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Backup and restore your first VMware VM with Veeam

  • March 8, 2017
  • 10 min read
IT and Virtualization Consultant. Romain is specializing in Microsoft technologies such as Hyper-V, System Center, storage, networking, and MS Azure. He is a Microsoft MVP and MCSE in Server Infrastructure and Private Cloud.
IT and Virtualization Consultant. Romain is specializing in Microsoft technologies such as Hyper-V, System Center, storage, networking, and MS Azure. He is a Microsoft MVP and MCSE in Server Infrastructure and Private Cloud.

Part 1: Deploy Veeam 9.5 Backup & Replication

Part 2: Prepare backup repository & Connect Veeam to vCenter

Part 3: Backup and restore your first VMware VM

In the previous topics, we have installed and updated Veeam B&R 9.5. Then we have connected Veeam to vCenter 6.5 to get visibility on VMware VM and backup them. To finish, we have added a backup repository to store backup files. Now we can backup a virtual machine. Once we have some restore points, we can also recover the VM.

Backup a virtual machine

To protect a VM, navigate to virtual machines and select the one you want to backup. Then right click on the VM and select Add to the backup job. For this example, I choose to protect a domain controller.

Veeam Backup and Replication VM tools Add to backup job

Give a name and a description to your backup job and click on next.

name and a description to the backup job

By default, the backup job contains the VM that you have selected. If you want to add more VMs to this backup job, just click on Add and select other VMs.

add more VMs to the backup job

Then specify the backup repository and the backup proxy (a server that takes care of compression, process job and delivers backup traffic to offload the backup server). You can also specify the number of restore points to keep. If you click on Advanced, you can set some specific settings such as notification, deduplication and so on.

specify the backup repository and the backup proxy

Because I backup a domain controller, I select Enable application-aware processing. Thanks to this, I will be able to restore at the AD object-level. However, to use this feature a Guest OS credentials with local administrator privilege is required.

New backup job guest processing

Next, specify the scheduling of your backup job.

New backup job Schedule

Check the summary and if all is good, click on finish and run the job.

New backup job summary

When the backup is running, you should see the job in Backup & Replication tab as below.

Veeam Backup and Replication Job tools

When the job is running, some tasks are executed from vCenter perspective. Veeam creates a VM snapshot and when it has finished, Veeam deletes it.

tasks executed from vCenter perspective

You can review the job statistics such as the following screenshot:

Domian controllers job progress

Restore an Active Directory Objects

Now the backup is done, you can restore the VM. But because the VM is a domain controller and I have enable the application aware processing, I can also restore Active Directory objects. To restore AD objects, navigate to virtual machines. Then right click on the VM and select restoreMicrosoft Active Directory objects from backups.

Veeam backup and Replication VM tools

Next, choose a restore point:

Microsoft Active Directory Object Restore

Then you can specify a reason for the restore process:

Microsoft Aztive Directory Object Restore Reason

To run the restore process, review the settings and click on finish.

Microsoft Aztive Directory Object Restore Summary

Next, Veeam Explorer for Active Directory is opened and you can browse the Active Directory from the restore point that you have selected:

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory users

Then you can restore a single object or export it. You can also compare the object with the current object to check change. You can do the same thing with DNS entries:

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Active Directory vsphere local

By closing the Veeam Explorer for Active Directory, the AD tree of the restore point is unmounted.

Restore a Virtual Machine

If you want to restore the entire VM, you can leverage Instant VM Recovery. This feature enables to restore and run the VM from the backup repository. Then, when the VM is running, you can restore the data in the production datastore.

To run the instant VM recovery, navigate to virtual machines. Right click on the VM and select restoreInstant VM Recovery.

Veeam Backup and Replication VM tools

Next, select a restore point:

Instant Recovery Restore point

Then choose the recovery mode. I choose to restore to the original location.

Instant Recovery Recovery mode

Then you can specify a reason for the recovery process:

Instant Recovery Restore reason

Next, I choose to connect the VM to the network and power it on.

Instant Recovery Ready to apply

Veeam tells you that the VM still exists and it will delete the VM.

Veeam deleting VM warning

Once you have clicked on OK, the job is running. You can click on finish and review the recovery process statistics.

Instant Recovery Recovery ewady to apply VM information

To check statistics, navigate to Backup & Replication, and click on Running.

Veeam Backup and Relication running

Veeam Restore session

In vCenter, if you check the VM datastore, you can see that files are located in Veeam datastore by using NFS 3.

VMware vSphere Web Client Veeam datastore

Now that the VM is running, you may want to migrate the VM data in production datastore. Go back to Veeam and navigate to Instant Recovery. Right click on the VM and select Migrate to production.

Veeam Backup and Replication recovery tools

Next, choose the destination of the VM resources. I choose to leave default parameters and click on next.

Quick Migration Wizard destination

You can specify a source or target backup proxy to offload the backup workloads.

Quick Migration Wizard transfer

To finish, review the settings of the migration. If all is good, you can click on finish.

Quick Migration Wizard Ready

Next, a statistic window should be open to giving you the state of the migration.

Quick migration Job progress

If you go back to vCenter, you can see that a Storage vMotion is running to move VM data from Veeam datastore to production Datastore.

Storage vMotion is running to move VM data from Veeam datastore to production Datastore

That’s all for this series. I hope you enjoyed it and gave you some valuable information about Veeam. Either for Hyper-V or VMware, I like to work with this solution because it is easy to use and really powerful.

Hey! Found Romain’s article helpful? Looking to deploy a new, easy-to-manage, and cost-effective hyperconverged infrastructure?
Alex Bykovskyi
Alex Bykovskyi StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance Product Manager
Well, we can help you with this one! Building a new hyperconverged environment is a breeze with StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance (VHCA). It’s a complete hyperconverged infrastructure solution that combines hypervisor (vSphere, Hyper-V, Proxmox, or our custom version of KVM), software-defined storage (StarWind VSAN), and streamlined management tools. Interested in diving deeper into VHCA’s capabilities and features? Book your StarWind Virtual HCI Appliance demo today!