Configure Abiquo Veeam backup plugin

Veeam versions

The Abiquo integrations supports the following versions of Veeam Backup & Replication with separate plugins.

Upgrade Veeam version

See Upgrade Veeam v9.5u4 to v11.

To upgrade to the next version of Veeam in Abiquo, follow these general instructions but remember to check for full details in the appropriate documentation:

1. Obtain the new backup plugin license from Abiquo Customer Service

2. Check properties for the veeam.properties file and add any new properties, as described below

   1. For example, the hypervisor property, which was added in Abiquo v5.1.1

   2. Also check the API version

3. Change the optional abiquo.properties to match your Veaam version, as described below

4. In Abiquo, delete the old backup manager and create a new backup manager
   
   

   1. Enter the endpoint for Veeam, for example, for Veeam 10 you should use an HTTPS connection to the default port of 9398, for example:

      https://veeam.example.com:9398/api/

       

5. To ensure that Veeam selects the correct backup repository, each job name (and policy code) must be used in only ONE instance of Veeam Backup & Replication

   1. If you already have job names (and policy codes) that are used in more than one instance of Veeam Backup & Replication, please contact Abiquo Support

Hypervisors

The Abiquo Veeam backup plugins supports the following hypervisors:

• VMware

• Hyper-V

Install Veeam

Install the Veeam Enterprise Manager, which is an optional component in Veeam installations. As part of the install process, configure the API ports of the Veeam Enterprise Manager. Enter the HTTP and HTTPS port numbers that the Veeam Backup Restful API service will use. By default, the values are HTTP port 9399 and HTTPS port 9398.

Please make sure that the port 9398 from the Veeam Enterprise Manager server is reachable from all of the Abiquo Remote Services servers.

Create base Veeam resources for Abiquo

The Veeam API cannot be used to create backup and replication jobs. This means that you must create a dummy job for the Abiquo backup plugin to clone, with a base job for each hypervisor you will be using. A job must contain at least one VM, so you will need a placeholder VM on each hypervisor for use in the dummy job. 

1. In your hypervisor, deploy a placeholder VM

   • Choose the VM name carefully to show that it is a placeholder VM so that it will not get accidentally deleted

2. In Veeam create a new job for the hypervisor

   • The default names that the Abiquo backup plugin will detect are "Abiquo Dummy HyperV Job" for HyperV and "Abiquo Dummy VMWare Job" for ESX

3. Add the placeholder VM

4. DO NOT set a schedule for the job

5. Save the job

Do not delete the placeholder VMs and dummy jobs because this could cause problems in the Abiquo backup plugin.

When you display jobs in Veeam, it displays dummy jobs with placeholder VMs at the top of the list. Then it displays jobs created by the Abiquo backup plugin by cloning the dummy jobs below the dummy jobs.

Configure Veeam properties

To configure Veeam backup properties in Abiquo:

1. Log in to the Abiquo Remote Services server.

2. Go to /opt/abiquo/config folder and edit or create the veeam.properties file.

   • This is the default file location, and you can change it and configure the new location in abiquo.properties as described below

   • Make sure that this file is owned by the user "tomcat", group "tomcat".

3. The Abiquo backup plugin is designed to manage one Veeam host for each Abiquo datacenter. To associate a datacenter with its Veeam host, set a property pair for the datacenter name and the backup server reference, which may be the host IP or FQDN.  You must use the same backup server reference/s that the Veeam manager uses to identify the host/s

   1. Get the datacenter name by following one of the below options:

      1. Abiquo UI: Infrastructure → Datacenter

      2. CLI: In the abiquo.properties file abiquo.datacenter.id property

   2. Get the Veeam host value using of the below options to find the backup server reference:

      1. Veeam Enterprise Manager UI: Dashboard → Summary → Backup servers

      2. CLI: Find the Veeam host value with the following commands in the Abiquo Remote services server.

         # Set variables export APIUSERNAME=administrator && export APIPASSWORD='XXXXXXXXXX' && export APIIP=10.10.X.X # Obtain authentication token export APISESSIONHEADER=$(curl --insecure --verbose --user ${APIUSERNAME}:${APIPASSWORD} --request POST "https://${APIIP}:9398/api/sessionMngr/?v=latest" --header "Content-Length: 0" 2>&1 | grep --only-matching --extended-regexp 'X-RestSvcSessionId: ([[:alnum:]])*') # Obtain hierarchy roots curl --silent --insecure --header "${APISESSIONHEADER}" --request GET "https://${APIIP}:9398/api/hierarchyRoots?format=Entity" | xmllint --format - > hierarchyRoots.xml

         In the response, look for the “Link” entity with a “Type” of “BackupServerReference”. In this case it is veeam01.london.example.com

         <Link Href="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" Name="veeam01.london.example.com" Rel="Up" Type="BackupServerReference"/>

4. So as an example, consider two Abiquo datacenters, called London and Frankfurt. The London veeam host has a backup server reference of veeam01.london.example.com. And the Frankfurt veeamhost has a reference of veeam02.frankfurt.example.com. So the properties file would look as follows.

5. If you have hosts in Veeam that are not in Abiquo, and they contain duplicates of VMs in Abiquo, you must set the hypervisor property to define the hosts in Abiquo, as a comma separated list. The Abiquo backup system will manage VMs on the hypervisors on the list only, to prevent critical errors in the backup system. If the property is empty or not supplied, the platform will use Veeam data from all hypervisors.

6. To control backup expiration times in Veeam, use properties to set maximum restore points. Remember to remove the hash '#' comment mark at the start of the property line.

7. Set the name of the dummy backup job for your hypervisor

8. Set the name of the backup repository for the dummy backup job, to match the job's Backup repository configuration on the Veeam server. For example, if you are using a repository called "Default Backup Repository".

   If you need to change the backup repository, remember to change this property.

    If you have one Entity Manager for two Veeam servers, the backup repositories in the veeam.properties file must exist on each server. You do not have to use them but they must exist. Otherwise, the repository search could fail if each Veeam server uses a different repository name.

9. For Veeam v11, set the API version

10. Optionally set other properties, according to your environment:

Configure all backup jobs with policy codes

For Veeam 9.5u4 and Veeam 10, you MUST create an Abiquo policy Code for each backup. Abiquo ALWAYS uses the backup policy Code attribute to identify the Veeam job to clone. This enables Abiquo to support retention time but it does not affect previously existing backup jobs of current VMs.

For each backup policy in Abiquo:

1. On the Veeam Backup and Replication server for the Abiquo datacenter, clone the original Abiquo dummy job

2. Rename the new job to a name that will exactly match the policy Code of an Abiquo backup policy in the Abiquo datacenter

3. To set how many backups should be kept on the server, go to Job → Edit → Storage and set Restore points to keep on disk

4. In Abiquo, check that the backup policy has the right Code and that it is available to users

When users select this policy, the platform will use the appropriate Veeam job.

See Create a backup policy

Additionally, please edit the backup properties by clicking on the button "Edit properties" from the tab "Backup policies" and consider each one of the presented options, specially the option "Enable update while deployed" to be able to add a backup policy when a VM is on.

Configure Abiquo properties

To configure Abiquo properties for Veeam:

1. Log in to the Remote Services server

2. Edit the abiquo.properties file

3. To activate the backup plugin and define the location of the properties file:

   1. Set the abiquo.backup.veaam.config.path property in the following format

4. Make sure that the folder "/opt/abiquo/config/" is owned by the user "tomcat".

5. Optionally set the other abiquo.properties for your Veeam version.
   These properties are set for "veeam95u4" or "veeam10".

   1. abiquo.nars.async.pool.{backupplugin-Version}.max

   2. abiquo.nars.async.pool.{backupplugin-Version}.byvdc

   3. abiquo.virtualfactory.{backupplugin-Version}.backup.openSession

   4. abiquo.virtualfactory.{backupplugin-Version}.backup.openSession.byvdc

   See Abiquo configuration properties for more details.

Remember that you will need to restart the Tomcat server for changes to the properties file to take effect.