Veeam Backup & Replication - upgrade to v12

Upgrade Documentation

The official upgrade description is Upgrading to Veeam Backup & Replication 12. Additional information can be found in unofficial articles, such as those including videos V12 Upgrade Center or pictorial Upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication to v12. I will not duplicate the guides here, only mention the basic points and notes.

Preparation Before Upgrade

Requirements and Prerequisites

It is definitely good to go through the requirements and prerequisites listed in the documentation. For example, the OS for Veeam Backup Server, the minimum supported version of VMware ESXi and VMware vCenter server, etc.

If we use some special features, we need to check or perform additional steps. This includes Hardened Repository, using the Transform previous backup chains into rollbacks option, or File to Tape jobs. If we run ReFS Backup Repository on Windows Server 2019, it is good to read the provided information.

Product Upgrade Order

If we also use Veeam ONE and/or Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager, the upgrade order is:

• Veeam ONE
• Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager
• Veeam Backup & Replication
• remote components and agents

Preparation Steps

• check that all backups have completed without error and none are currently running
• disable jobs (Disable) that might start during the upgrade
• perform a Configuration Backup or verify that we have a current backup and encryption password available
• (I also performed a Windows Server Backup of the Veeam server)

Upgrade Veeam Backup & Replication

License

Veeam Backup & Replication 12 uses the same license file format since version 10. Therefore, the existing license will be automatically used during the upgrade (or we can use our valid license file).

Server Upgrade

Start the upgrade using setup.exe from the installation ISO (download from Downloads or Backup and Recovery Downloads) directly on the Veeam Backup Server. Go through the wizard, where we set the upgrade parameters.

One of the steps in the wizard is Configuration Check, where compatibility issues are checked. I received two pieces of information:

• Improved Backup Copy Jobs - newly created Backup Copy jobs are no longer platform-dependent (there have been other changes as well, I recommend reading before upgrading), jobs created in the older version are marked as Legacy and are fully functional but more limited, we can perform (something like) an upgrade, described in another article Veeam Backup & Replication 12 - Backup Chain and Backup Copy format upgrade
• Improved Background Retention - Background Retention

At the end of the wizard, start the Upgrade, which took 18 minutes for me. Then it is necessary to update other components.

After Server Upgrade

The next step is to launch the Veeam Backup & Replication console on the server and connect to it. It will offer to upgrade the (remote) components.

If we use a remote console for management, we need to update it. If we have version 11a, the upgrade will be offered automatically after connecting to the server (it takes quite a long time, required admin rights, and after the upgrade, a patch was still installed).

Backup Infrastructure Components

The documentation states that if we use a Virtual Lab, we should open the settings of each Lab and click through the wizard to deploy the new application proxy.

If any backup infrastructure component runs on Linux and does not have the role of VMware Backup Proxy, we need to click through the settings to deploy the new Persistent Data Mover.

I preferred to click through all infrastructure components. During this, I encountered an issue with WAN Accelerators, where the settings on the Cache tab were missing.

Agent Upgrade

• Upgrading Veeam Agent

We can manually start a Rescan on the Protection Group or wait for the scheduled one. If we have enabled automatic agent updates, it will proceed without intervention. Otherwise, we need to trigger it manually. For me, it was an upgrade of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows from version 5.0.3.4708 to 6.0.2.1090.

Enterprise Plug-Ins Upgrade

• Upgrading Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN

To update the Veeam Plug-in for Oracle RMAN, run the new version installation on the target server. The installation can be found on the installation ISO Veeam Backup & Replication in \Plugins\Oracle RMAN.

Note: New options for installation, uninstallation, and upgrade for the Plug-in are available in the console if the agent is installed on the server. However, the remote upgrade did not work for me.

Enabling Jobs

Finally, enable all scheduled jobs that we disabled before the upgrade.

Minor Issues

Veeam Installer Service

• Update Procedure for Windows Computers

I noticed that on some Windows servers, which are among the Managed Servers or have Veeam Agent installed, all components were updated except for the Veeam Installer Service. It may not be important, but the upgrade can be done manually.

The installer is located on the Veeam Backup Server in %PROGRAMFILES%\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Backup\Packages\VeeamInstallerSvc.msi. On the target server, just run it; the old version will be uninstalled and the new one installed.

SureBackup - Publishing Error

• Unable to Mount VeeamBackup_ Datastore - Specified Key, Name, or Identifier Already Exists

When the first SureBackup Job was supposed to run after the upgrade, all jobs on the VMware Virtual Lab ended with an error (Hyper-V was OK). The error was identified only (for each VM):

Error VM-name - Publishing

Looking at the VMware vCenter in Tasks, a better error message was found, which repeated:

Create NAS datastore - The name 'VeeamBackup_VeeamServer' already exists.

When I traced the very first event, it was different:

Create NAS datastore - A general system error occurred: Timed-out waiting to get datastore information from host

Among the Datastores, I found VeeamBackup_VeeamServer (inaccessible). But even after unmounting it, the job did not proceed and still indicated that the datastore existed. Finally, a Veeam article advised me. It was necessary to connect to the web interface of the specific ESXi server, where the Datastore was displayed, and delete it.