Backing up the Veeam Server

If you Veeam Backup Server is Virtual - yes.

I would recommend compelting the Snapshots when the server is not busy.


A snapshot is NOT a backup of a VM; that is a gross misconception.  Here are some notes that I took from a VMWare seminar that better explains what a snapshot is:

A snap shot is a way to preserve a point in time when the VM was running OK before making changes. A snapshot is NOT a way to get a static copy of a VM before making changes.  When you take a snapshot of a VM what happens is that a delta file gets created and the original VMDK file gets converted to a Read-Only file.  There is an active link between the original VMDK file and the new delta file.  Anything that gets written to the VM actually gets written to the delta file.   The correct way to use a snapshot is when you want to make some change to a VM like adding a new app or a patch; something that might damage the guest OS. After you apply the patch or make the change and it’s stable, you should really go into snapshot manager and delete the snapshot which will commit the changes to the original VM, delete the snap, and make the VMDK file RW. The official stance is that you really shouldn’t have more than one snap at a time and that you should not leave them out there for long periods of time. Adding more snaps and leaving them there a long time degrades the performance of the VM.  If the patch or whatever goes badly or for some reason you need to get back to the original unmodified VM, that’s possible as well.  

I highly recommend reading these 2 articles on snaps:

Understanding Snapshots - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015180
Snaphot Best Practices - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1025279

sorry, i messed up.  I'd like to take a Veeam backup of the VM guest which is the veeam backup server.
Can this be done by installing veeam onto another server?

given we have alrerady got veeam installed and intergrated into esxi, would it not be reccomended to use veeam backup to do this (if possible?) on another server?  especially as it compresses the vm guest...

Yes you could, if you want to go to the trouble of installing it.

I just gave you much quicker options, if you can shut down the Veeam Virtual Server. You can use the above options, if you cannot shutdown you could use VMware Convertor. (to perform a hot backup).

Otherwise if you want to backup with compression, and use a backup you are familiar with, then install Veeam again on a physical server.

Have you asked VEEAM for their recommended practice of backing up the VEEAM server?  They are the best resource for their own product.

I think the problem is that we dont have enough space on the server(s) to take a backup....
according to the 'check space' option on the backup wizard...
oh dear...

veeam used