Before You Begin

This section lists considerations and limitations common for creating backup jobs.

Backup Infrastructure

Check requirements and limitations in the VMs section in Supported Platforms and Applications.

Backup infrastructure components that will take part in the backup process must be added to the backup infrastructure and properly configured. These include Microsoft Hyper-V hosts on which VMs are located and a backup repository. If you want to perform backup in the off-host backup mode, the off-host backup proxy must also be added to the backup infrastructure and properly configured.
The backup repository must have enough free space to store created backup files. To receive alerts about low space in the backup repository, configure global notification settings. For more information, see Specifying Other Notification Settings.
If you plan to map a backup job to a backup file that already exists in the backup repository, you must perform the rescan operations for this backup repository. Otherwise, Veeam Backup & Replication will not be able to recognize backup files in the backup repository. For more information, see Rescanning Backup Repositories.

If Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 or later is added along with hosts of lower versions to the same cluster, Veeam Backup & Replication will not use new mechanisms (for example, online backup with checkpoints and RCT for change block tracking) for VMs in this cluster. The new mechanisms will be used only after you perform the following actions:

[For Dell Data Domain backup repository] The length of forward incremental and forever forward incremental backup chains that contain one full backup and a set of subsequent incremental backups cannot be greater than 60 restore points. To overcome this limitation, schedule full backups (active or synthetic) to split the backup chain into shorter series. For example, to perform backups at 30-minute intervals, 24 hours a day, you must schedule synthetic fulls every day. In this scenario, intervals immediately after midnight may be skipped due to the duration of synthetic processing. For more information, see How Synthetic Full Backup Works.

Backup Job Configuration

If you plan to configure a secondary destination for the backup job, you can create a backup copy job or backup to the tape job beforehand. The backup copy job or backup to tape job can have an empty source; that is, it cannot be linked to any backup job. For more information, see Creating Backup Copy Jobs for VMs and Physical Machines and Creating Backup to Tape Jobs.

If you plan to perform maintenance operations with backup files periodically, consider the following limitations: Health Check for Backup Files, Retention Policy for Deleted VMs, and Compact of Full Backup File.

If you plan to use pre-job and post-job scripts, you must create scripts before you configure the backup job.

If you plan to migrate VMs between hosts in the cluster or SCVMM, you will not have to reconfigure jobs in Veeam Backup & Replication. Veeam Backup & Replication will automatically locate migrated VMs and continue processing them as usual. If you migrate VMs between standalone hosts that are not a part of one cluster or SCVMM server registered in Veeam Backup & Replication, you will have to reconfigure jobs to include the migrated VMs. After that, Veeam Backup & Replication will create full backups for these VMs. If you do not reconfigure the jobs, they will fail.

Guest Processing

If you plan to enable guest processing for the job, check Guest Processing Requirements and Limitations.

If you plan to use VM Guest OS File Indexing, you need enough disk space to store indexing data. For more information, see Requirements and Limitations for VM Guest OS File Indexing.

If you plan to use pre-freeze and post-thaw scripts, you must create scripts before you configure the backup job.
Dynamic disks and FAT/FAT32 disks can be backed up only with disabled application-aware processing.