Veeam Backup & Replication 7.0 feature

Veeam Backup & Replication 7.0

 

Inline data deduplication

Veeam Backup & Replication deduplicates identical blocks of data when backing up multiple VMs in one job, and eliminates empty space on logical disks of VMs. Use of deduplication dramatically reduces storage costs: you can reduce the backup size up to 90% when backing up VMs created from the same template

Use changed block tracking data check box is selected. For VMware VMs with hardware version 7 or later, Veeam Backup & Replication employs VMware vSphere Changed Block Tracking (CBT). Instead of scanning VMFS to know which data blocks have changed since the previous job run, Veeam Backup & Replication queries the CBT module to get the list of changed blocks. Use of CBT increases the speed and efficiency of block-level incremental backups. For example, if only 5% of a VM changed since the last backup, incremental backup will be performed 20 times faster.


There are some facts about CBT:

• The CBT mechanism is implemented as a file system filter driver.
• Information on data blocks that have changed is registered in special .ctp files 
• .ctp files are stored in the C:\ProgramData\Veeam\CtpStore folder on standalone Hyper-V hosts or on every node of the Hyper-V cluster.
• notes.txt file. This file contains basic information about the VM such as VM name and ID, and describes for which .vhd files changed block tracking is enabled.
• The backup window of incremental jobs may increase dramatically when CBT is disabled ,as Veeam Backup & Replication will read all of VM data to detect what blocks have changed since the last job run.

http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/hyperv/changed_block_tracking.html

Exclude swap file blocks from processing check box is selected.

Swap files are dynamic and change intensively between runs of a backup job. With this option selected, Veeam Backup & Replication will identify data blocks of the Windows pagefile in the guest OS and exclude them from processing, which will result in increased performance and a smaller size of increments.

Application-aware image processing, which will ensure proper restore of VSS-aware applications. To back up running VMs with VSS-aware applications (such as Active Directory, Microsoft SQL, Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint), Veeam Backup & Replication uses application-aware image processing based on Microsoft VSS. Jobs with application-aware image processing produce transactionally consistent backups, which, unlike crash consistent backups, guarantee proper recovery of virtualized applications without any data loss.

• Guest OS file indexing, which will enable you to search for guest OS files in backed up VMs and restore files in 1 click. With this option selected, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a catalog (or index) of VM guest OS files. To learn about the 1-click restore

Make sure that the Truncate logs on successful backup only option is selected to correctly handle transaction logs after the backup job is completed. In this case, if the backup job finishes successfully, Veeam Backup & Replication will truncate transaction logs so that they do not overflow storage space. If you use an additional third-party backup tool that maintains consistency of transaction logs, select the Do not truncate logs option to prevent possible conflicts.

On the Indexing tab, select the Index everything option to perform indexing of the

Monitor job performance in real time

Recovery

Instant VM Recovery*, which uses the vPower technology to start a VM directly from a compressed and deduplicated backup file. Instant VM Recovery creates a "temporary spare" of the original VM and provides the minimum restore time possible (several seconds to several minutes).

MICROSOFT EXCHANGE AIR WIZARD 7.0 RELEASE NOTES http://veeampdf.s3.amazonaws.com/release_notes/veeam_backup_ex_air_7_0_release_notes.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJI4MX44AEVG3NBLA&Expires=1389167061&Signature=fqZjtdX6VCUAgq4obl%2BZSByyLkc%3D

Performing Item-Level Restore

Select the mailbox from which you want to restore Microsoft Exchange items (e-mails, contacts, appointments and so on).

In the Mailbox account field, specify the account of the user whose mailbox you want to access. To quickly find the necessary account, enter the first characters of the account in the field and click Checkon the right or press [ENTER] on the keyboard. The Microsoft Exchange Recovery wizard will form a list of available accounts starting with entered characters so that you can choose the necessary one.

The information about the server hosting the selected mailbox will be displayed in the lower part of the window.

If prompted, specify the credentials to be used to access the specified mailbox in production environment.


NOTE:
This account should have sufficient access rights for the specified mailbox, 
otherwise you will not be able to proceed. If necessary, contact your 
Exchange administrator.

Select the mode in which you want to restore items from the selected mailbox. You can choose to work only with those items that have changed since the point you selected, or work with all items in this mailbox.

At the Item Filter step of the wizard, you can specify filter criteria that will help you find the necessary item. Use the Add Criteria list at the bottom of the window to add any item fields you need. Fill in the fields so that the Microsoft Exchange Recovery wizard can apply the filter.

After you provide the search filter, the Microsoft Exchange Recovery wizard will look for the necessary items and display the list of those that match the specified criteria. Select check boxes next to the items you want to restore. You can use the Mailbox item type field at the top to display items of the necessary type only.

Specify to which location you want to restore the selected item(s). You can restore items back to the original mailbox on the production Microsoft Exchange server or save them as individual files to the selected folder.

NOTE:

Microsoft Exchange Recovery wizard does not allow you to save items restored
from Microsoft Exchange 2010 to a file. For this reason, 
the File system option is disabled for Microsoft Exchange 2010


Specify options for the mailbox or folder to which you want to restore Microsoft Exchange items.

●If you have selected to restore items to a mailbox, select the mailbox folder to which restored items should be placed. You can additionally select to mark restored items as Unread. If you are restoring multiple mailbox items, you can select the Preserve folder hierarchy check box to keep the initial folder structure.

●If you have selected to restore items to a folder, specify the path to the folder to which restored items should be placed.

Review the settings you specified and click Restore. The selected items will be restored to the specified mailbox/folder in the production Microsoft Exchange server or saved as individual files to the selected folder.

http://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/70/uair/uair_exch_restore.htm

Other key enhancements include:

Virtual Lab functionality, including Sure Backup, is now available for Microsoft Hyper-V. This allows item level restores in SQL, Exchange and Active Directory using Veeam U-AIR wizards which have also been updated in v7 making restores easier and quicker.
The ability to take backups from storage snapshots provides huge performance improvements, additional storage system support has been added into B&R v7 which now includes HP 3PAR/StoreServ and HP StoreVirtual VSA.
Veeam Explorer has been updated, adding-in support for Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 and Microsoft Exchange 2013, as well as now allowing restores to Office 365 and improving overall restore performance into existing Exchange environments.

Performance improvements offered across both VMware and Hyper-V environments include:

Change Block Tracking optimisations and improved speed for file level recovery operations. Specific to VMware it is now possible to transparently backup vCenter without the need to specify which host it is running on and snapshots can be committed concurrently. With Hyper-V there is now extended support available for ODX enabled storage and clustered disks along with performance improvements for load balancing.

http://www.eacsblog.com/2013/09/whats-new-in-veeam-backup-replication-v7/

Insight into Guest OS Recovery

Together with full VM recovery, Veeam Backup & Replication offers Instant File-Level Restore (IFLR) which lets you recover guest OS files and folders from the VM backup. In contrast to competitive solutions, IFLR does not require a specific file-level backup –restore of guest OS files, as well as all other restore options, are available from the same image-level backup. Neither should you extract the VM image from the backup prior to restore – VM guest OS files can be recovered on-the-fly, directly from a regular backup (or from a VM replica). This makes the restore process extremely fast and does not require you to provision additional storage resources.

Veeam Backup & Replication provides three options for guest OS files recovery:

• Recovery from Windows-based file systems (FAT, NTFS and ReFS)

• Recovery from 15 most used file systems (including Linux, Unix, BSD and soon) with the multi-OS restore wizard

• Universal File-Level Recovery*for any OS or file system through leveraging the Instant VM Recovery technology*

VM guest OS files can be recovered to the latest state or any good to know point in time.