4 October 2019

Veeam Backup O365

While I’ve spent more than a few years working with Veeam’s Backup & Replication (VBR). But I’m pretty new to Veeam’s Backup O365 (VBO365). I recently learning about some of their differences while setting up a new install of VBO365 in an environment which already used VBR.

One is that unlike VBR, VBO365’s repositories don’t support drives have data deduplication enabled and running on it. It can be on a Windows server with the data deduplication role installed, that won’t break anything. But the disk volume that the repositoy lives on can not have a running data dedupe task, as you risk a change of corruption in your backup file.

The next is that it’s recommend that the VBO365 application is installed on it’s own VM. It can be run on the same VM as your VBR, but it can be resource intensive so they recommend it be running on it’s own.

The VBR backup job that is running against your VBO365 VM needs to be application aware. On top of that, they recommend running pre-job and post-job scripts to stop and start the VBO365 services. This means before the VBR job runs, it’ll need to run a script to stop VBO365 services (there are three services, though the RESTful API is probably already off by default). Then once the VBR job completes, it’ll need to start up it’s VBO365 services (there are two of them).

Luck for you and me, VBR can easily be set up to run the pre- and post- job scripts. And even luckier for you, I have already put together the Powershell command you’ll need to stop and start those services

Stop Services:

Get-Service | where {$_.name -match “Veeam.Archiver”} | sort-object Status -desc | stop-service

Start Services:

Get-Service | where {$_.name -match “Veeam.Archiver.Service”} | sort-object Status -desc | start-service

Get-Service | where {$_.name -match “Veeam.Archiver.Proxy”} | sort-object Status -desc | start-service

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4 October 2019

Easy Beginnings – website hosting

The Internet has come a long ways since it’s early beginnings. One of the things that have gone from “only a nerd could accomplish” to now “almost anyone” can do is pick a host and create their own content.

Ages ago I started using a hosting company called DreamHost.com (referral link, save $50). They are a great hosting company, and I still use them for some stuff. If you’re much of a ‘techie’ person, then they would definitely a great choice for you to use. They have a lot of affordable hosting options, and make things really simple with “one click” installers that will do all of the heavy lifting for you. With one click it will do everything for you from the install to configuring the associated application’s database and creating the admin user. Within minutes you have an email in your mailbox telling you that your ready to go! Here is a link to all of DreamHost’s “one click” installers and 3rd party apps.

They actually have some really great support, and to help keep their costs down, they only offer email based support. For some people, that just doesn’t work for them. I can honestly say that I really haven’t had much to complain about in over a decade of relying on them. Their email support has been timely. In my opinion, they are a wonderful hosting company. If you need things simple and easy, and don’t really want to mess around with having to do anything yourself, this is the perfect hosting company for you to use. They do also offer more advanced stuff too.

If you need something a little more powerful or robust. Or if you are that nerd that wants to have a bit more control over the server hosting your site, then it’s time to consider taking a look at a larger provider like Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS has some great options to choose from and with services like, Lightsail, they make it super simple and affordable to make and host a website or application. Their Lightsail offering even have many of the same “one-click” install options. In an attempt to broaden my own knowledge and skills on AWS, I have started to move my “web things” over to them. I don’t have any complaints. And being able to manage the underlining server my site runs one at the OS level, gives lots of options for me. As an IT professional, I’m hopping compute pools and settling into the AWS and Azure environments for my next ride. Both of these LARGE cloud providers offer so much to the power user like myself. At some point, I’ll write up an article on creating your first Lightsail in AWS, so stay tuned!

Category: AWS | LEAVE A COMMENT