VMCE_v12 Veeam Certified Engineer v12 Questions and Answers

Veeam Backup & Replication allows you to set up failover plans to control the order in which VMs are started during a failover. By creating a failover plan, you can specify that the database servers boot before the application servers. This is achieved by setting up VM dependencies within the failover plan, ensuring that the database servers (which are critical for the application servers to function) are operational before the application servers start. Creating a disaster recovery template (B), creating a replica mapping (C), or initiating a planned failover (D) does not directly address the boot order of the servers during failover.

To alleviate the workload on the backup team while still accommodating the frequent restore requests from developers, the most effective strategy is to empower the developers themselves with the ability to perform file restores. This can be achieved by granting them access to the Enterprise Manager Self-Service File Restore Portal. Veeam Enterprise Manager offers a Self-Service File Restore Portal, which allows users to independently restore files from backups of their VMs without the need for direct intervention by the backup team. This portal is designed with security and ease of use in mind, ensuring that developers can perform restores as needed while adhering to the principle of least privilege, thus reducing the strain on the backup team. This approach aligns with Veeam's emphasis on enhancing operational efficiency and self-service capabilities in data management practices.

Creating a backup job based on vSphere tags allows for dynamic addition of new VMware hosted SQL servers. When new VMs are tagged appropriately in vSphere, they are automatically included in the backup job, ensuring all relevant SQL servers are backed up without manual intervention.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Dynamic Backup Job Configuration Guide

In the Service Provider Console 7.0, Veeam service providers can deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. This allows them to offer Microsoft 365 backup and recovery services to their customers, managing the protection of Microsoft 365 data including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams data.References:

• Veeam Service Provider Console Documentation: Backup for Microsoft 365
• Veeam Cloud & Service Provider Program Guide

To receive an automatic alert if the backup copy job violates the company's 8-hour policy for copying backups to a remote location, the backup administrator should enable the appropriate Recovery Point Objective (RPO) monitor. This feature tracks the age of the latest backup and alerts when it exceeds the defined RPO.References: Veeam Backup & Replication Documentation, Veeam RPO Monitoring and Reporting Guide

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) refers to the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It is essentially the age of the files that must be recovered from backup storage for normal operations to resume after a failure or disaster. In other words, it defines the data loss tolerance of a business unit or organization. If an RPO is set to one hour, the system must back up at least every hour to meet the RPO.References:

• Veeam Documentation: Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: RPO and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) Definitions

Instant VM Recovery is a feature in Veeam that allows you to start a virtual machine directly from a backup file without waiting for the full restore. Using Instant VM Recovery to Hyper-V is the best option for achieving the lowest possible Recovery Time Objective (RTO) because it allows the damaged physical server's backup to be run as a VM in the Hyper-V environment almost immediately. The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows supports Instant Recovery to a Hyper-V VM, which will enable you to restore service quickly while you can plan for a more permanent recovery solution.

After completing a planned failover for VMs to the disaster recovery site, the typical actions available in Veeam Backup & Replication for a failover plan are:

• Undo: This allows you to reverse the failover and return the VMs to the original location.
• Start: This would be used to initiate the failover plan if it needs to be executed again.
• Edit: This option permits modifications to the failover plan.
• Delete: This allows the removal of the failover plan if it is no longer needed. There are no options for Copy in the context of a failover plan, and the Cancel option is typically available before and during the failover process, not after completion.

The feature that is unique to Veeam Agent for Linux and not available in other Veeam Agent configurations is C: Backup from native snapshots. Veeam Agent for Linux includes the ability to leverage native snapshot capabilities of the Linux kernel, such as LVM (Logical Volume Manager) snapshots or Btrfs subvolume snapshots, to create consistent point-in-time copies of data. This capability allows for application-consistent backups even in complex Linux environments, ensuring that data is captured in a consistent state without the need for custom scripting or downtime. Native snapshot support in Veeam Agent for Linux enhances the flexibility and reliability of backups, particularly in environments where Linux-based applications and databases are critical to business operations.

When configuring Veeam Backup & Replication in a VMware vSAN environment, the best practice is to use the Virtual Appliance transport mode. This mode is also referred to as "hot-add" and allows the backup proxy to mount VM disks directly from the datastore. This method is more isolated from the VMkernel network traffic, as it does not require network connectivity to the hosts to retrieve data, thus providing a level of isolation that meets the requirement stated in the question. The Direct NFS and Direct SAN options are not applicable for vSAN, and Network mode would not provide the necessary isolation from VMkernel network traffic.

Placing the backup proxy and cache repository on the same network as the NAS file share helps to increase the performance of the backup job due to reduced latency and higher network speeds. This configuration allows for faster communication and data transfer between the NAS and the backup components, leading to more efficient backup operations.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Backup Proxy
• Veeam Best Practices: NAS Backup Performance

In a scenario where a customer needs to recover from Wasabi's Cloud due to local backups becoming unavailable, the method that would provide the fastest Recovery Time Objective (RTO) while allowing users to interact with the recovered system as quickly as possible is D: Instant Recovery to local VMware VM. Veeam's Instant Recovery feature allows for the restoration of a backup directly into the production environment without the need to fully copy the backup data. When recovering from cloud storage like Wasabi, the backup data will be streamed on-demand to the local VMware environment, allowing the VM to start running immediately while the remaining data is transferred in the background. This method minimizes downtime and provides the quickest path to operational recovery, ensuring users can access the recovered system with minimal delay. It's important to note that the effectiveness of this approach depends on the available bandwidth and the size of the data being recovered.

When starting an on-demand lab from backup files for mission-critical VMs, the appropriate SureBackup feature to configure is A: Application Group. An Application Group in Veeam Backup & Replication is a predefined group of VMs that are started together in the SureBackup job. This feature is designed to ensure that interdependent VMs, such as those comprising a multi-tier application, are started in a sequence that respects their operational dependencies, allowing for comprehensive verification and testing. The Application Group can include the mission-critical VMs and any associated VMs required for the application environment to function correctly, ensuring that all components are available and interact as expected within the isolated on-demand lab environment. This setup facilitates effective testing or troubleshooting in a manner that closely mirrors the production environment without impacting live operations.

The Veeam restore process that allows for custom scripting to be run before returning a server to production is Staged Restore. This feature enables administrators to perform necessary operations, like running a script to remove customer photos, during the restore process before the VM is brought back online.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Staged Restore Guide

For GDPR compliance, Veeam provides the capability to add location tags to Scale-out Backup Repositories. Location tags in Veeam Backup & Replication are used to identify the location of data, which is essential for adhering to data sovereignty laws like GDPR. Location tagging helps ensure that data residency requirements are met by keeping data in a defined geographical area. In the context of GDPR, it's important to manage and control where personal data is stored and processed. Proxy servers, file copy jobs, and WAN accelerators do not have the functionality to be tagged for GDPR compliance in the same manner as repositories within Veeam Backup & Replication.

Having at least one backup proxy server in each site when defining a replica job is recommended because the backup proxy servers are responsible for data processing and transfer. Having proxies in both sites enables a stable connection for VM data transfer across sites, as they handle the data compression, deduplication, and transfer processes. This setup ensures that data is efficiently moved from one site to another, thereby making replication more resilient and reliable. Proxies do not automatically restart replication after failure (A), remove the need for VM snapshots during transit (B and F), or enable automatic WAN acceleration (D), although they can work in conjunction with WAN accelerators if configured to do so. They also don't directly deduplicate data during transit across the WAN (C), although they do compress and optimize it for transfer.

In a situation where VMs are orphaned after a power outage but their disk files remain intact on the datastores, the most efficient way to restore these VMs with minimal data loss is C: Perform Restore VM Files and only restore the VM configuration files. This approach involves using Veeam Backup & Replication to restore only the necessary VMX files (for VMware) or equivalent configuration files for other hypervisors, which contain the settings and configuration of the VMs. Since the disk files are still present and intact on the datastores, restoring the configuration files allows the VMs to be re-registered with the hypervisor and brought back online quickly, without the need to transfer or restore the entire VM disk files, thus minimizing downtime and data loss.

To solve the space issue while enabling GFS retention, the engineer should add an Object Storage as a Capacity tier to the Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) and set the policy to move backups that are older than 14 days. This approach allows for efficient use of local NAS storage for short-term retention and leverages object storage for long-term archival purposes.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam SOBR Configuration Guide

Based on the configuration shown in the image, backups older than 21 days are moved to the capacity tier. Since the VMware backup job retention is set for 31 days and keeps weekly GFS full backups for 14 weeks, the backup from the week of January 1st is older than 21 days but within the 14-week GFS retention policy. Therefore, as of March 20, the backup data you need to recover would be in the capacity tier, not on the local performance tier, because it has been offloaded to the object storage configured as the capacity tier to reduce long-term retention costs.

References: Veeam Backup & Replication Documentation, Scale-Out Backup Repository Configuration Guide

Veeam Backup & Replication offers the capability to assign location tags to different components within the backup infrastructure, including vCenter servers. This feature is particularly useful for GDPR compliance, as it allows administrators to specify the physical location of the data processed and stored within vCenter servers, helping to ensure that data sovereignty and regulatory requirements are met.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Location Tagging for GDPR Compliance
• Veeam Help Center: GDPR Compliance and Data Location Controls

To ensure that applications can be started in a specific order in advance of a disaster, an administrator should use a Failover Plan in Veeam Backup and Replication. This feature allows for the creation of a predefined sequence for starting up VMs, ensuring that applications are brought online in the correct order during a disaster recovery scenario.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Failover Plan Configuration Guide

Virtual Labs is the ideal feature for testing the impact of operating system updates in an isolated environment. Virtual Labs allow you to create a secure, isolated copy of your production environment where you can test updates, patches, and other changes without affecting the live environment.References: Veeam Backup & Replication Documentation, Veeam Virtual Lab Guide

SureBackup is the Veeam technology that allows you to verify the recoverability of backups. It can automatically verify the integrity of the backup, test it for malware (with the aid of third-party antivirus software), and send email notifications upon the completion of the job. This is accomplished by running the backups in an isolated environment called a Virtual Lab, without making any changes to the actual production environment. By using SureBackup, Veeam engineers can ensure that image-level backups are recoverable, can be verified against malware, and can report the results via email, thus meeting the compliance team's requests.

WAN accelerators are a feature in Veeam Backup & Replication that optimize data transfer over WAN connections. By deploying WAN accelerators at both the central VBR (Veeam Backup & Replication) server location and the remote sites, data transfer can be optimized to fit into the existing backup window without the need for additional bandwidth investment. WAN accelerators work by caching repetitive patterns of data, which significantly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the network after the initial job run. This makes it a cost-effective solution for improving backup duration when bandwidth is limited.

Veeam Plug-ins for Enterprise Applications provide a transactionally consistent backup of databases and their database logs. This ensures that the backup is not only complete but also consistent at a transactional level, capturing all transactions up to the point of the backup. This is crucial for databases to ensure data integrity and consistency when restored.References: Veeam Plug-ins for Enterprise Applications Guide, Veeam Database Backup Best Practices

Veeam Data Platform can achieve image-level backups for Solaris workloads. This means it can create a complete backup of the system at the image level, capturing the entire state of the Solaris system, including the operating system, applications, and data.References: Veeam Data Platform Documentation, Veeam Solaris Backup Guide

The immutability period set on a Linux Hardened Repository prevents deletion of backup files for the duration of the immutability period. In this case, it is set to 60 days. However, the GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) retention policy specifies that a monthly full backup is to be kept for 6 months. Since the full backup was created on 27th May 2023 and flagged as a monthly GFS backup, it will be retained for 6 months irrespective of the retention policy or the immutability setting. Hence, the restore point will be automatically deleted after 6 months, which would be on the 28th of November 2023.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: GFS Retention Policy
• Veeam Help Center: Linux Hardened Repository Immutability

To roll back the configuration database to Friday's state, the backup administrator should use the 'Restore' mode available in Veeam Backup & Replication. This mode allows for the entire configuration backup to be restored, which includes the job settings and history, and brings the configuration database back to the state it was in at the time of the backup.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Configuration Backup and Restore
• Veeam Help Center: Configuration Restore

For the given scenario where daily backups need to be sent from Site B to a repository at Site A and the connection between the two sites is limited, thus impacting the ability to complete direct backups within the backup window, a Backup Copy Job would be appropriate. A Backup Copy Job is a feature in Veeam Backup & Replication that allows you to create several instances of the same backup files across different locations (repositories).

In the image provided, the components involved in the Backup Copy Job from Site B to Site A would be:

• 6 (Repository at Site B): This is the source repository where the hourly backup jobs are stored.
• 4 and 3 (WAN Accelerators at both sites): These components optimize data transfer over the WAN.
• 2 (Repository at Site A): This is the target repository where the backup copies will be stored.

This setup would minimize impact on the source VMs at Site B since the Backup Copy Job works with backup data rather than directly with the production VMs, thus reducing the load on those VMs during the process.