Veeam Backups - Best Practices

As many of our customers using the MaxBack VSS Writer (see also http://www.maxback.io/veeam) to enable backup support for MaxDB databases in Veeam we give you some short best practices how to configure Veeam and the VSS writer for this use case.

Video tutorial on how to set up MaxBack with Veeam

The following video gives you a general overview of how to set up MaxBack with Veeam:

Decide how database log files should be backed up

It is recommended to save the log backups with the Veeam backup. If you use another backup product to save the log backups you should consider to disable the automatic log handling of the VSS Writer.

To save the logs with the Virtual Machine backups the log backups have to be stored on a local disk.
It is recommended to use a separate VM disk for log backups.

VSS Writer configuration

After installation you have to connect the VSS Writer instance to the MaxDb database. When connecting the instance set the name of the log backup medium to the backup medium selected above. 

You should also enable the Veeam configuration set for the database instance.
See also http://www.maxback.io/docs/latest/vsswriter/configuration/options.html#veeam-configuration-set

Veeam Backup Schedule for Full Backups

Enable the following settings in the Veeam backup schedule for a full backup:

• activate option "Enable application aware processing"
• Applications - Tab "General", make sure option "Process transaction logs" is selected

All other settings can be set on your retention and copy requirements.

With these settings the VSS Writer will prepare the database for the backup before the snapshot for the Veeam Backup is created. Additionally Veeam will notify the VSS Writer when the backup is completed and the successful backup is logged in backup history.

Veeam Backup Schedule for Log Backups

As the log files are typical stored on the local file system of the Virtual machine they will be lost if the virtual machine is destroyed.

Therefore it is recommended to create additional log backups during the day to create copies of the log files.

Veeam configuration

First create a new Veeam backup schedule running frequently (for example each hour).

• activate option "Enable application aware processing"
• Applications - Tab "General", make sure option "Perform copy only" is selected

You use a short retention time in this scenario - the next full backup will also include all log backups and all log backups will include the previous backups.

Please note that the log backup with active guest processing requires MaxBack VSS Writer 1.2 or higher.