VM snapshot exists, since the VM snapshot is released directly after the SAN snapshot has been created. The snapshot is then mounted to the backup proxy and is copied out with no impact on the source virtual machine. Veeam has done a great job enabling a lot of regular VMware features, such as Changed Block Tracking.

One thing to mention is that since the SAN snapshot is mounted on the backup server and the VMs are copied out (leveraging CBT), Veeam doesn’t actually store the SAN snapshot itself. This way, you don’t need to build a large chain of SAN snapshots; you don’t need the SAN snapshot after the backup job has finished. Also, the backups are stored in the Veeam format (and not in the SAN snapshot format), making the backup just as portable as regular backup jobs. This in turn enables the ‘backup copy job’ or any other type of job / action you currently have in place.

This feature doesn’t work with all SAN vendors yet. At GA, Veeam expects this feature to work with HP StoreVirtual (both the physical boxes and the virtual appliance) and HP StoreServ (3PAR). Other vendors are to be determined in a future release.

Licensing and Joep’s stance

In my third and last blog post on the new release, I’ll shed some light on the new licensing of v7 and conclude the subject with my opinion and insight on the new release. Check it out here: The awesome Veeam B&R v7: Licensing and Joep’s Stance

The awesome 8th feature of Veeam B&R v7: ‘Backup copy job’

May 20, 2013 Blogs 5 Comments

So Veeam B&R v7 has been announced. For me, the 7 pre-announced features (support for vCloud Director, vSphere Web Client, the Veeam Explorer for Sharepoint, Virtual Lab for Hyper-V and replicas, archive to tape and finally self-service 1-click restore) are good enhancements to the product, but not earth shattering. There are, however, two features that you could call just that. In this three-part blog post, I’ll dive into each of them while also shedding some light on the licensing and offering my own insights and conclusion. Let me start with the beginning of this saga, the status quo:

Using Veeam for on- and off-site backup storage

I use Veeam a lot to provide both on- and off-site backups for many of my customers. The v6.5 Cloud Edition release was a great first step towards long-term archival of backups and replication of backup files on the primary backup repository to a secondary off-site repository (be it a 2nd Windows server or Amazon Glacier-alike services), but was rather limited in its features and options. The best part of these v6.5 ‘Cloud Backup’ and v7 ‘Archive to tape’ features is that you can have a 2nd copy of your backup file without touching (snapshotting!) the source (production) Virtual Machine twice. For some shops, the ‘archive to tape’ feature in v7 will be what the v6.5 Cloud Backup feature was to others. To me, the features are very alike (apart from the physical medium: tape or ‘cloud’) but are still too limiting for many shops. I do really hope that the ‘archive to tape’ feature in v7 doesn’t require touching the source VM; I hope its source is the backup file (created by the regular backup job) instead of the production VM.

Anyway, when I learned that Veeam was finally removing the last (virtual) hurdles to true off-site storage, they got my attention. Basically, they’re introducing a ‘backup copy job’. It’ll efficiently copy existing backups off-site using a forever-incremental backup method. The great this is: this job type can look inside the backup files and enables you to copy specific VMs. This enables you to use a hierarchy of backup jobs based on application type (for instance: selection of VM Folders inside the vCenter Inventory) and use a different selection inside the copy job (for instance: importance of the application). Even better: this type of job doesn’t require you to touch the source virtual machine twice. The less snapshots, the merrier. There are other good things to be discovered about this backup copy job: you can maintain long-term retention (with support for the Grandfather-Father-Son system!) whilst freeing up storage capacity, thus optimizing the primary repository for fast backups and restores. I do hope, however, that this GFS system will make its way into the archive to tape option.

The second fantastic feature is that this type of job has WAN acceleration. Getting backups off-site was always very hard to do efficiently. Specifically in smaller shops, the amount of bandwidth available for off-site replication was very limited and a WAN accelerator added complexity and cost. With v7, Veeam has announced their very own WAN acceleration. Please note that this is not some OEM-deal, it’s purpose-built by Veeam and optimized for Veeam image-based backup. Best of all: it’s built into the product and is agent-free.

From what I can gather, the WAN accelerator is an additional role (like the proxy, repository) available from the console. It’ll read from the primary backup repository and store the backup on the off-site backup repository. If you have different VM in different source backup repositories, the WAN Accelerator will actually do global dedupe across these VM’s during transport, essentially giving you a deduped copy of those VMs on the target repository, so the copy job type is actually much more than a dumb ‘copy the repository from point A to point B’.

As a side note: there’s not going to be any technical changes to the ‘Cloud Backup’ feature (in the v6.5 Cloud Edition). It won’t do block level incremental copy (so you still can’t use this feature with Reverse Incremental backup files). This tool will not be included in version 7. From Veeam’s perspective, I get that the copy job type plus WAN acceleration is way more important; having the backup stored remotely is only really useful if you can restore to a compute layer (i.e. vSphere infrastructure on the secondary site). In a sense, the new copy job is functionally comparable to the Cloud Backup tool with a “File System Storage Account” (i.e. a Windows file server); if you were using Cloud Backup for this type of “cloud” storage, you can migrate to the backup copy job painlessly. I do hope Veeam will integrate the other types of cloud storage (like Glacier) into the backup copy job type. That way, ’Cloud Edition’ can be replaced with a native Veeam job type (which will benefit from stuff like WAN acceleration). It’s a step back in terms of flexibility, since v7 will not be able to do a (rudimentary) ‘copy job’-type replication to a storage cloud while version 6.5 can. From an RTO-perspective, copying backup files to a general purpose cloud storage provider (with the Cloud Backup tool) doesn’t make sense: you’d have to copy back all the files and arrange for a new infrastructure (compute infrastructure) to be able to continue your business after a disaster. That would take days and days… With v7, customers have more choice to leverage the service-based cloud provider trend: being able to replicate to a Backup or DR as a Service provider (who are running Veeam v7, obviously).

Using Veeam in a SAN environment

In a next post, I will dive deeper into the 9th awesome new feature of Veeam Backup & Replication v7: SAN snapshots. Check it out: The awesome 9th feature of Veeam B&R v7: ‘SAN Snapshots’.

A Boy And His Atom: The World’s Smallest Movie

May 2, 2013 Blogs 3 Comments

While catching up on my RSS-feeds, I came across an awesome video called ‘A Boy And His Atom: The World’s Smallest Movie’. While very entertaining, it shows where R&D is headed with the future of data storage and stretching the limits of big data.

You’re about to see the movie that holds the Guinness World Records™ record for the World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film (see how it was made at http://youtu.be/xA4QWwaweWA). The ability to move single atoms — the smallest particles of any element in the universe — is crucial to IBM’s research in the field of atomic memory. But even nanophysicists need to have a little fun. In that spirit, IBM researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on top of each other), all in pursuit of making a movie so small it can be seen only when you magnify it 100 million times. A movie made with atoms. Learn more about atomic memory, data storage and big data at http://www.ibm.com/madewithatoms

And the making of:

Come and watch ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ with @Nutanix

May 2, 2013 Blogs 5 Comments

Every once in a while, you come across something out of the ordinary. Well, Nutanix have done just that: they’re inviting you to the première of the new Star Trek movie. Please RSVP here to be part of the fun on June 6th at the Pathé Arena in Amsterdam!

Join Nutanix and its partners for the première of one of the most anticipated films of the year – Star Trek Into Darkness.  Before viewing the film, attendees will learn about the next-generation computing platform from Nutanix that is transforming the enterprise datacenter. This event is by invitation only, so please fill out the form to request admission to this event.

4 juni: Genius Bar @ VMware Forum

Apr 29, 2013 Blogs 4 Comments

Op het VMware Forum, dit jaar op 4 juni in Den Bosch, zal een Genius Bar aanwezig zijn!

Dit concept kennen we al van onder andere Apple en VMworld en heeft zijn Nederlandse primeur op het gratis VMware Forum.

VMware-experts Bouke Groenescheij, Duco Jaspars, Gabrie van Zanten, Eric Sloof, Viktor van den Berg en ik, Joep Piscaer zitten die dag achter de bar klaar voor een praatje en beantwoorden graag al jullie vragen.

Wij staan klaar om jullie bij te staan in alle mogelijke vraagstukken; ieder van ons heeft een specifieke expertise. Zo heb ik een sterke  focus op DR, IaaS en storage-gerelateerde zaken.

Wellicht ben je geinteresseerd in het behalen van een technische certificering, zoals een van de VCAP-examens of wil je meer weten over het behalen van de prestigieuze VCDX-certificering? Ook dan ben je bij mij en de andere geniuses aan het goede adres!

Graag zie ik jullie op 4 juni aan de Genius Bar voor een goed gesprek over mooie VMware-techniek of natuurlijk gewoon voor een praatje!

Het VMware Forum evenement is na registratie gratis te bezoeken.

Veeam Webinar Replay – Backing up Zarafa with SureBackup

Apr 2, 2013 Blogs 3 Comments

Zarafa Collaboration Platform (ZCP) is an open source e-mail and collaboration platform. It’s a popular alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

As with a lot of Microsoft- or Windows-based applications, Exchange Server integrates with the Microsoft VSS-framework to provide consistent backups within Veeam Backup & Replication. Unfortunately, Zarafa does not integrate with this VSS-framework.

In this webinar, Joep Piscaer will explain the options available to you, the Zarafa ZCP administrator, to backup this application:

• What is backup application consistency and why is it so important?
• Evaluating Zarafa ZCP components and relevance to application consistency
• What options to backup Zarafa ZCP are available within Veeam Backup & Replication?
• Integrating application consistency into SureBackup

Watch the replay of the webinar here:

Or browse the slidedeck here:

Back up MySQL on Linux without stopping services or dumping the database

Mar 26, 2013 Blogs 4 Comments

You probably know the two regular ways to create an application-consistent snapshot of your MySQL database. Let’s rehash:

• Option 1. Suspend MySQL service
  The MySQL service is stopped for a few seconds while the snapshot is created then started again. The database (and usually the application on top, too) need to be stopped. This impacts service availability and performance (since all application / database caches are cleared and need to be rebuilt).
• Option 2. Use Online Dump
  An online dump of each database is taken using the mysqldump command which copies a database to storage accessible from the MySQL server. Extra storage capacity and storage I/O are required to copy the entire file out. This process may take a considerable amount of time.

Option 3. Lock database tables and flush to disk

However, I would like to introduce a third option, conceived and tested by my colleague Jelmer Jaarsma.

• Option 3. Lock database tables and flush to disk.
  The MySQL service is not stopped, but locked for a few seconds (to prevent any changes to the databases) while open tables are flushed to disk. Then, the VMware snapshot is created and the database is unlocked. There’s no downtime or service availability impact and no need to rebuild cache or create an entire copy of the database.

So how does this thing work?

This option still uses the regular integration (using pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts) between the backup software, the VMware layer and the Linux Guest OS inside the virtual machine.

• pre-freeze-script
  • Create two temporary lock files and launch background script. Pre-freeze script will run until database is locked.
  • Background script will flush tables to disk and write-lock database.
  • Finally, it removes a temporary lock file. This signals the pre-freeze script that the database is ready for snapshotting; the script terminates without error
  • With the pre-freeze script terminated, Veeam will now create the snapshot (with the database locked)
• locktables script

  (
  echo "FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;" && \
  sleep 5 && \
  touch ${WAITFORSNAPSHOT} && \
  rm -f ${WAITFORLOCK} && \
  while [ -e ${WAITFORSNAPSHOT} ]; do sleep 1; done && \
  echo "SHOW MASTER STATUS;" && \
  echo "UNLOCK TABLES;" && \
  echo "\quit" \
  ) | mysql --defaults-file=/root/.my.cnf

• post-thaw-script
  • During the snapshot creation, the background script is still running, keeping the database locked.
  • After the snapshot has been successfully created, the post-thaw script removes the 2nd temporary lock file. This will shut down the background script, unlocking the database and continuing normal database operation
  • No downtime; just a couple of seconds database query queue

How-to

• Activate “Quiesce” option in your backup client
  
• Copy this attached zip-file to /root on your server.
• Make the three scripts executable

  chmod +x /root/backup/locktables.sh
  chmod +x /root/backup/pre-freeze-script.sh
  chmod +x /root/backup/post-thaw-script.sh

• Create symlinks to /usr/sbin/ scripts (where the VMware Tools expects to find the scripts)

  ln -s /root/backup/pre-freeze-script.sh /usr/sbin/pre-freeze-script
  ln -s /root/backup/post-thaw-script.sh /usr/sbin/post-thaw-script

• Set the correct access mode to the scripts:

  chmod 755 /usr/sbin/pre-freeze-script
  chmod 755 /usr/sbin/post-thaw-script

• Create the temporary directory

  mkdir /var/run/veeam

• Please set the password for MySQL in /root/.my.cnf for automated access. See this post for details.

Demo video

The Dutch vMafia

Mar 18, 2013 Blogs 5 Comments

Marco Broeken (@mbroeken on Twitter) has launched an awesome new website called ‘the Dutch vMafia‘. Some of you may have heard about the Dutch vMafia. We are one family, with one goal: World Domination through Virtualization!

Our Family Tree

Don’t mess with these guys though:

The Dutch are true Virtualization Evangelists seeing the number of VMware vExperts, bloggers, presenters, book authors etc. For such a small country the number of vGeeks is impressive.

Blog postings from the family of Dutch bloggers grouped in Dutch vMafia are now centralized in a site named Dutch vMafia.com with one goal: World Domination through Virtualization! You better put this website in your favorites or one day one of the vMafia member will put a pig head on your doorstep! You have been warned.

Veeam Webinar Replay – Deduplication best practices with Windows Server 2012

Mar 14, 2013 Blogs 5 Comments

Backing up your entire virtual infrastructure will keep your mind at ease, but it comes at the cost of used disk space. The amount of data you have on backup repositories can grow quickly. Using Data Deduplication in Microsoft Windows Server 2012, however, will save a significant amount of storage space without the use of complex or expensive tools.

In this webinar, Joep Piscaer will guide you through a typical implementation of Data Deduplication, and show you how you can save up to 70% on your storage needs. You’ll also learn about:

• Use cases when to use it and when not to
• Configuration of Windows Server 2012, Storage Spaces and Data Deduplication
• How to optimize backup jobs for deduplication
• How to leverage per-pool (or Storage Space) Data Deduplication to dedupe across multiple Veeam backup jobs

Watch the replay of the webinar here:

Or browse the slidedeck here: