On the 3rd of December, Veeam released the VBO v5 which is the latest version of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. This version brings new functionalities and improvements. Most notably the protection for Microsoft Teams which has become a mainstream solution not just for the Enterprises but also for the customers of all sizes. Moreover, Teams is acting as a concentration of multiple types of audiences thanks to the ever-growing list of features and supported integrations with 3rd-parties solutions. This poses the question and the peace of mind of protecting content not just against “bad actors” which typically are considered the external threats or malicious users. In reality, there is a number of internal threats that can contribute to data loss. Frontpage news lately have reported about an IT blunder which caused the permanent deletion of chat messages from hundreds of thousands of users. Now mistakes can happen to everyone. Protecting content and making this one available for multiple purposes including legal and auditing scenarios is exactly what the VBO v5 is covering with extended protection for Exchange, SharePoint , OneDrive, Teams and OneNote. It is worth noting that since version 2.0, Veeam Backup covers hybrid scenarios too. This is certainly the case for VBO v5 as well where On-Premises and Online and Hybrid setups are covered with no exception.
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the upgrade process for an existing Veeam instance to the latest VBO v5. Also to offer a quick glimpse on how the Microsoft Teams backup works and what to expect. More and advanced guides on specific use cases including Public and Private Clouds scenarios and Service Providers as well will be detailed in dedicated articles. In this case the upgrade to the latest release happens from a VBO version 4c. The process is pretty much straight forward and before commencing the upgrade progress it is always a good idea to take a backup of the VBO Server also as indicated in the white paper dedicated to version 4.0.
All in all, the upgrade process is simple and straight forward. Ideally the VBO Server needs to run the upgrade first. For large environments where the VBO Server scales out with Proxy Servers and additional Repositories these will be upgraded as well directly from the central console on the VBO v5 Management Server. This article covers the following steps:
- Upgrade to VBO v5 the Management Server
- Upgrade the VBO Proxy Servers
- Upgrade the VBO Repositories
- Enable Microsoft Teams Backup
What’s new in the latest VBO v5
Most notably Microsoft Teams protection ad recovery is one of latest capabilities added to the latest VBO v5 release. In reality there are even more functionalities helping to achieve greater performance and scalability in particular with large environments. To name but a few:
- 5x Backup Proxy scalability which allows up to 50 Backup Proxy Servers assisting Organizations exceeding hundreds of thousands users with same VBO v5 instance
- Support for Workgroup environments allowing for easier management and custom permissions to achieve further segregation between components
- Faster objects enumerations scaling to hundred of thousands within seconds. applies to Backup policy creation and during search capabilities as well
- Faster migration from Local Repository to object based either in the Public Cloud and Private Data Center making Storage cost efficient and effective in the long term
- Improved parallel processing for massive SharePoint Online sites protection and swift recovery including versioning
- Scale out to thousands of Backup Repositories helping in particular large enterprise IT Organizations and Cloud Service Providers serving multiple customers in a multi-tenant infrastructure
- New Restful APIs to help build custom Portals leveraging the built-in VBO v5 engine and combine with the latest Microsoft APIs and other 3rd-parties solutions
- New Auditing features collecting details on job configuration changes
- and more..
Veeam VBO v5 upgrade
Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 version 4.0 works in multi-tenant mode and the same applies to the latest VBO v5. This is shown in the screenshot where the VBO console is managing the data for 4 separate Tenant Organizations. such Tenants can be any combination of Online, Hybrid and On-Premises. The goal is a seamless upgrade to the latest release.
At the time of writing the VBO v5 GA version shows the following installers for:
- Veeam VBO Manager and Backup Proxy
- Veeam Explorers for Microsoft Exchange
- Veeam Explorer for Microsoft SharePoint (OneDrive for Business is included here)
- Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Teams
First step is to launch the main installer for the Veeam Backup Manager.
Next is to accept the EULA agreement.
At this point it is possible to choose which components to install. By default everything will be installed. This is also a good opportunity to re-use the same installer to provide additional consoles and help manage large environments without the need to login to the VBO Manager Server itself. This is usually welcomed in large IT organizations as helping them increase the security levels. To note is the auto-recognition of the installation path for the current version.
At this point the installer has already collected the necessary info to progress the installation.
As part of the wizard, the installer will automatically stop the Veeam Backup services, copy the new binaries and start the new services. Upon completion then the final screen for a successful install. No reboot is required.
Everything is now ready to login back to the VBO v5 console. Previous credentials will be automatically used in the new session as well.
Upon first login the VBO v5 console now shows all the Backup Jobs disconnected. This is the expected behavior as the VBO Server Manager and console have been updated but not the VBO Proxy and Repositories as of yet. This is clearly reported also in the Details column. Next step is to proceed with the VBO Proxy Servers upgrade as these are components talking directly with the storage Repositories.
Upgrade the VBO Proxy Servers
Moving to the Backup Infrastructure view, it shows the Backup Proxies and Repositories Out of Date. In particular this is true for the additional VBO Proxy Servers installed in the environment. The built-in Proxy Role running on the same VBO Server machine is already up to date. The version column reports the release status. With a simple right click on the outdated Proxy it is possible to start the upgrade wizard just for this component and directly from the main console.
The upgrade wizard verifies the DNS name and the Proxy type, if belongs to an Active Directory Domain or part of a Workgroup. This is a new feature shipping with VBO v5. Next to proceed with the upgrade.
In the next screen it is a matter of specifying the credentials for a user with local admin privileges on the VBO Proxy Server to carry on with the install. The ones from the previous setup are used and of course it is possible to specify different ones.
In this step the wizard is stopping the VBO Proxy Server service, copy the new binaries and start the new service. Everything is done with no user intervention.
A final message also with the list of all the updated Proxy Servers will show in the log. In this example just one. For large environments this operation can run concurrently on multiple Proxy Servers.
Upgrade the VBO v5 Repositories
At this point everything is ready for the final part of the upgrade process to VBO v5. This is the part related to the Backup Repositories. The process is pretty simple and very similar to the previous one for the Backup Proxy Servers.
Selecting one by one or on a multiple selection where desired, from the ribbon menu the Upgrade option. The process also in this case is very fast and it is a matter for the console to update the Repository configuration file to match the upgraded version of the Backup Proxy Servers they are associated with.
A final screen will look something similar to this including the associated Backup Proxy Server.
At this point going back to the main view the list of Tenants Organizations show all associated backup jobs with latest statistics.
Enable Microsoft Teams Backup
In a final step to the upgrade to the VBO v5 release now everything is ready to include the Microsoft Teams platform to the list of protected data. By editing the exiting Tenant Organization in VBO console it is just a matter of allowing Microsoft Teams checkbox and follow through the wizard and confirm settings.
As a final screen, the wizard shows a configuration validation now including Microsoft Teams as well.
In the existing VBO v5 Jobs it is now possible to add the desired Microsoft Teams to backup.
The list of selected Microsoft Teams can be edited at any time and it is also possible to automatically include in the backup also the newly created Microsoft Teams in the Tenant Organization.
What’s next
This was a very easy process on how to upgrade Veeam solution to the latest VBO v5. Next steps will cover the upgrade of the pertinent Veeam Explorers for Exchange, SharePoint & OneDrive and finally Microsoft Teams. A great tool-set which now adds the options to recover Teams, Channels, Posts, Files and tabs as well. More to will be covered in a dedicated article.
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