DSC Veeam Self-Service Backup Portal Guide

All phoenixNAP Data Security Cloud users are granted access to the Veeam Self-Service Backup Portal, a web-tool based on Veeam Enterprise Manager. The portal allows you to perform backup and restore operations, as well as view backup statistics.

The main benefit of using the self-service portal is that there is no need to install the Veeam Backup & Replication console on a local machine. You can complete the necessary tasks by using the web user interface.

This guide will show you how to navigate through the Self-Service Backup Portal and how to use its features.

• Internet access and a web browser.
• Self-Service Portal URL provided by phoenixNAP.
• Login credentials to access your vCloud organization. If you did not receive the email with credentials, please check the spam folder or contact us for assistance.

To log into the Self-Service Backup Portal, you need the portal URL phoenixNAP provided to you. Please use Chrome or Firefox to access the Portal as there are compatibility issues with Internet Explorer.

The URL should follow this format:

https://dsc-vem.phoenixnap.com/vCloud/YourOrgName/

The name of your organization should be at the end of the URL.

Note that the Portal does not allow Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authentication.

1. Load the Portal URL. You should see the Welcome page.
2. Enter your Username and Password. Find the credentials in a separate email from phoenixNAP. Check the Remember me box to save your credentials for future use.
3. Click Login. The Portal takes you to the Dashboard.

The Dashboard is the landing page after you log into the Portal. The page shows the statistics of your backups. You can view data from the last 24 hours or the last 7 days. This section is divided into four blocks and a graph.

The Protected block shows the following information:

• vApps. The total number of vApps that have successful restore points created.
• VMs. The total number of virtual machines that have successful restore points created. Clicking the number takes you to the VM screen.
• VMs size. The size of all successfully processed source virtual machines.

The Jobs block shows the following information:

• Jobs. The total number of backup jobs. Clicking the number takes you to the Jobs screen.
• Max duration. The maximum amount of time it took for a job to complete.
• Average speed. The average transfer speed for all jobs.

Backup Storage shows the following information:

• Status. Displays the status of your backup storage quota. Green informs you there is more than 10% free space, yellow warns you there is less than 10% available, while red notifies that you do not have any backup storage space left.
• Quota. The total storage quota you have available.
• Used. The amount of storage you used so far.

• Succeeded Jobs. The number of successful jobs for the period you selected.
• Warning Jobs. The number of job sessions with a warning.
• Error Jobs. The number of job sessions that contain an error.

The graph displays information about ongoing jobs. There are two curves that show different data. The horizontal curve shows the time and date when the jobs were executed. The vertical curve shows the backup job speed in MB/s.

The jobs section of the Self-Service Backup Portal allows you to manage your backup jobs. These are the tasks you can perform:

• Create a backup job.
• Start, stop, or retry a backup job.
• Disable, enable, delete, or edit job settings.
• Search for a backup job (filters are available).
• View job statistics.
• Export job statistics data.

In the Jobs tab of the Portal, click +Create… to launch the Create Backup Job wizard.

1. Enter a Job name. If you intend to create multiple jobs, it may be a good idea to use a meaningful name.
2. Add a Description for the backup job. By default, this will be the user who created the job and the timestamp when the job was created.
3. Specify the Retention policy. This setting states how many restore points to keep in the backup repository. When you reach the defined number, the earliest point will be deleted. The default value is 14.
4. Click Next to proceed to the second step.

In this step, you need to add a VM or a vApp that the backup job will process.

To do so:

1. Click +Add.
2. The Add Object window loads. Select an object in the infrastructure tree. You can also search for an object by using the search bar at the top.
3. Click OK to add the selected object.
4. Click Next to continue.

You can add multiple objects to the list. Use the up and down arrows to change the machine processing order. If you want a machine to be processed first, simply select it and move it up or down on the list.

If you changed your mind, you can select an object from the list and click Remove to delete it.

Optionally, you can select Exclusions if you want to exclude a specific VM from machine containers. Add a VM to the list from the infrastructure tree.

This step of the wizard is optional. You can simply click Next to continue creating the backup job. Otherwise, the Guest Processing tab allows you to configure:

• Application-aware Image Processing. Enables the creation of transactionally consistent backups.
• Guest file system indexing. Allows advanced guest OS file search functions.
• Guest OS credentials. Add Linux or Windows credentials for the account with proper privileges to add executable files to the guest OS.

The final step lets you enable backup job e-mail notifications. To configure status emails:

1. Select the Enable e-mail notifications checkbox.
2. Add Recipients. Use a comma between separate entries.
3. Add a Subject for e-mail notifications.
4. Select the type of notifications you want to receive.
5. Click Finish to complete adding the backup job.

After you create a backup job, you need to start it for the first time. Select the job on the list and click the Start button to run it.

To stop the job, select it, and click the Stop button. If the job fails, you can click Retry to try to rerun it.

The Self-Service Backup Portal allows you to disable a backup job, enable it, delete, or edit its settings. You can find these actions under the Job drop-down menu.

To complete any of these actions, select a job from the list and click the desired action. Note that when you disable a backup job, no restore points will be copied to the target backup location, and source backup repositories will not be monitored.

To edit a job’s settings, follow the same steps as when adding a new job.

To search for a specific job, use the search bar at the top of the Jobs menu. You can filter the search results by job status. This feature is especially useful if you have numerous jobs on your list.

To locate a job, start typing the name, and the list instantly filters the results.

The Jobs menu contains a list of all existing jobs for your organization. The list shows basic information such as name, the type of job, status, description, and the date/time when a job ran and its next scheduled run.

To view all previous sessions for a job, click the name of a job on the list. The details open in a new tab.

To view the details of a session, click the status description. The details open in a new tab.

There you can also see in-depth logs and backup process steps.

Every report in the Jobs section has the export function. To save the report to your local machine, open a job, a job session, or a job log, and click the Export button. Choose a location for the Excel file when the pop-up appears.

The Excel sheet contains all the information you see in the report you are viewing in the Portal at that time.

The VMs tab of the Self-Service Backup Portal lets you view details and information for your VMs and vApps. You can restore a virtual machine, delete it, or view the restore history.

The landing page of the VMs section shows all available VM backups. You can select a VM from the list to view the details or use the search bar to locate a VM. Furthermore, you can click the History button to view the complete VMs restore history.

On the list, you can click the Restore points link to view the type and timestamps of restore points for a machine.

Restoring a VM or a vApp is simple and done in a few clicks.

To restore a VM or a vApp:

1. Select a VM or a vApp from the list in the VMs section of the Portal.
2. Click Restore VM… or Restore vApp on the toolbar.
3. Choose Overwrite or Keep. If you select Overwrite, you will shut down and replace the original VM or vApp in production with the one from the backup. If you choose Keep, a VM or vApp will be restored next to the corresponding VM or vApp in production.
   The restored VM or vApp will have “_restored” appended to the original name. For example, “testVM_restored“ or “testvApp_restored.”
4. Select a restore point from the list. Optionally, you can choose the Quick rollback option or to Power on VM after restoring.
5. Select Finish to proceed with the restore operation. To follow the operation’s progress, click History in the toolbar on the VMs landing page.

To delete a virtual machine or a vApp from a backup:

1. Select a VM or vApp from the list in the VMs section of the Portal.
2. Click Delete on the toolbar.
3. Select Yes to confirm you want to delete the selected VM or vApp.

Don’t worry if the object remains on the list after you delete it. The list will update once the records for the VM or vApp in question are removed from the main backup database.

In the Files section of portal, you can search and restore guest OS files from the guest OS file system in a VM backup. This section lets you search only the backups you made with the guest files indexing option.

Please refer to Veeam’s file restore guide for in-depth information on this feature.

The Items section of the portal lets you complete item-level recovery from your backups. The recovery includes restoring application items from:

• Microsoft SQL Server databases. To restore an SQL server item, please follow the SQL restore procedure.
• Oracle  databases. To restore an Oracle database item, please follow the Oracle restore procedure.

For the item-level recovery to work, you have to configure backup jobs with application-aware processing.

If you follow the instructions in this guide you can successfully navigate through the Self-Service Backup Portal for your vCloud organization. Create new jobs, restore VMs or vApps and manage your backups using the intuitive web interface powered by Veeam.