Veeam, PowerShell and SAN snapshot

So a week or so ago I wrote a post about using PowerShell to add snapshots to a SAN found in Veeam Backup & Replication. It was a quick test to see if it worked, now I’ve slightly improved the script.

The Get-HP4* cmdlets is specifically for HPE StoreVirtual VSA/P4000/LeftHand line. If you have another supported SAN Storage system use the correct cmdlets:

NetAPP Storage Systems
HPE 3Par StoreServ Storage Systems
HPE StoreVirtual Storage Systems
EMC VNX Storage Systems

You can accomplish the same thing using the management tool for the SAN, taking recurring snapshots. But in the case of HPE StoreVirtual it’s a licensed feature and it can only occur every 30 minutes so if you need it more often or you’re lacking the license you can use the PowerShell script instead.

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapIn -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

$source_storage = ‘Veeam-VSA-MGMTG’
$source_cluster = ‘veeam-vsa-cluster’
$source_vol_name = ‘datastore1’
$snapshot_name = ‘Oh_snap_’+(Get-Date -Format MMddhhmm)

#Create a new snapshot
try {
‘Trying:’
$getvolume = (Get-HP4Storage -Name $source_storage | Get-HP4cluster -Name $source_cluster | Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name)
‘getvolume-Name: ‘ + $getvolume.Name
‘getvolume-InternalId: ‘ + $getvolume.InternalId
‘getvolume-IsThin: ‘ + $getvolume.IsThinProvision
‘getvolume-Size: ‘ + $getvolume.Size

$getvolume | Add-HP4Snapshot -name $snapshot_name
} catch {
‘Failed to find storage, cluster or datastore’
‘Unable to create snapshot’
break
}

#Remove the oldest snapshot if more than 4 are available
$getsnapshot = ($getvolume | Get-HP4Snapshot | Where-Object {$_.Name -like ‘Oh_snap_*’})
$snapshot_count = @($getsnapshot).Count

if ($snapshot_count -ge 4) {
$getsnapshot | Sort-Object creationtimeutc | Select-Object -First 1 | Remove-HP4Snapshot
}

Populate your Veeam lab with PowerShell

If you, like me, have the need to constantly rebuild a lab environment where the servers are installed already but it lacks any configuration you probably realized that PowerShell is you friend. I have a lab environment that I tear down and build up again really often using templates in my VMware environment. In this environment I have all the infrastructure components installed but not configured in Veeam Backup & Replication so whenever I want to show-and-tell I first need to configure stuff. It might take a while to do, so why not automate with PowerShell?

The script below adds a few managed servers, adds backup proxies, creates a Scale-Out Backup Repository with 2 extents, adds 2 WAN accelerators. On top of that it adds a Tape proxy, connects to a HP VSA and takes a snapshot.

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapIn -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

$Infra_Administrator = "Domain1\Administrator"
$Infra_Password = 'Password1'
$Lab_Administrator = "Domain2\Administrator"
$Lab_Password = 'Password2'
$ESXi_root = "root"
$ESXi_Password = 'Password3'
$Oracle_User = "oracle"
$Oracle_Password = 'Password4'
$HPE_User = 'HpeUser'
$HPE_Password = 'Password5'
$VBRserver = Get-VBRServer -Name "VEEAM-VBR.domain1.local"

Add-VBRCredentials -Type Windows -User $Infra_Administrator -Password $Infra_Password -Description $Infra_Administrator
Add-VBRCredentials -Type Windows -User $Lab_Administrator -Password $Lab_Password -Description $Lab_Administrator
Add-VBRCredentials -Type Linux -User $Oracle_User -Password $Oracle_Password -SshPort 23 -ElevateToRoot -AddToSudoers -RootPassword $Oracle_Password -Description "oracle"

#Add servers as ”managed servers”
Add-VBRESXi –Name "VEEAM-ESX" -user root -password 'Password3'
Add-VBRWinServer -Name "VEEAM-HYPERV" -credentials $Infra_Administrator
Add-VBRWinServer -Name "VEEAM-Remote" -credentials $Infra_Administrator
Add-VBRHvHost -Name "VEEAM-HYPERV" -credentials $Infra_Administrator

#Remove/Add proxy with 1 concurrent task limit
Get-VBRViProxy -Name "VMware Backup Proxy" | Remove-VBRViProxy -Confirm
Add-VBRViProxy -Server $VBRserver -Description "VMware Backup Proxy" -MaxTasks 1

#Add Backup Repositories and Scale-Out Backup Repository
Add-VBRBackupRepository -Server $VBRserver -Name "Remote Repository" -Folder "X:\Backups" -Type WinLocal -MaxConcurrentJobs 4 -Credentials $Infra_Administrator
Add-VBRBackupRepository -Name "Local Backup Repository" -Server $VBRserver -Folder "E:\Backups" -Type WinLocal -MountServer $VBRserver -VPowerNFSFolder "C:\ProgramData\Veeam\Backup\NfsDatastore" -MaxConcurrentJobs 4 -Credentials $Infra_Administrator
Set-VBRConfigurationBackupJob -Repository "Remote Repository"
Add-VBRScaleOutBackupRepository -Name "Main Backup Repository" –PolicyType DataLocality –Extent “Default Backup Repository”, “Local Backup Repository”

#Add WAN accelerators
Add-VBRWANAccelerator -Server "VEEAM-Remote" -Description "Remote WAN Accelerator" -CachePath "X:\VeeamWAN" -CacheSize 10 -CacheSizeUnit GB
Get-VBRLocalhost | Add-VBRWANAccelerator -Description "Local WAN Accelerator" -CachePath "X:\VeeamWAN" -CacheSize 10 -CacheSizeUnit GB

#Add a Virtual Lab and Application group
$VLABhost = Get-VBRServer -Type ESXi
$VLABdatastore = Find-VBRViDatastore -Name "datastore1" -Server $VLABhost
Add-VSBVirtualLab -Name "VEEAM-ESX VLAB1" -Server $VLABhost -Datastore $VLABdatastore

Find-VBRViEntity -Name "VEEAM-DC01", "VEEAM-EX01" | Add-VSBViApplicationGroup -Name "Exchange"

#Add SAN and Tape and make a snapshot on the SAN
Add-HP4Storage -DnsOrIpAddress "10.20.30.40" -User $HPE_User -Password $HPE_Password -Description "HPE Storage"
Get-VBRServer -Name "VEEAM-Remote" | Add-VBRTapeServer
Get-HP4Volume -name "datastore1" | Add-HP4Snapshot -name "datastore1_SS_1"

Veeam and PowerShell: A perfect match!

I read a really good and useful blog post a while ago from Preben Berg from Veeam describing how to use PowerShell to restore a database from backup to a dev environment. This made me think on another scenario that would be fun to script that might come in handy someday.

What if you have a SAN that you would want do snapshots on once an hour and save some of those historical snapshots rotating the oldest one.

Now for the disclaimer part, this is merely meant to showcase how you might accomplish this. There are no safety features built in. Do not use it in production and use it at your own risk. However if you’d like to do some further testing of your own, you can download a virtual SAN from HP – free of charge up to 1 TB. Nice!

First things first. We need to create a PowerShell script.

Let’s define which volume to use:
$source_vol_name = "datastore1"

Then we add a naming convention to use for the snapshots with a timestamp at the end:
$snapshot_name = "Oh_snap_"+(Get-Date -Format MMddhhmm)

Let’s count how many snapshots exist on the volume:
$snapshot_count = @(Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Get-HP4Snapshot).Count

Now let’s create a snapshot:
$snapshot_create_session = Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Add-HP4Snapshot -name $snapshot_name -description "Automated snapshot"

I would like to save the 4 latest snapshots on the volume and delete the oldest:
if ($snapshot_count -ge 4 {
$snapshot_remove_session = Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Get-HP4Snapshot | Sort-Object creationtimeutc | Select-Object -First 1 | Remove-HP4Snapshot
}

If I would leave out “Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name”  in the above statement then I would delete to oldest snapshot available on any of the volumes (not just datastore1) which is not our intent.

Let’s put it all together:

Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapIn -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

$source_vol_name = “datastore1”
$snapshot_name = “Oh_snap_”+(Get-Date -Format MMddhhmm)
$snapshot_count = @(Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Get-HP4Snapshot).Count

$snapshot_create_session = Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Add-HP4Snapshot -name $snapshot_name -description “Automated snapshot”

if ($snapshot_count -ge 4 {
$snapshot_remove_session = Get-HP4Volume -name $source_vol_name | Get-HP4Snapshot | Sort-Object creationtimeutc | Select-Object -First 1 | Remove-HP4Snapshot
}

That’s all, just a few lines of code and we can accomplish cool things.

Then all we have to do is add the script as a scheduled task on the VBR server and run it once an hour or what ever intervall we’d like.

But let’s see how the infrastructure looks prior to running the script:

1. SAN datastores

 

Open Task Scheduler and create a new task:

2. Create scheduled task

 

Let’s configure it to run once an hour starting at 10 PM:

3. Run at 1 hour intervall

 

We add and action, starting the PowerShell script:

4. Add PowerShell script to run

 

Looks ok once it’s added:

5. Scheduled task has been added

 

First time the script ran a snapshot was created as expected:

6. First run of the script

 

(I changed the script to run every 5 minutes to speed up the process), now we have 4 snapshots:

7. 4 initial snaps

 

When the fifth snapshot has been taken the oldest snapshot is deleted (the snapshot created at 10:07 PM in the previous picture):

8. 4 snaps rolling