VMCE_v12 Veeam Certified Engineer v12 Question and Answers

To provide immutable backups on a secondary site with a different media, the best option given the context is B: Create a Scale Out Backup Repository (SOBR) with the existing Microsoft Windows Server as the performance tier and an AWS S3 bucket with immutability enabled as the capacity tier.

This approach involves leveraging the existing backup infrastructure (Microsoft Windows Server with direct-attached storage) as the performance tier of the SOBR, where the most recent backups are stored for fast access. For long-term storage and immutability, backups can be offloaded to an AWS S3 bucket configured with Object Lock. The Object Lock feature in AWS S3 provides an additional layer of data protection by making the backup data immutable, meaning it cannot be deleted or modified for a specified duration. This setup ensures that backup data is protected against accidental deletion, ransomware, and other malicious activities.

By implementing this configuration, the engineer can achieve the desired level of data protection and immutability, utilizing cloud storage as a secure and scalable secondary backup location, distinct from the primary on-premises storage media.

To perform all functions without needing to access the backup server locally or over remote desktop, the engineer can install the Veeam console on their desktop. This allows the engineer to remotely manage and control the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure. The console provides full access to the backup server's capabilities from any machine within the network, making it unnecessary to log in directly to the server.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Veeam Backup & Replication Console
• Veeam Help Center: Remote Management with Veeam Backup & Replication Console

After using Instant VM Recovery to bring a critical crashed server back online quickly, the final step required to complete the recovery process is A: Migrate to production. Instant VM Recovery allows a VM to run directly from the backup file in a temporary location, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. However, because the VM is running in this provisional state, it's essential to migrate it back to the production environment to ensure long-term stability and performance. The "Migrate to production" operation involves moving the running VM from the backup storage to the production storage, typically involving a storage vMotion in VMware environments or a similar process in other hypervisors. This step ensures that the VM is fully restored to its original or a new production environment, solidifying the recovery and allowing the VM to operate as part of the normal infrastructure once again.

It is recommended to install Veeam ONE before Veeam Backup & Replication because Veeam ONE can potentially identify infrastructure issues that might affect backup operations before they are performed. This proactive approach ensures that the environment is optimized for successful backup and replication tasks.References: Veeam Installation and Configuration Guide, Veeam ONE Deployment Best Practices

Veeam ONE is a monitoring and reporting tool for Veeam Backup & Replication, as well as virtual environments like VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V. In Veeam ONE, you can monitor the capacity of VMware datastores by using the "Infrastructure View". Within this view, there is a specific group for "Datastores" which provides comprehensive information, including the capacity and free space available on each datastore. This feature is designed to help administrators manage storage effectively and ensure they are alerted before reaching critical capacity limits. The "Infrastructure View" provides a more direct and focused way to monitor resources like datastores compared to "Business View", which is typically used for categorizing and viewing the infrastructure based on business needs, rather than direct resource monitoring.

To meet the specified requirements, configuring a backup copy job in periodic copy (pruning) mode with 62 days of retention and six monthly Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) restore points is the best approach. This setup allows for daily backups for up to two months and weekly backups for up to six months, aligning with the desired restore capabilities.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam GFS Retention Policy Explanation

Before creating a NAS backup job, an engineer must add the NAS file share to the Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) console under the Inventory section. This involves specifying the NAS Filer and the particular file share to be protected. This step allows Veeam to recognize the file share as a valid source for backup operations.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: NAS Backup
• Veeam Help Center: Adding File Shares to Inventory

To change a backup copy job from periodic mode to immediate mode, an administrator can edit the original backup copy job and select the immediate copy mode from within the job settings. This change ensures that backup copy jobs are started immediately after the source backup job completes, rather than waiting for a defined copy interval.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Backup Copy Job
• Veeam Help Center: Backup Copy Job Modes

Instant VM Recovery to VMware offers the lowest possible RTO for restoring a physically damaged Linux server to a VMware vSphere infrastructure. This feature rapidly restores service by running the server directly from the backup file in a VMware environment.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Agent for Linux Guide

To meet the stringent Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 hour for the two critical applications, the most suitable approach is to use a combination of backup copy jobs and hourly VM replication, which corresponds to answer C. Backup copy jobs can ensure that backups are available offsite for disaster recovery purposes, while VM replication provides the ability to quickly failover to a replica VM in case of a primary VM failure, thereby minimizing downtime. Veeam's replication capabilities are designed to create exact copies of VMs at regular intervals, which can then be rapidly activated in case of a failure. This strategy ensures that the applications can be brought back online within the 4-hour RTO, with data loss not exceeding the 1-hour RPO, thus meeting the company's stringent data protection requirements for these critical applications.

Veeam Plug-ins for Enterprise Applications provide a transactionally consistent backup of databases and their database logs. This ensures that the backup is not only complete but also consistent at a transactional level, capturing all transactions up to the point of the backup. This is crucial for databases to ensure data integrity and consistency when restored.References: Veeam Plug-ins for Enterprise Applications Guide, Veeam Database Backup Best Practices

In a scenario where a Veeam engineer needs to manage backup file transfers between two sites without impacting bandwidth during business hours, the most appropriate feature to configure in the backup copy job is D: Backup Copy Window. The Backup Copy Window setting in Veeam Backup & Replication allows for specifying the time frame during which the backup copy job is allowed to transfer data. By configuring this window to exclude business hours, the engineer can ensure that the backup copy job transfers data only during off-peak hours, thereby avoiding additional strain on the WAN connection when it is most needed for business operations. This approach provides the flexibility to balance the need for offsite backups with the practical bandwidth considerations of a busy WAN connection, ensuring that backup activities do not interfere with critical business functions.

In Veeam Enterprise Manager, granular restoration permissions can be set for the Restore Operator role, including the restoration of file items. This role allows designated users to perform file-level restores, ensuring that they can recover individual files without having full administrative privileges over the backup infrastructure.References:

• Veeam Enterprise Manager Guide: Roles and Permissions
• Veeam Help Center: Configuring Granular Restore Permissions

The Quick Rollback feature can be used during a Full VM Restore to restore only the changed blocks of data since the last backup. This is typically used when the issues are minor and have been caused by VM guest user error, rather than full-scale data corruption or migrations to a different virtualization host. Quick Rollback can efficiently restore the VM to its previous state without the need to transfer the entire VM's data.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Quick Rollback
• Veeam Help Center: Performing Quick Rollback

The 3-2-1 backup strategy is a best practice that suggests having three total copies of your data, two of which are local but on different devices or media, and one copy offsite. In the described scenario, although there is an offsite component (SOBR with AWS S3 Performance Tier), and a local hardened immutable repository, there is no indication of a second local copy on a different device or media. This means that there is only one local copy of the backup data and one offsite copy. Therefore, the setup does not meet the 3-2-1 best practices requirement, which would involve having at least one more local copy on different media or device.

Placing the backup proxy and cache repository on the same network as the NAS file share helps to increase the performance of the backup job due to reduced latency and higher network speeds. This configuration allows for faster communication and data transfer between the NAS and the backup components, leading to more efficient backup operations.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Backup Proxy
• Veeam Best Practices: NAS Backup Performance

For diagnosing known issues in the configuration and performance of the backup infrastructure without the direct involvement of Veeam Technical Support, the administrator should utilize A: Intelligent Diagnostics in Veeam One. Intelligent Diagnostics is a feature designed to proactively detect known issues within the Veeam backup infrastructure by analyzing the system's event logs, performance data, and configurations. It uses predefined patterns and rules derived from common issues identified by Veeam Support to provide early warnings and suggest corrective actions. This self-service approach enables administrators to address potential problems before they impact operations, enhancing the reliability and efficiency of the backup infrastructure.

To alleviate the workload on the backup team while still accommodating the frequent restore requests from developers, the most effective strategy is to empower the developers themselves with the ability to perform file restores. This can be achieved by granting them access to the Enterprise Manager Self-Service File Restore Portal. Veeam Enterprise Manager offers a Self-Service File Restore Portal, which allows users to independently restore files from backups of their VMs without the need for direct intervention by the backup team. This portal is designed with security and ease of use in mind, ensuring that developers can perform restores as needed while adhering to the principle of least privilege, thus reducing the strain on the backup team. This approach aligns with Veeam's emphasis on enhancing operational efficiency and self-service capabilities in data management practices.

When starting an on-demand lab from backup files for mission-critical VMs, the appropriate SureBackup feature to configure is A: Application Group. An Application Group in Veeam Backup & Replication is a predefined group of VMs that are started together in the SureBackup job. This feature is designed to ensure that interdependent VMs, such as those comprising a multi-tier application, are started in a sequence that respects their operational dependencies, allowing for comprehensive verification and testing. The Application Group can include the mission-critical VMs and any associated VMs required for the application environment to function correctly, ensuring that all components are available and interact as expected within the isolated on-demand lab environment. This setup facilitates effective testing or troubleshooting in a manner that closely mirrors the production environment without impacting live operations.

In the context of disaster recovery, the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is best defined by option B: The acceptable data loss measured in time that can be tolerated. RPO is a critical metric in disaster recovery and business continuity planning that specifies the maximum amount of data (measured in time) that an organization can afford to lose in the event of a disaster or system failure. It effectively sets the limit for how frequently data backups or replications should occur. For instance, an RPO of 4 hours means that the organization must be able to recover data from no more than 4 hours prior to the disaster, implying that backup or replication operations should occur at least every 4 hours. Establishing an RPO is essential for developing an effective data protection strategy, as it guides the choice of backup methodologies and technologies to meet the organization's tolerance for data loss.

For the given scenario where daily backups need to be sent from Site B to a repository at Site A and the connection between the two sites is limited, thus impacting the ability to complete direct backups within the backup window, a Backup Copy Job would be appropriate. A Backup Copy Job is a feature in Veeam Backup & Replication that allows you to create several instances of the same backup files across different locations (repositories).

In the image provided, the components involved in the Backup Copy Job from Site B to Site A would be:

• 6 (Repository at Site B): This is the source repository where the hourly backup jobs are stored.
• 4 and 3 (WAN Accelerators at both sites): These components optimize data transfer over the WAN.
• 2 (Repository at Site A): This is the target repository where the backup copies will be stored.

This setup would minimize impact on the source VMs at Site B since the Backup Copy Job works with backup data rather than directly with the production VMs, thus reducing the load on those VMs during the process.

To ensure VMs running interdependent applications fail over one by one, as a group, the method to use is D: Failover plan. In Veeam Backup & Replication, a failover plan allows for the orchestration of a group of replicas to fail over in a predefined sequence. This includes the capability to set up delays between starting each VM, which is crucial for interdependent applications that must be started in a specific order to function correctly. The failover plan ensures that dependencies among the group are respected and that the startup sequence follows the correct order, enabling a smooth and organized transition to the failover state.

Using the Veeam Guest OS File Restore wizard, files or folders can be restored to a valid UNC (Universal Naming Convention) path. This means that the director's folder can be restored to any network location that the Windows VM has access to, as long as it's specified in the UNC format, such as \\Server\SharedFolder. This allows for the flexibility of restoring the data to a different location than the original one.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Guest OS File Recovery
• Veeam Help Center: Restoring Guest OS Files

After completing a planned failover for VMs to the disaster recovery site, the typical actions available in Veeam Backup & Replication for a failover plan are:

• Undo: This allows you to reverse the failover and return the VMs to the original location.
• Start: This would be used to initiate the failover plan if it needs to be executed again.
• Edit: This option permits modifications to the failover plan.
• Delete: This allows the removal of the failover plan if it is no longer needed. There are no options for Copy in the context of a failover plan, and the Cancel option is typically available before and during the failover process, not after completion.

To meet the 1-hour RPO for the databases within the VM, while only being able to snapshot the VM once per day, the best strategy is to enable regular transaction log backups (option A) and process transaction logs with the job (option E). This setup allows the system to capture changes in the SQL Server transaction logs at intervals less than the RPO requirement, without needing to snapshot the entire VM more frequently.References: Veeam Backup & Replication Documentation, Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practices Guide

Within Veeam Backup & Replication, the functionality that achieves the lowest Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is B: Continuous Data Protection (CDP). CDP is designed to protect critical workloads by continuously capturing changes and replicating them to a target site, allowing for very low RPOs, often measured in seconds. This is achieved through the use of VMware's vSphere APIs for I/O Filtering (VAIO), which intercepts and replicates I/O streams almost in real-time. CDP is particularly valuable for applications that require high levels of availability and cannot tolerate significant data loss. By providing near-continuous replication, CDP ensures that in the event of a failure or disaster, data loss can be minimized to a very narrow window, significantly reducing the potential impact on business operations.

To change a backup copy job from periodic mode to immediate mode, the most straightforward approach is D: Create a new backup copy job and delete the original job. Veeam Backup & Replication does not directly allow changing the mode of an existing backup copy job from periodic to immediate within the job settings. Therefore, the recommended practice is to set up a new backup copy job with the desired settings, in this case, immediate mode, which starts copying backups as soon as they are created by the primary backup job. After the new backup copy job is configured and tested to confirm it meets the requirements, the original periodic mode job can be safely deleted. This ensures a seamless transition to the immediate mode operation without risking data protection consistency or coverage.

When configuring Veeam Backup & Replication in a VMware vSAN environment, the best practice is to use the Virtual Appliance transport mode. This mode is also referred to as "hot-add" and allows the backup proxy to mount VM disks directly from the datastore. This method is more isolated from the VMkernel network traffic, as it does not require network connectivity to the hosts to retrieve data, thus providing a level of isolation that meets the requirement stated in the question. The Direct NFS and Direct SAN options are not applicable for vSAN, and Network mode would not provide the necessary isolation from VMkernel network traffic.

Veeam Enterprise Manager provides centralized management for Veeam Backup & Replication environments. It enables the administrator to manage licensing and role-based access control across multiple Veeam Backup servers in different locations, offering a unified control panel with minimal effort compared to other options that would require more complex setups or custom development work.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Veeam Enterprise Manager
• Veeam Help Center: Centralized Management with Enterprise Manager