Failover Cluster Support

You can use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows operating in the managed mode to protect data processed by a failover cluster. Veeam Agent supports Windows Server Failover Clusters running on any of the supported Microsoft Windows Server OS versions. To learn the full list of versions, see System Requirements.

Veeam Agent supports data backup and restore for the following types of failover clusters:

Windows File Server Failover Clusters
Windows Server Failover Clusters that run the following applications:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP4 or later
Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 or later

Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Groups (DAGs) are supported. To learn more, see Backup of Database Availability Groups.

Limitations for Failover Cluster Support

Failover cluster support in Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows has the following limitations:

Backup of a failover cluster as a whole is supported in Veeam Agent managed by Veeam Backup & Replication only. Veeam Agent operating in the standalone mode cannot treat a failover cluster as the backup source; it can back up cluster nodes as individual computers only.
Backup of CSV (Cluster Shared Volumes) is not supported. Cluster disks used as CSV are automatically excluded from backup.

Active Directory-Detached Clusters are not supported.
Backup of Storage Replica log volumes is not supported. Such volumes are automatically excluded from backup because of Microsoft VSS limitations. To learn more, see Microsoft documentation.
Backup of environments consisting of several failover clusters is not supported. For example:

Always On Availability Groups based on SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCIs). To learn more, see Microsoft documentation.
Distributed Always On Groups. To learn more, see Microsoft documentation.

Always On Availability Groups with no underlying failover cluster (Clusterless Availability Groups) are not supported.
Backup of SQL Server failover clusters that store databases on a cluster disk is not supported if at least one of the cluster nodes hosts a local disk with the same mount point.
SureBackup is not supported for failover clusters.

NOTE

Veeam Backup & Replication does not support simultaneous processing of Microsoft SQL Server transaction logs on SQL Server clustered instances with identical names and availability groups with identical IDs. The limitation applies to clustered instances of different failover clusters as well.

For example, you configure two backup jobs that process transaction logs of different failover clusters whose SQL clustered instances have identical names. In case these backup jobs run simultaneously, transaction logs will be processed only by the backup job that started first. The second backup job will not process transaction logs.

Backing Up Cluster Nodes as Individual Computers

If you want to back up cluster nodes as individual computers, keep in mind that Veeam Agent is not cluster-aware: it does not track cluster disks across nodes or handle failover. On each node, Veeam Agent backs up only the disks currently attached to that node, and whenever a disk arrives on a node that has no previous state for it — for example, after failover — Veeam Agent starts a new backup chain from a full backup.

Failover Cluster Support IMPORTANT

Backing up cluster nodes as individual computers is not recommended. Use this option only when a dedicated cluster backup job is not possible — for example, when protecting a Microsoft Exchange IP-less DAG, where the cluster has no Cluster Name Object (CNO) and must be addressed node by node.

If you decide to protect a cluster node as an individual computer, consider the following:

Volume-level backup, file-level backup and transaction log truncation run as regular backup jobs — but only until failover. Veeam Agent has no way to follow a clustered resource once it moves off the node, so the affected disks drop out of the source node's backup as soon as failover happens.
On each node, Veeam Agent maintains an independent backup chain for the disks that node currently holds. As the same clustered disks move between nodes, the same data may end up copied into several chains, which increases storage consumption in the repository and, correspondingly, the volume of data written over the network during backup.
The backup job will fail if the node no longer holds any disk from the backup scope. Veeam Agent backs up only the disks physically attached to the node it runs on, so if all the in-scope disks have been failed over to another node, there is nothing left for the local backup to process.
Transaction log backup is disabled and not supported when Veeam Agent is installed on a machine that is a Microsoft SQL Server Always On availability group node. Log backup in an Always On configuration requires availability group awareness, which Veeam Agent does not have.
Because Veeam Agent is not cluster-aware when it backs up cluster nodes as individual computers, it cannot track cluster node state changes such as failover, resource moves, or role changes. As a result, the backup may not reflect the current cluster state.

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