Veeam: Recovering from a failed backup server to a new server
If your Veeam server has crashed for whatever reason and you are unable to get it running again, it is possible to restore the DB to another Veeam server. The main reason to restore the old DB is to keep from losing all of your backup jobs and the setup work you have already accomplished.
In my senario, my crashed Veeam server (Veeam01) was a virtual machine in VMWARE using SQL Express.
Here were my recovery steps:
1. Create a new virtual server to be the replacement Veeam server. Veeam02
2. Mount the VMDK where the Veeam DB was stored from Veeam01 on to Veeam02
3. After mounting the VMDK go into Computer Management – Disk Management
4. Most likely your attached drive will show as foreign and offline
5. Right click on the offline drive and click to bring it online
6. If it is still not available, right click on it again and import the foreign disk
7. Assign the disk a drive letter if one was not assigned automatically. Eg. X:
8. Create a temporary directory. C:tem
9. Go to X:program files (x86)Microsoft SQL ServerMSSQL.1MSSQLData
10. Copy the files: VeeamBackup.mdf and VeeamBackup_log.LDF to C:tem
11. At this point you are done with the attached VMDK
12. Completely install Veeam Backup as a brand new installation allowing it to create a new instance of SQLExpress
13. Shutdown the following services:
Veeam vPower NFS Service
Veeam Indexing Service
Veeam Backup Service
SQL SERVER VSS Writer
SQL Server (Veeam)
14. Copy the files: VeeamBackup.mdf and VeeamBackup_log.LDF from C:tem to C:program files (x86)Microsoft SQL ServerMSSQL.1MSSQLData (or whereever you install the SQL Express DB) and replace the current files.
15. Restart the service that were previously stopped
Veeam vPower NFS Service
Veeam Indexing Service
Veeam Backup Service
SQL SERVER VSS Writer
SQL Server (Veeam)
16. Uninstall Veeam Backup and Recovery from the server
17. Reinstall Veeam Backup, but this time you will select an existing instance of the server. Make certain it is pointing to VeeamBackup as its DB.
18. Once the install has finished start the Veeam backup software
19. If you are using service account passwords in any of the jobs you will need to go into each job and retype the password. I am not sure why, but this is what I had to do.
20. As a final note make certain you have reattached any external drives that were attached to Veeam01 to Veeam02. These drives need to be atttached, brought online, imported, and reassigned the same drive letter that they were originally assigned in order for your jobs to continue to store the backups in the same location as before.
