VMCE_v12 Sample Questions Answers

To achieve the goal of recovering a single SQL Database in a consistent manner with minimal impact on the production environment during production hours, while allowing for granular restores through the Veeam console, the engineer should A: Schedule transaction log processing every 30 minutes. By enabling application-aware processing for the SQL VM and scheduling the main backup job to run every 24 hours, the base image of the SQL database is protected. However, to achieve a more granular Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and ensure the ability to restore to specific points in time, transaction log backups must be performed more frequently. Configuring the backup job to process transaction logs every 30 minutes captures the SQL database changes more frequently without the overhead of a full backup, allowing for point-in-time restores directly from the Veeam console without the need for SQL Management Studio (SSMS) or a Database Administrator (DBA). This setup aligns with the goals of maintaining operational efficiency and minimizing the impact on production while ensuring robust data protection capabilities.

The quickest option for migrating a physical Linux file server with multiple volumes to VMware ESXi is to perform Instant VM Recovery. This feature allows you to run the server directly from the backup file in a VMware environment, significantly reducing the time and complexity involved in migration.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Instant VM Recovery for Physical Servers

Application-aware processing is a feature in Veeam Backup & Replication that creates transactionally consistent backup images of VMs. For domain controllers, this feature ensures that backups are consistent with the applications running on the VM, like Active Directory services. To avoid crash-consistent backups and ensure application consistency, the engineer must enable the Application-Aware Processing option during the job configuration.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Application-Aware Processing
• Veeam Best Practices: Protecting Active Directory Domain Controllers

When backing up NAS file shares, it's essential to ensure that more than one copy of the data exists to adhere to best practices for data protection, often referred to as the 3-2-1 Rule (3 total copies of your data, 2 of which are local but on different devices, and at least 1 copy offsite). Implementing a secondary copy of the data provides this additional layer of redundancy. In Veeam, this can be achieved by creating backup copy jobs, which ensure that there is a secondary copy of the data, possibly stored in a different location. This is not to be confused with the simple use of backup repositories, which are storage locations for primary backups, or with cache/archive repositories which serve different purposes in the backup process.

The procedure of adding a Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) to a Veeam Agent backup job differs depending on the type of the DAG that you want to process: For a regular DAG, the backup job configuration procedure is the same as for any failover cluster. To process a regular DAG, you must configure a Veeam Agent backup job for a failover cluster https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/agents/dag_hiw.html?ver=120

To ensure that all servers for the accounting department are backed up and any new servers added to the department are automatically included in the protection group, the best approach is to use an Active Directory (AD) based protection group. Therefore, the correct answer is A: Create an Active Directory based protection group targeted at an Active Directory security group.

By leveraging an AD-based protection group, the Veeam administrator can specify an AD security group that encompasses all user accounts or computer accounts (in this case, servers) associated with the accounting department. As new servers are introduced and added to this AD security group, Veeam Backup & Replication will automatically detect these new members during its periodic rescan (which can be scheduled as per the administrator's preferences) and include them in the protection group. This method not only automates the inclusion of new servers into the backup routine but also simplifies the management of backup policies for dynamically changing environments such as the accounting department's server infrastructure.

Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange allows recovery of items that are under litigation hold or in-place hold. This feature is essential for compliance and legal discovery processes where emails and other items need to be preserved and may be subject to eDiscovery requests. It is not used for restoring databases from backups created with Veeam RMAN plug-in, exporting to BAK files, or restoring original passwords for account objects.References:

• Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange User Guide: Working with Items under Litigation Hold
• Veeam Knowledge Base: Recovery of Exchange Items

When integrating a Data Domain deduplication appliance with Veeam Backup & Replication, it is typically used as a backup repository. The backup server may need to take on the gateway role, especially if the Data Domain is integrated over NFS or CIFS. This means that the backup server will be responsible for processing the data flow between the Veeam proxies and the deduplication appliance. If the gateway server (backup server) is not well-resourced, this additional workload can cause an increase in resource consumption on the backup server. The appliance's resources and the SSL certificate are not related to increased resource consumption on the backup server, and simply needing additional resources for deduplication (D) is not specific enough without indicating the gateway role.

Veeam Data Platform can achieve image-level backups for Solaris workloads. This means it can create a complete backup of the system at the image level, capturing the entire state of the Solaris system, including the operating system, applications, and data.References: Veeam Data Platform Documentation, Veeam Solaris Backup Guide

In Veeam Backup & Replication, to meet the business requirements of having both the database backup and transaction logs stored at a secondary location, a Backup Copy Job can be configured. The Backup Copy Job can be set to include both the VM backup and the transaction logs, ensuring that the database's recovery points are consistent and available at the DR site. The transaction logs backup every 30 minutes can be specified as the source for the Backup Copy Job, ensuring that the transaction log backups are also copied to the secondary repository.

For Hyper-V environments where VMs are stored on local storage, the On-host backup proxy should be used. This type of proxy processes jobs directly on the host where the Hyper-V role is enabled, allowing it to interact directly with the local VM storage. It is suitable for infrastructures with multiple Hyper-V servers storing VMs locally.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Hyper-V On-Host Proxy
• Veeam Best Practices: Hyper-V Backup Proxies

For GDPR compliance, Veeam provides the capability to add location tags to Scale-out Backup Repositories. Location tags in Veeam Backup & Replication are used to identify the location of data, which is essential for adhering to data sovereignty laws like GDPR. Location tagging helps ensure that data residency requirements are met by keeping data in a defined geographical area. In the context of GDPR, it's important to manage and control where personal data is stored and processed. Proxy servers, file copy jobs, and WAN accelerators do not have the functionality to be tagged for GDPR compliance in the same manner as repositories within Veeam Backup & Replication.

In Veeam Backup & Replication, to utilize AWS S3 Glacier for long-term storage, the AWS S3 must first be added as a Capacity Tier within the Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR). This step is necessary before backups can be moved to Glacier. Once S3 is established as the Capacity Tier, the policies for moving backups to Glacier can be configured based on the retention requirements (in this case, after 90 days). This approach ensures that the monthly full backups are initially stored in S3 and then offloaded to Glacier for cost-effective long-term retention.References:

• Veeam Documentation: Scale-Out Backup Repository
• Veeam Help Center: AWS S3 as Capacity Tier and Archive Tier Configuration

When configuring Veeam Backup & Replication in a VMware vSAN environment, the best practice is to use the Virtual Appliance transport mode. This mode is also referred to as "hot-add" and allows the backup proxy to mount VM disks directly from the datastore. This method is more isolated from the VMkernel network traffic, as it does not require network connectivity to the hosts to retrieve data, thus providing a level of isolation that meets the requirement stated in the question. The Direct NFS and Direct SAN options are not applicable for vSAN, and Network mode would not provide the necessary isolation from VMkernel network traffic.

The most efficient approach to getting all servers onto tape, considering there are both VMware VMs and physical Windows servers in the infrastructure, is to first create backup jobs that target both the VMs and the physical servers. After these backups are stored on a disk-based repository, you can then create backup to tape jobs. This method leverages Veeam's ability to handle both types of environments and ensures that all data is efficiently backed up to tape for offsite storage and ransomware protection.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Tape Device Support
• Veeam Best Practices: Configuring Tape Jobs

To solve the space issue while enabling GFS retention, the engineer should add an Object Storage as a Capacity tier to the Scale-Out Backup Repository (SOBR) and set the policy to move backups that are older than 14 days. This approach allows for efficient use of local NAS storage for short-term retention and leverages object storage for long-term archival purposes.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam SOBR Configuration Guide

To perform all functions without needing to access the backup server locally or over remote desktop, the engineer can install the Veeam console on their desktop. This allows the engineer to remotely manage and control the Veeam Backup & Replication infrastructure. The console provides full access to the backup server's capabilities from any machine within the network, making it unnecessary to log in directly to the server.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Veeam Backup & Replication Console
• Veeam Help Center: Remote Management with Veeam Backup & Replication Console

Instant VM Recovery is a feature in Veeam that allows you to start a virtual machine directly from a backup file without waiting for the full restore. Using Instant VM Recovery to Hyper-V is the best option for achieving the lowest possible Recovery Time Objective (RTO) because it allows the damaged physical server's backup to be run as a VM in the Hyper-V environment almost immediately. The Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows supports Instant Recovery to a Hyper-V VM, which will enable you to restore service quickly while you can plan for a more permanent recovery solution.

Based on the configuration shown in the image, backups older than 21 days are moved to the capacity tier. Since the VMware backup job retention is set for 31 days and keeps weekly GFS full backups for 14 weeks, the backup from the week of January 1st is older than 21 days but within the 14-week GFS retention policy. Therefore, as of March 20, the backup data you need to recover would be in the capacity tier, not on the local performance tier, because it has been offloaded to the object storage configured as the capacity tier to reduce long-term retention costs.

References: Veeam Backup & Replication Documentation, Scale-Out Backup Repository Configuration Guide

Veeam Backup & Replication offers the capability to assign location tags to different components within the backup infrastructure, including vCenter servers. This feature is particularly useful for GDPR compliance, as it allows administrators to specify the physical location of the data processed and stored within vCenter servers, helping to ensure that data sovereignty and regulatory requirements are met.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Location Tagging for GDPR Compliance
• Veeam Help Center: GDPR Compliance and Data Location Controls

To ensure that a backup job includes both the virtual machine's disk files and the Microsoft SQL database transaction logs, Application-aware processing should be used. This feature enables Veeam Backup & Replication to create transactionally consistent backups of VMs running VSS-aware applications like Microsoft SQL Server, ensuring that both the VM disks and the SQL transaction logs are properly backed up.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Application-Aware Processing Guide

The 3-2-1 backup strategy is a best practice that suggests having three total copies of your data, two of which are local but on different devices or media, and one copy offsite. In the described scenario, although there is an offsite component (SOBR with AWS S3 Performance Tier), and a local hardened immutable repository, there is no indication of a second local copy on a different device or media. This means that there is only one local copy of the backup data and one offsite copy. Therefore, the setup does not meet the 3-2-1 best practices requirement, which would involve having at least one more local copy on different media or device.

Using the Veeam Guest OS File Restore wizard, files or folders can be restored to a valid UNC (Universal Naming Convention) path. This means that the director's folder can be restored to any network location that the Windows VM has access to, as long as it's specified in the UNC format, such as \\Server\SharedFolder. This allows for the flexibility of restoring the data to a different location than the original one.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Guest OS File Recovery
• Veeam Help Center: Restoring Guest OS Files

To grant MS SQL DBAs the ability to restore their databases without giving access to other operations, the appropriate action is to give the DBA group Restore Operator access specifically to MS SQL databases within Veeam Enterprise Manager. This role-based access control allows DBAs to perform the needed restores while restricting access to other functionality.References:

• Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide: Role-Based Access Control
• Veeam Enterprise Manager Guide: Delegating Restore Operations

To avoid running out of space when moving backups to a new repository, the "Move backup..." function in Veeam Backup & Replication should be used. This function allows you to relocate backup files to a new repository without duplicating data, which can save space. Unlike a simple copy action, the move function ensures that the backup chain remains intact and does not require additional space for a copy of the backups during the transfer. When the move is initiated, Veeam will also automatically update the configuration to point to the new backup location, thus preventing any disruptions in the backup chain.

In Veeam Backup & Replication, if there are multiple unsuccessful attempts to enter a confirmation code for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), the system will lock the user account to prevent unauthorized access. Based on standard security practices, and while it may vary, a lockout for 24 hours after exceeding the maximum number of failed attempts is a common approach to protect against brute force attacks. Please note that specific lockout policies can vary by system configuration and the policies set by the system administrator. It's always best to consult the actual system settings or documentation for the precise behavior in a given environment.

The primary benefit of configuring replica seeding in Veeam Backup & Replication is reduced WAN traffic. Replica seeding allows for the initial replica to be created using a backup copy that is transported to the DR site, which significantly reduces the amount of data that needs to be transferred over the WAN during the initial replication process.References: Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide, Veeam Replica Seeding Guide

Veeam Cloud Service Providers (VCSPs) are equipped to offer a range of services designed to extend Veeam's data protection capabilities to the cloud, enhancing the flexibility and reliability of backup and disaster recovery strategies for Veeam's customers. The two service offerings that align with VCSP capabilities are:

A. Backup as a Service (BaaS) - This service allows Veeam customers to offload their on-premises backup operations to the cloud, leveraging cloud resources for storage and management of backups. BaaS simplifies backup processes, reduces the need for extensive on-premises infrastructure, and provides an added layer of data protection and accessibility.

E. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) - DRaaS extends beyond basic backup services to offer a more comprehensive disaster recovery solution. It ensures not only the availability of backups but also the capability to rapidly restore and run critical workloads in the cloud in the event of a disaster, minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity.

These services leverage the robust capabilities of Veeam Backup & Replication, tailored for cloud environments, to offer scalable, efficient, and secure data protection solutions.

Veeam provides agentless backup solutions for several public cloud infrastructures, among which AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Microsoft Azure are the prominent platforms supported. Thus, the correct answers are A: AWS and E: Microsoft Azure.

• For AWS, Veeam offers Veeam Backup for AWS, an agentless solution designed to protect AWS workloads by leveraging native AWS technologies. This solution allows for the backup and recovery of AWS EC2 instances without the need for agents inside the instances, providing efficient and flexible cloud-native data protection.
• In the case of Microsoft Azure, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure provides a similar agentless data protection capability, allowing for the backup and recovery of Azure VMs. This solution also utilizes native Azure technologies to facilitate seamless integration and management of backups within the Azure ecosystem.

These solutions are designed to provide comprehensive data protection for cloud workloads, simplifying management while ensuring robust backup and recovery capabilities in these public cloud environments.