SAP HANA VM Veeam Backup

[Former Member]

Hi,

we are running a full HANA-Backup (db13) to an external storage every night and we are using Veeam Backup & Replication for backup of our virtual machines with SAP HANA.

Veeam creates a snapshot in order to backup the VM.

All changes to the VM such as database transactions (and therefor to the transaction redo logs) are then written to the delta-file.

That means that my VM backup consists of the database BEFORE creation of the snapshot (because the delta-file won't be backed up).

I think restoring the virtual machine would lead to data loss.

Does anybody know if there is a possibility to get a database consistent HANA VM backup with Veeam including all transaction redo logs?

(like Veeam Backup with MS SQL Server where transaction logs are backed up and automatically truncated)

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Marco

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Marco,

I have a couple of questions and a suggestion below:

1. Are you using the Veeam Backup restore as a Disaster Recovery strategy?

2. Is the Veeam backup restore supported from HANA for Disaster Recovery? if yes then there must a documentation from SAP and vendor on how to do this restore without any data loss

I know of customers who use Veeam backup for keeping a system level backup(ship it to tape) and take HANA backups(alos moved to tape) on top of the Veeam backups.

In case of a Disaster they would restore the Veeam backup first and then recover the HANA instance from Data backup, is this an option in your case?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Sunil,

thanks for your answer.

Yes, we are using Veeam as Disaster Recovery. In case of a disaster we would restore the hole VM with Veeam.

I was searching for documents regarding SAP HANA and Veeam but couldn't find something.

The Idea was to get the system restored with Veeam an have it directly online again without restoring the database in a second step in order to keep the RTO low.

As far as I understand the only way to get the hole system restored to a consistent state without data loss is to run Veeam Backup first to get the hole system and after completion of Veeam we would run the SAP HANA full backup.

Restore would run in the same order as you suggested.

I'll ask Veeam support if there is / will be a Veeam SAP HANA integration and keep this post updated.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sounds good, thank you to confirm you are following the standard procedure for Veeam Recovery followed by HANA backup recovery

It would be good to understand the point of view of Veeam Support on a direct recovery of Veeam backups as a disaster recovery, I have not seen any documentation available on this topic yet

Thank you for your follow up and keep us updated on the progress

Wish you all the best

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Sunil,

I'd like to share my latest information from Veeam Support-Team.

A: Unfortunately there is no way to truncate SAP HANA logs (I believe it is running on db13 database). Currently the way you use it is the right way to perform a consistent backup.

Q: Do you know if there will be an integration in future Versions of Veeam Backup or if Veeam is in touch with SAP?

A: As far as I know we do not plan to integrate Veeam with db13 or SAP. But you can request this on our forums (http://forums.veeam.com). We have our product managers working there.

Best regards

Marco

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you Marco

It confirms Veeam backups are not doing a consistent backup on HANA so we have to use Veeam backuops for OS recovery and data backup for HANA Recovery

[Former Member]

Hi,

you can check out the following Veeam Forum post that describe SAP HANA Backup with Veeam.

Basically it follows the same way that storage systems like NetApp use for Backup of HANA.

You implement in Veeam Pre and Post Scripts that makes HANA aware of the Veeam Backups.

As well Logfile Handling is included (how many backup data do you want to keep on HANA system itself?).

In case of a DB restore, you go to HANA Studio and can access the backup data on HANA system directly. If you need older versions you can restore them with Veeam File Level Recovery Wizard or more comfortable with the Veeam Enterprise Manager File Restore (Selfe Services) and hit the rescann button at HANA Studio restore wizard. They are detected and you can proceed with the restore.

This Integration was written by Tom Sightler from Veeam together with a customer that uses it.

https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-replication-f2/sap-b1-hana-support-t32514.html?sid=b08a66433d1...