VMCE_v12 Veeam Certified Engineer v12 Questions and Answers

To ensure that applications can be started in a specific order in advance of a disaster, an administrator should use a Failover Plan in Veeam Backup and Replication. This feature allows for the creation of a predefined sequence for starting up VMs, ensuring that applications are brought online in the correct order during a disaster recovery scenario.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Failover Plan Configuration Guide

In the Service Provider Console 7.0, Veeam service providers can deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. This allows them to offer Microsoft 365 backup and recovery services to their customers, managing the protection of Microsoft 365 data including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Microsoft Teams data.References:

• Veeam Service Provider Console Documentation: Backup for Microsoft 365
• Veeam Cloud & Service Provider Program Guide

The REST API through Veeam Backup and Replication Server is the available API for automating Veeam Backup and Replication operations. This API enables programmatic control over Veeam Backup & Replication and allows for integration with external systems and custom automation scripts.References: Veeam Backup & Replication RESTful API Reference, Veeam Automation and Scripting Guide

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

To avoid running out of space when moving backups to a new repository, the "Move backup..." function in Veeam Backup & Replication should be used. This function allows you to relocate backup files to a new repository without duplicating data, which can save space. Unlike a simple copy action, the move function ensures that the backup chain remains intact and does not require additional space for a copy of the backups during the transfer. When the move is initiated, Veeam will also automatically update the configuration to point to the new backup location, thus preventing any disruptions in the backup chain.

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.

To grant MS SQL DBAs the ability to restore their databases without giving access to other operations, the appropriate action is to give the DBA group Restore Operator access specifically to MS SQL databases within Veeam Enterprise Manager. This role-based access control allows DBAs to perform the needed restores while restricting access to other functionality.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Role-Based Access Control
• Veeam Enterprise Manager Guide: Delegating Restore Operations

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

Veeam provides agentless backup solutions for several public cloud infrastructures, among which AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Microsoft Azure are the prominent platforms supported. Thus, the correct answers are A: AWS and E: Microsoft Azure.

• For AWS, Veeam offers Veeam Backup for AWS, an agentless solution designed to protect AWS workloads by leveraging native AWS technologies. This solution allows for the backup and recovery of AWS EC2 instances without the need for agents inside the instances, providing efficient and flexible cloud-native data protection.
• In the case of Microsoft Azure, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure provides a similar agentless data protection capability, allowing for the backup and recovery of Azure VMs. This solution also utilizes native Azure technologies to facilitate seamless integration and management of backups within the Azure ecosystem.

These solutions are designed to provide comprehensive data protection for cloud workloads, simplifying management while ensuring robust backup and recovery capabilities in these public cloud environments.

The Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN is designed specifically for efficient backup and recovery of Oracle databases. It allows for direct integration with Oracle RMAN (Recovery Manager), ensuring that the backups are consistent and reliable. For a photography company that relies heavily on an Oracle database with new photos being continuously added, this feature provides an ideal solution. The daily backup of the database ensures that all new content is secured regularly, while the 15-minute interval for archived redo logs ensures that any recent transactions are also protected. This approach aligns well with the company's requirement to protect only the database.References:

• Veeam Documentation: Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN
• Veeam Help Center: Oracle RMAN Backup and Recovery

To protect a physical Windows server running Microsoft SQL 2020, the Veeam Agent should be used. Veeam Agent is designed to provide comprehensive backup and recovery for physical servers, including those running critical applications like Microsoft SQL Server.References: Veeam Agent for Windows User Guide, Veeam Physical Server Backup Guide

Veeam Backup & Replication allows you to set up failover plans to control the order in which VMs are started during a failover. By creating a failover plan, you can specify that the database servers boot before the application servers. This is achieved by setting up VM dependencies within the failover plan, ensuring that the database servers (which are critical for the application servers to function) are operational before the application servers start. Creating a disaster recovery template (B), creating a replica mapping (C), or initiating a planned failover (D) does not directly address the boot order of the servers during failover.

To achieve the goal of recovering a single SQL Database in a consistent manner with minimal impact on the production environment during production hours, while allowing for granular restores through the Veeam console, the engineer should A: Schedule transaction log processing every 30 minutes. By enabling application-aware processing for the SQL VM and scheduling the main backup job to run every 24 hours, the base image of the SQL database is protected. However, to achieve a more granular Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and ensure the ability to restore to specific points in time, transaction log backups must be performed more frequently. Configuring the backup job to process transaction logs every 30 minutes captures the SQL database changes more frequently without the overhead of a full backup, allowing for point-in-time restores directly from the Veeam console without the need for SQL Management Studio (SSMS) or a Database Administrator (DBA). This setup aligns with the goals of maintaining operational efficiency and minimizing the impact on production while ensuring robust data protection capabilities.

The primary benefit of configuring replica mapping in Veeam Backup & Replication is C: Reduced WAN traffic. Replica mapping is a feature that allows an administrator to map an existing VM in the disaster recovery site to a replica job. This is particularly useful when the initial replication of a large VM has been performed by other means (such as shipping a hard drive with the VM data to the DR site) or if a replica VM already exists and needs to be re-synced with the source VM. By using replica mapping, Veeam can avoid transferring the entire VM over the WAN again and instead only synchronize the differences between the source VM and the existing replica. This significantly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the WAN, conserving bandwidth and speeding up the replication process. It's an efficient way to manage replicas, especially for large VMs or in environments with limited bandwidth.

By adding a capacity tier to the Scale-out Backup Repository and enabling the "Copy" option, the administrator can create a backup that automatically copies data to a different media type (object storage) and also ensures that the data is offsite. This is accomplished without creating additional backup or backup copy jobs. The "Copy" option allows for immediate copying of backups to the capacity tier, meeting the criteria specified.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Scale-Out Backup Repository
• Veeam Help Center: Capacity Tier and Archive Tier Configuration

To solve the space issue while enabling GFS retention, the engineer should add an Object Storage as a Capacity tier to the Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) and set the policy to move backups that are older than 14 days. This approach allows for efficient use of local NAS storage for short-term retention and leverages object storage for long-term archival purposes.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam SOBR Configuration Guide

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

For a VMware environment on a Fibre Channel SAN, the most efficient proxy transport mode to minimize impact on the production environment is Direct Storage Access. This mode allows the backup proxy to directly interact with the SAN, bypassing the production network and reducing load on the ESXi hosts.References: Veeam Backup & Replication Best Practices, Veeam VMware Backup Proxy Guide

The immutability period set on a Linux Hardened Repository prevents deletion of backup files for the duration of the immutability period. In this case, it is set to 60 days. However, the GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) retention policy specifies that a monthly full backup is to be kept for 6 months. Since the full backup was created on 27th May 2023 and flagged as a monthly GFS backup, it will be retained for 6 months irrespective of the retention policy or the immutability setting. Hence, the restore point will be automatically deleted after 6 months, which would be on the 28th of November 2023.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: GFS Retention Policy
• Veeam Help Center: Linux Hardened Repository Immutability

In Veeam ONE, the remaining capacity of each backup repository server can be viewed under the Data Protection View. This section provides detailed information about the storage utilization and remaining capacity of backup repositories, allowing administrators to effectively monitor and manage storage resources.References: Veeam ONE User Guide, Veeam ONE Data Protection View Documentation

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.

The feature that is unique to Veeam Agent for Linux and not available in other Veeam Agent configurations is C: Backup from native snapshots. Veeam Agent for Linux includes the ability to leverage native snapshot capabilities of the Linux kernel, such as LVM (Logical Volume Manager) snapshots or Btrfs subvolume snapshots, to create consistent point-in-time copies of data. This capability allows for application-consistent backups even in complex Linux environments, ensuring that data is captured in a consistent state without the need for custom scripting or downtime. Native snapshot support in Veeam Agent for Linux enhances the flexibility and reliability of backups, particularly in environments where Linux-based applications and databases are critical to business operations.

Veeam Agents are designed to provide backup solutions for physical and cloud environments. They support various operating systems, including Ubuntu (a Linux-based OS) and Windows Server. These agents ensure that data on servers running these operating systems can be effectively backed up and restored. However, Veeam Agents do not support FreeBSD, IBM iSeries, or iOS as these platforms require different backup solutions or are not typically used in environments where Veeam operates.References:

• Veeam Agents User Guide
• Veeam Help Center: Supported Environments

Creating a backup job based on vSphere tags allows for dynamic addition of new VMware hosted SQL servers. When new VMs are tagged appropriately in vSphere, they are automatically included in the backup job, ensuring all relevant SQL servers are backed up without manual intervention.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Dynamic Backup Job Configuration Guide

Given the provided transport modes and the fact that no modifications are allowed to these settings, a possible cause for the restore of a VMware virtual disk to fail using this proxy server is C: The virtual disk is thin-provisioned. In the transport modes shown, the Direct storage access and Virtual appliance options would require the VM disk files to be accessible in a certain way that might not be compatible with thin-provisioned disks depending on the storage configuration and the current state of the VM. If the storage integration specifics or the snapshot handling do not support the thin-provisioned format, the restore operation could fail. It's important to ensure that the transport mode selected is compatible with the type of virtual disk being restored to prevent such issues.

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

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

To ensure that the VM data remains encrypted throughout the backup process, the job should be configured to use the proxies with the NBDSSL (Network Block Device SSL) transport mode. This mode encrypts data transferred over the network, adhering to the company policy that prioritizes data security. While DirectSAN Access is fast, it does not provide encryption of in-flight data.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Transport Modes
• Veeam Best Practices: Securing Backup Traffic

The fastest way to bring a corrupted data drive back online with the least disruption in a VMware environment is through Instant Disk Recovery. This feature allows the administrator to quickly restore the specific affected disk from a backup, minimizing downtime and impact on business operations.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Instant Disk Recovery Guide