Veeam Backup & Replication is now at v11. As per Veeam tradition each new major version brings a plethora of new capabilities and enhancements. In this version about 150 spanning different new and existing features in the solution. The aim of this article is to cover the process about running a Veeam v11 upgrade in-place over an existing version 9.5 and 10. The process itself is straight forward and really takes a few click to completion. The installer wizard also detects and install the missing dependencies directly from the ISO file which can be obtained from the Veeam download page. The download page requires a free sign-in to proceed.
The list of new features and enhancement is very long and most notably Veeam v11 brings:
- Continuous Data Protection
Eliminate downtime and minimize data loss for your Tier 1 VMware workloads.
- Reliable Ransomware Protection
Keep data safe with native, immutable, malware safe storage for your backups.
- Amazon S3 Glacier and Azure Archive
Reduce the cost of long term data archival and retention by up to 20x.
- Expanded Instant Recovery
Instantly recover even more workloads, now including Microsoft SQL, Oracle and NAS.
- Veeam-Powered BaaS & DRaaS
Get the most out of V11 by teaming up with one of our integrated service provider partners.
And the official list is a lot longer. More info are available in the What’s New document released with Veeam v11. This article complements the series dedicated to the Veeam Backup & Replication with its features and integrations.
Veeam v11 upgrade overview
The process to run Veeam v11 upgrade on an existing Veeam Backup server it is very simple and completely wizard driven. Before continuing it is recommended to take a Veeam Configuration Backup using the built-in utility or even a traditional Microsoft SQL Backup. The Veeam Database holds all the configurations and settings in the console, including the sessions history. As soon as the Veeam v11 ISO file is mounted on the Veeam Backup server, the splash screen will take a few seconds to start and recognize the current version installed, hence already proposing the upgrade path. A similar step can be done also on the additional Veeam Backup consoles.
Next is to accept the terms for the EULA agreement and continue.
At this point the Veeam v11 upgrade reports the detected versions for different components. All components will be automatically updated from the wizard.
The existing Veeam license will be automatically converted to be used with Veeam v11. No extra steps required.
In the next step the installer checks the existing and new prerequisites before commencing the Veeam v11 upgrade.
It is worth noting the Veeam ISO file already includes all the re-distributable packages avoiding to download them from the internet. The entire process is very quick.
From the existing Veeam Backup database the installer now reads the database information and credentials . Unless a change is desired the existing details are fine to continue.
Next is a a review and confirmation of the Database Server, Instance and Name used previously along with authentication method. In this case the Veeam database is provided by a SQL Fail-over Cluster instance.
At this point the wizard will prompt a message about connecting to the existing Database as this will be automatically upgraded to accommodate the latest features as per Veeam v11 upgrade.
In case of dependencies like Veeam Cloud Connect, Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager and Veeam ONE these should be upgraded first before the Veeam v11 upgrade. Eventually it is just a case of restarting the Veeam services if the Veeam servers have been upgraded in a different order.
As of Veeam v11 a new methodology for Backup Copy Jobs is in place. The GrandFather-Father- Son (GFS) backup retention is now based on time as opposed to the number of restore points. Another big difference is the GFS Full backup chain is sealed on scheduled days as opposed to the date when the corresponding restore point becomes the oldest base on a new backup chain coming in. Also the quarterly backup option is removed and will automatically convert the respective monthly option. By accepting these options the wizard continues the upgrade process.
By now the installer wizard has all the necessary info to progress and also provides the option to automatically upgrade the additional components installed on Veeam Managed servers like the Proxies and Repositories. A personal preference here (for a homelab) is to leave this unchecked and choose later which ones to upgrade.
The installer now stops all the Veeam services, copies the binaries, updates the database, prepares the content, starts the new services. This part only takes a few moments.
As a final screen now the message the Veeam v11 upgrade completed successfully.
On the first login to the new Veeam v11 the console will automatically propose a new wizard to upgrade the additional components. In this example it includes additional Microsoft Hyper-V on host Proxies, Windows and Linux Proxies for VMware (based on Windows 2016, 2019, Ubuntu 20.04 and Fedora 32) and the default Proxy components installed on the Veeam v11 server itself. All in all the entire upgrade takes only a few moments and requires no user intervention.
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