Installing and Configuring Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 Community Edition

In this post I will go through the Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 Community Edition installation and configuration.

First of all download Veeam Community edition from here.

Once you have the .iso file either mount it in your new backup server or extract it to a folder.  Once ready run the Setup .exe file and choose Veeam Backup & Replication Install.

Accept the agreement and click Next

Click Next again to operate in Community Edition mode

Leave all the features as the defaults and click Next

At this point you may get a failure on some of the prerequisites.  You can either download these files manually or use Chocolatey to install them quickly.  Edit – Thank you for Gostev from Veeam for pointing out that if you just continue these prerequisites will be installed automatically.  If however you want to prepare the server in advance you can still use the Chocolatey method below

To use Chocolatey (a software package manager for Windows) to install these packages use the below PowerShell:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

choco feature enable -n allowGlobalConfirmation

choco install sql2014.smo sql2014.clrtypes ms-reportviewer2015

Once installed you will be able to reach the below stage.  Customise your settings as necessary and click Install to begin the process

You should see a success notification when the process is complete, click Finish

Open Veeam using the Veeam Backup & Replication Console shortcut on the desktop and click Connect

Once you are logged in the first thing you will need to do is add credentials for your ESXi hosts/vCenter and your Windows/Linux servers.  Click the settings button at the top left and then click Manage Credentials

Click Add>Standard Account

Add the details for your ESXi hosts root account

Then add the login details for your Windows machines

Now we need to add your ESXi host server so click Managed Servers and click Add Server

Select VMware vSphere and then select vSphere

Enter the IP address of your ESXi host and then click Next

Under Credentials select the ESXi root account that you entered earlier and click Next

Accept the certificate warning by clicking Continue

You should see the success summary, then click Finish

Click Inventory under the Server tab and you should see all your VMs listed and their relevant details

If you are using direct attached storage to backup, format your disk using REFS and 64KB allocation unit size

We now need to add some storage for Veeam to backup to.   Click Backup Infrastructure and click Backup Repositories.  Then right click and select Add Backup Repository.  Select your storage type, I will be using Direct attached storage

Select Windows

Give the Repository a name and click Next

Click Next to use the existing Veeam server

Select your storage path and click Next

Leave the next screen as the defaults and click Next

Review the settings and click Apply

Click Finish when done

Press Yes to move the configuration backup to the new repository

Now we need to create a backup job to backup our VMs.  Click Home and then click Jobs, right click and then go to Backup> Virtual Machine

Give the backup job a name and then click Next

Click Add and select all the VMs you want to backup

Click Next once you have made your selections

Leave the backup proxy as Automatic Selection and change the Backup repository to the one you created earlier.  Choose how many restore points you want to keep and click Advanced

Choose your backup method between Reverse incremental and Incremental, click Ok and then Next

Enable application-aware processing and guest-file system indexing.  Change your Guest OS credentials to the Windows account you added earlier and click Test Now making sure it passes

Configure a schedule and click Apply

Check the Summary and click Finish

Right click on the job and click Start to begin the backup

You should see your VMs being backed up along with the bitrate you are getting when committing to the storage

The backup job should then complete successfully