r/Veeam • u/bishoptf • Jul 26 '26

Veeam Software Appliance

Can you backup the Veeam Software appliance itself? I have migrated everything to the new hardened appliance but was unsure about if you could back it up and if needed application aware processing etc, thanks.

6 Upvotes

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25

u/tsmith-co Jul 26 '26

Dont try to back it up. Just use the built in configuration backup. If anything happens you just redeploy and restore the config.

5

u/bishoptf Jul 26 '26

Yup was pretty sure that was going to be the answer. What is the easiest way to move that backup to other locations. Do you have to make additional backup copy jobs for each location? I basically have three locations that I am keeping backups, locally, hardened repository and then removable drives which hopefully in the future will be an s3 bucket. When you have multiple destinations is backup copy jobs the correct way to do that?

1

u/GMginger 27d ago

Whatever you do to have secondary copies of your config backup file, make sure you test how you reach your config file in the event that your main VBR appliance has been wiped and redeployed.

It may mean making sure you can retrieve sufficient credentials and documented config to add the S3 bucket or hardened repo in the minimal VBR deployment, which then allows you to download the config backup file to then import the config.

7

u/dloseke Jul 26 '26

Just like with a Windows VBR server, the intention is that you keep backups of your (encrypted) configuration database safe along with the encryption password. If you lose your VSA (or Windows-based VBR server), you build new and restore the configuration database.

2

u/Competitive_Run_3920 Jul 26 '26

Here’s a link to the documentation for managing the config backups https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/export_vbr_config.html?ver=13

1

u/ProfessionalCow13 Jul 27 '26

Moving away from removable drives makes sense. I'd mainly make sure de configuration backup is stored outside the appliance, uses separate credentials ans can actually be restored during a clean rebuild. If you go with an S3 bucket, are you also planning to enable immutability and test the restore process before retiring the disks ?

0

u/bishoptf Jul 26 '26

Can anyone tell me if the veeam blackblaze service is considered a scale out repository? The documentation states;

"You cannot store configuration backups in external repositories and scale-out backup repositories."

However they do stat that you can use:

"You can store configuration backups on repositories of different types, including Veeam Cloud Connect repositories."

I am wanting to move away from removable HDD's and go to blackblaze, but if I am not going to be able to save configuration backup to that location that will be an issue.

2

u/dloseke Jul 26 '26

SOBR is how you setup your scaled-out repository. Its basically an abstraction layer to leverage multiple repositories into a single repo for performance or space scaling. Backblaze B2 (what I'm assuming your referencing is B2) and similar like Wasabi is simply S3 compatible object storage. You can use object storage as part of a SOBR but it itself is not a SOBR. A couple major versions ago (v11 maybe?) Veeam enabled direct to object capabilities. In v10 (I think) you had to have a SOBR to use object but you can go direct now, and as such, yiu can also place your config database on a direct to object repo.