How to Backup a Windows Failover Cluster with Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows

KB ID: 2463
Product: Veeam Backup & Replication | 9.5 | 10 | 11 | 12
Published: 2018-03-29
Last Modified: 2022-06-06
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Purpose

Veeam Backup & Replication lets you deploy and manage Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows on computers in your infrastructure. The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows failover cluster job has full support for mission-critical Microsoft Failover Clusters, SQL Server-based Microsoft Failover Clusters, SQL Always On Availability Groups and Exchange Database Availability Groups.
 
Please be advised that this guide describes Agent Management for Windows Server Failover Cluster processing if you plan to use Veeam Agents in your infrastructure. However, it is still possible to use basic virtual machine backup jobs to process virtual clusters without Veeam Agents.

This is a “how to” step-by-step guide on backing up your Windows Failover Cluster.

Solution

Article Contents:

For Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clusters, Microsoft SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances, and SQL Always On Availability Groups:

For Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group:

Failover Clusters, SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances, and SQL Always On Availability Groups

Create an Active Directory Protection Group Containing the Failover Cluster

  1. Switch to the Inventory section within the Veeam Backup & Replication Console
  2. Select the Physical Infrastructure node
  3. In the ribbon, click Add Group
  4. On the Type tab of the Wizard, select Microsoft Active Directory objects.

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  5. On the Active Directory tab, specify the domain name and account (if required) and select the Active Directory cluster object.

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    Note: The AD cluster name can be found in Active Directory Users and Computers or Failover Cluster Manager.

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  6. On the Exclusions tab, ensure that none of the required hosts are excluded.

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  7. On the Credentials tab, specify the Master account used to connect to each member of the cluster. If needed, individual credentials may be assigned for particular machines.

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  8. On the Options tab, check the box to Install backup agent to install backup agents automatically during the rescan.
    Installation can be performed manually if required.

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  9. Proceed through the remaining tabs by clicking Next and then Finish.
  10. After the protection group is created, a rescan will occur. During that rescan, the protection group will communicate with AD to identify the machines associated with the specified Failover Cluster and deploy the Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows software.
  11. Once the rescan is completed, you should see the cluster and all child nodes under the protection group.

    NOTE: To avoid installation issues, ensure that all required network and DNS requirements are fulfilled. Various infrastructure changes may be required to grant that access: network configuration, firewall, and security software settings. For instance, if the cluster is deployed On Azure, it is vital to check that all the required ports are opened in the network interface settings - https://docs.microsoft.com/bs-latn-ba/azure/virtual-machines/windows/nsg-quickstart-portal.
    Specific fault tolerance configurations may have Azure load balancer deployed - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/load-balancer-ha-ports-overview, is so make sure that the corresponding rules are added to the load balancer configuration. Otherwise, part of the Veeam traffic will be dropped - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/load-balancer/configure-load-balancer-outbound-cli.
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Configure the Failover Cluster backup job

  1. Navigate to the Home section of the Veeam Backup & Replication Console
  2. Click the Backup Job button in the ribbon
  3. Select Backup > Windows computer.

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  4. On the Job Mode tab, select Failover cluster

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  5. On the Computers tab, click Add and select cluster object or the protection group containing the cluster.

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    NOTE: each cluster node will consume a Server License host counter:
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  6. On the Guest Processing tab, Enable Application-Aware Processing.

    To enable SQL Transaction Log backup, click Advanced and configure it on the SQL tab.

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  7. Start the job. The cluster job will track node changes and perform log backup (if configured).

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Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group

Starting with Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4, Microsoft Exchange database availability group (DAG) nodes are now automatically processed sequentially. Hence, it is possible to use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows to process Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Groups (DAGs).

The procedure of adding a DAG to a Veeam Agent backup job differs depending on the type of the DAG that you want to process:

  • For a regular DAG, the backup job configuration procedure is the same as for any failover cluster mentioned above, so all the steps above are relevant
  • For an IP Less DAG (a DAG without an Administrative Access Point), the backup job configuration procedure is similar to the same method for standalone servers. To process an IP Less DAG, you must create a Veeam Agent backup job for servers in the Veeam backup console and add all nodes of the IP Less DAG (the steps below show it in detail) to this job.


Create a protection group with the DAG nodes:

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Then add servers that act as DAG nodes to a Veeam Agent backup job for servers configured in Veeam Backup & Replication.



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During the backup process, Veeam Backup & Replication detects that servers in the backup job are part of a DAG and creates a transactionally consistent backup of Microsoft Exchange databases running on these servers (only passive database copies are processed, and active ones are excluded from VSS freeze operations; however, the job still copies all the correspondent EDB-files of all databases from all the nodes).

Application-aware processing should be enabled for a consistent backup, log truncation, and application-item restore possibility.

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If you plan to use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows to back up your DAG cluster, be advised that Agents deployed via Veeam Backup & Replication version before 9.5 Update 4 cannot process a DAG as a regular failover cluster.

 

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