A couple of weeks back Veeam released a new version to perform a Veeam Backup upgrade to latest 9.5 update 3a release.
This version introduces support for an extended ecosystem and includes a number of bug fixes as well. One of the most awaited features is the support for the latest VMware vSphere releases. It’s included and there’s a lot more. From the release notes we can take a look at what this update brings:
Platform support
- VMware vSphere 6.7. Includes the new HTML5 version of vSphere Web Client plug-in for Veeam Backup & Replication, and asynchronous NBD/NBDSSL support for improved read performance of network transport mode with ESXi 6.7.
- VMware vSphere 6.5 U2. This update introduces preliminary support by addressing all outstanding U2-specific compatibility issues that can be managed from the Veeam side. However, there is a major regression in ESXi 6.5 U2 code that makes the vSphere API fail randomly during high host CPU load periods, consequently impacting a variety of Veeam Backup & Replication functionality. VMware is currently troubleshooting this bug, and fixing one will most likely require the new ESXi 6.5 U2 build issued.
- VMware vCloud Director 9.1. Update 3a provides full compatibility for all existing vCloud Director integration functionality.
- VMware Cloud on AWS version 1.3 support and preliminary out-of-the-box compatibility with future VMC updates through removal of the API version match requirement. Additionally, support for processing virtual machines with dynamic disks has been added.
- Microsoft Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Includes support as guest virtual machines and for installation of Veeam Backup & Replication and all of its components.
- Microsoft Windows Server 1803. Update 3a provides Windows Server 1803 support as guest virtual machines, for installation of Veeam Backup & Replication remote components, and as a domain controller for Veeam Explorerâ„¢ for Microsoft Active Directory.
- Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V 1803. Update 3a provides Hyper-V 1803 support as a hypervisor host, including support for processing VMs with virtual hardware version 8.3.
- Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 1801. Update 3a adds SCVMM 1801 support as a source for Microsoft Hyper-V VMs backup jobs.
- Novell OES 2018. Update 3a adds support for file-level recovery from the updated NSS file system included in OES 2018.
VMware vSphere
- Performance of Direct Storage Access (DirectSAN) and Virtual Appliance (Hot Add) transport modes has been improved for backup infrastructure configurations through optimizing system memory interaction.
Microsoft Azure
- Added support for Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure for environments with ExpressRoute or site-to-site VPN connectivity to Azure
Linux File Level Recovery
- Added support for Linux SUID and SGID preservation to “Copy To” operation.
- Added support for Btrfs volumes located on an LVM volume.
Primary Storage Integrations
- Installing Universal Storage API plug-ins on each backup console (in addition to the backup server) is no longer required.
- Storage snapshot-only vCloud Director backup jobs are now supported for all storage integrations which support storage snapshot-only jobs. Previously, it was supported for NetApp only.
- Cisco HyperFlex integration will no longer delete the base sentinel snapshot during each job run to improve processing performance and reduce storage load.
Tape
- Improved performance of enumeration in File to Tape jobs with very large number of files.
More enhancements are also available for Veeam Cloud and Service Providers.
The installation process to run the Veeam Backup upgrade is very simple. Once we obtain the ISO file, is a matter of mounting the file to the Veeam Backup server and follow the installation wizard. Before proceeding let’s make sure we are upgrading from the these previous versions:
- 9.5.0.580
- 9.5.0.711
- 9.5.0.802
- 9.5.0.823
- 9.5.0.1038
- 9.5.0.1335
- 9.5.0.1536
We can easily check this under Help > About in Veeam Backup & Replication console. For environments where Veeam One is installed and running on 9.5 version it does not require a separate update as a dependency.
So at this point we are ready to start.
Veeam Backup upgrade wizard
Let’s start the wizard from the setup.exe.
As a first things the Veeam Backup upgrade wizard detects any running job. It shows a warning just in case.
In fact, there is a Veeam Backup Job which takes care of the Oracle transaction logs backup that was enabled and running. In order to proceed I had to temporarily disable this job.
At this point we are ready to progress with the Veeam Backup upgrade wizard. My preference is to leave unchecked any remote components. This is actually for two reasons: first I can see a list at the end of the wizard for which remote components. Secondly I can select individually which ones to upgrade. For example some of them might not be running or be available in a homelab in that particular time.
For Enterprise environments additional components are up and running all the time and is very practical to update all of them at the same time. Just a matter of preference 🙂
The upgrade process is very quick and at the end it shows the successful install.
As soon as we run the Veeam Backup console a new wizard will show the additional components to upgrade. It includes the remote ones as well. From here we can select the desired ones.
The Veeam Backup upgrade process will check, uninstall and install the latest versions of the components. All in all the entire operation is taking a very short time.
We can now check the version of Veeam Backup server from Settings > Help > About to 9.5.0.1922 which is update 9.5 update 3a.
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