I wanted to protect a laptop user who I pretend travels the world. Compared to past methods of using the Veeam Agents to protect it I found things a little more difficult so I am writing it up here for me to remember but also help you.
I am doing this with Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4, and I have changed to using instance licensing. For me this is easier as I do not need the processor licenses I used to have for VMs and subscription for agents. Not that hard to manage but being able to use one license type for both is easier.
- So lets start in the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
- We want to create a Protection Group. We are going to use it to hold Windows laptops to help make the management of the backup easier.
- We will have a number of choices on how we fill our protection group.
- I am going to use the individual computers choice as it fits with me better. I do not have a group or OU of laptops / servers to protect with agents.
- You can use the Add button to add specific computers to the protection group.
- When you hit OK (as seen above) it makes sure your VM exists.
- Next use the Test Now button. Hope you see something like below.
- Now we use the Next button to continue.
- We will see a similar screen to one you have seen in VBR before.
- The screen above is mostly default, but I added check-marks to the Install changed option as well as Perform reboot in case I add servers it will mean no config change.
- Next we see status updates.
- Next we use Next and we see a scan happen.
- Of course, when the scan finished I had errors.
- Looks like I was supposed to have the Agent already installed! Nope, turns out I had remnants of past agent installed that looked to a different VBR server. So I removed the folder and registry, and did the scan again and it too longer this time but also nicer.
- BTW, on older slower hardware, I have seen it fail with a could not start service error, or timeout comments, and I did the scan again and it worked.
- Sometimes it is not the first scan, or the second, but maybe third when the Veeam Agent gets installed. Don’t worry, it will be installed as necessary.
- Now we have good Protection Group, so we need to add it to a backup job.
- Right Click on the Protection Group we just created.
- Next click on Add to backup job.
- I select New job.
- I am not backing up a server, but rather a workstation but I want it managed by backup server so I leave things as they are.
- We add a backup job name.
- In the Computers area we just leave our protection group.
- I want to backup the entire computer as it provides the best options I think. And is safest too!
- This screen you have likely seen many times. Make your choice of repo, and how many restore points and lets continue on. BTW, Advanced is here too if you need to make changes in it.
- We should normally choose Enable application-aware processing like I have above but if it is not needed than don’t.
- Next we deal with the schedule - just like we always do.
- After that is the summary - just like we always see.
- If we wait to the scheduled time, or start a backup now, we will soon see the following. Depending on how quick you work you may first see waiting for rescan to complete.
So we have an agent backup occurring where we did not have to visit the laptop. That is sort of handy.
As always, let me know if you have questions or comments.
Michael
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