Veeam Backup & Replication: Restore Backup

Option-1: Restore Steps on DR Site (continue…)

Below step describes on how to perform restore into DR ESXi Host.

Option-1: Restore Steps on DR Site (continue…)

Below step describes on how to perform restore into DR ESXi Host.

1.       After Backup-VM is up, attach “Backup-Disk” into VM-Host, and assign its interface to Backup-VM – it will appear as one of the drive on that VM (assign drive to it if necessary).

2.       Restore VM(s) to ESXi Host.

2.1.    Once Backup-VM is restore, its vCenter should be up and used for these restore process.
Connect into its vCenter via ESXi Client installed on Standby Machine.

2.2.    Import backup from “Backup-Disk” – detail of steps, provided by Veeam article here.

2.3.    Restore all VMs protected by backup to ESXi host –detail of step, provided here.

3.       After all VMs has been restore, then DR test with data integrity can be started, which will be unique to each organization.

 

Option-2 Restore to Cloud (Off-Premise)

1.       There are several options for Off-premise DR; one is using Amazon Web Service (AWS) Cloud and other is using specialized Veeam Cloud Service Provider (list of provider can be found here).

2.       DR with AWS will be described as follow.

Step to Import a VM as an Instance to AWS

To import your VM to Amazon EC2 as an instance, need to export VM from your virtualization environment (which in this case VMs are inside of Backup-Disk), and then import it to Amazon EC2 (using Amazon EC2 CLI). This option require machine with:

a)      Veeam Backup & Replication

b)      VMware OVF Tool

c)       Amazon EC2 CLI

d)      OS on computer installed with Windows 7 or Windows Server

For importing VM from Backup-Disk, which having content of Veeam backup file (VBK-extension: full-backup file and VIB-extension: incremental backup file) follow this step:

a.       Restore backup-file into VMDK file

1.         Full backup (VBK file) can be restore/converted to VMDK file using Veeam extract utility, reference: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/backup/vsphere/extract_utility.html.

2.         Incremental backup (VIB file) can only be restored with Veeam Backup & Replication.

b.      Convert backup-file into OVF with VMware OVF Tool

1.         To acquire this; valid VMware account is required.

2.         Import of VMDK files into Amazon EC2 can only be done with files that were created through the OVF export process in VMware.

3.         Note – conversion also for VM hosted in ESXi/vCenter also can be done using vCenter: Select Virtual Machine then navigate to File > Export > Export OVF Template, select option that can export VM file to Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK).

c.       Import VM as an Image to EC2

1.         After VM imported into VMDK file, it can be imported to Amazon EC2.

2.         Use Amazon EC2 CLI for this, reference: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/vm-import/latest/userguide/import-vm-image.html.

d.      Configure Instance VPC (network in AWS Virtual Private Cloud) so it can match your network configuration and public IP requirement. DNS A record need to be adjusted into this AWS IP.

e.      Summary for order of conversion process:

1.         VBK (or VIB) file >> from Backup of Veeam

2.         VMDK file >> output from Veeam restore process (to VMDK). Files that generated from restore process: VMDK, VMX, VMXF, etc. 

3.         VMDK file compatible with Amazon EC2 CLI >> output from VMware OVF Tool.

4.         Instance in AWS EC2 >> output from Amazon EC2 CLI.

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